 Poetry: January 08, 2014 Issue [#6094] |
  Poetry
This week: Ogden Nash Edited by: Stormy Lady  
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Winter Complaint
by Ogden Nash
Now when I have a cold
I am careful with my cold,
I consult a physician
And I do as I am told.
I muffle up my torso
In woolly woolly garb,
And I quaff great flagons
Of sodium bicarb.
I munch on aspirin,
I lunch on water,
And I wouldn’t dream of osculating
Anybody’s daughter,
And to anybody’s son
I wouldn’t say howdy,
For I am a sufferer
Magna cum laude.
I don’t like germs,
But I’ll keep the germs I’ve got.
Will I take a chance of spreading them?
Definitely not.
I sneeze out the window
And I cough up the flue,
And I live like a hermit
Till the germs get through.
And because I’m considerate,
Because I’m wary,
I am treated by my friends
Like Typhoid Mary.
Now when you have a cold
You are careless with your cold,
You are cocky as a gangster
Who has just been paroled.
You ignore your physician,
You eat steaks and oxtails,
You stuff yourself with starches,
You drink lots of cocktails,
And you claim that gargling
Is a time of waste,
And you won’t take soda
For you don’t like the taste,
And you prowl around parties
Full of selfish bliss,
And greet your hostess
With a genial kiss.
You convert yourself
Into a deadly missle,
You exhale Hello’s
Like a steamboat wistle.
You sneeze in the subway
And you cough at dances,
And let everybody else
Take their own good chances.
You’re a bronchial boor,
A bacterial blighter,
And you get more invitations
Than a gossip writer.
Yes, your throat is froggy,
And your eyes are swimmy,
And you hand is clammy,
And you nose is brimmy,
But you woo my girls
And their hearts you jimmy
While I sit here
With the cold you gimmy.
Crossing The Border
by Ogden Nash
Senescence begins
And middle age ends
The day your descendents
Outnumber your friends.
On August 19, 1902 Frederick Ogden Nash was born in Rye, New York. Nash’s father owned an import and export business that kept Nash moving around during his childhood. He for the most part grew up in Rye, New York and Savannah, Georgia. Nash did his studying at St. George's School in Rhode Island and briefly attended Harvard University. After leaving school Nash started writing advertising copy for Doubleday Page Publishing, New York, in 1925. It was while working for Doubleday he wrote his first children’s book “The Cricket of Garador” published in 1925.
After six years as an editor at the Doubleday, Nash claimed, one day he just started scribbling humorous lines on a paper, which he crumpled up and threw away. It was only after some thought on the matter that he went back to wastebasket and retrieved the piece of paper which became his first piece of published verse, Spring Comes to Murray Hill, in1930. In 1932, Nash left the Doubleday to work at The New Yorker as an editor. As Nash’s popularity grew Nash insisted his writing was all by accident. While at the New Yorker Nash also did a radio quiz show "Information Please.” He eventually focused on fulltime writing and published over twenty-four books of poetry and prose.
Nash quickly became one of the most quoted poets of his time with lines like this; "candy is dandy but liquor is quicker." His quirkiness and puns were catchy for people of all ages and his popularity continued to grow. He work was not only humorous but in its own way rang true to the human experience. People of all walks of life could find things in common with his wit. Throughout his career he did a variety of publications from the Boston Herald to the Saturday Review of literature. Nash wrote "Reflection on a Wicked World" and "Purity is obscurity,” among many other great pieces of work. He wrote poetry almost all the way up to his death.
Ogden Nash died on May 19, 1971 at Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins Hospital after suffering from a sever aggravation to improperly prepared food he ate that interfered with his Crohn’s Disease. He is buried at East Side Cemetery in North Hampton, New Hampshire.
First Child ... Second Child
by Ogden Nash
FIRST
Be it a girl, or one of the boys,
It is scarlet all over its avoirdupois,
It is red, it is boiled; could the obstetrician
Have possibly been a lobstertrician?
His degrees and credentials were hunky-dory,
But how's for an infantile inventory?
Here's the prodigy, here's the miracle!
Whether its head is oval or spherical,
You rejoice to find it has only one,
Having dreaded a two-headed daughter or son;
Here's the phenomenon all complete,
It's got two hands, it's got two feet,
Only natural, but pleasing, because
For months you have dreamed of flippers or claws.
Furthermore, it is fully equipped:
Fingers and toes with nails are tipped;
It's even got eyes, and a mouth clear cut;
When the mouth comes open the eyes go shut,
When the eyes go shut, the breath is loosed
And the presence of lungs can be deduced.
Let the rockets flash and the cannon thunder,
This child is a marvel, a matchless wonder.
A staggering child, a child astounding,
Dazzling, diaperless, dumbfounding,
Stupendous, miraculous, unsurpassed,
A child to stagger and flabbergast,
Bright as a button, sharp as a thorn,
And the only perfect one ever born.
SECOND
Arrived this evening at half-past nine.
Everybody is doing fine.
Is it a boy, or quite the reverse?
You can call in the morning and ask the nurse.
Lines On Facing Forty
by Ogden Nash
I have a bone to pick with Fate.
Come here and tell me, girlie,
Do you think my mind is maturing late,
Or simply rotted early?
Thank you all!
Stormy Lady
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