Frustration
If I had a shiny gunI could have a world of funSpeeding bullets through the brainsOf the folk who give me pains
Or had I some poison gasI could make the moments passBumping off a number ofPeople whom I do not love.
But I have no lethal weapon—Thus does Fate our pleasure step on!So they still are quick and wellWho should be, by rights, in hell.
Words in this poem
- shiny a.
- Bright; luminous; clear; unclouded.
- folk n.
- In Anglo-Saxon times, the people of a group of townships or villages; a community; a tribe. [AS. folc; akin to D. volk, OS. & OHG. folk, G. volk, Icel. f, Sw. & Dan. folk, Lith. pulkas crowd, and perh. to E. follow.]
- lethal n.
- One of the higher alcohols of the paraffine series obtained from spermaceti as a white crystalline solid. It is so called because it occurs in the ethereal salt of lauric acid. [Lauric + ether + alcohol.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Frustration is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sunset Gun: Poems (Boni & Liveright, 1928), English Wikisource; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Dorothy Parker, Frustration, in Sunset Gun (1928), text of English Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/parker-sunset-gun/frustration.html, id L27453.
Form and metre
Frustration is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
See other poems in trochaic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AABB gunA · funA · brainsB · painsB
- 2 AABB gasA · passA · ofB · loveB
- 3 AABB weaponA · onA · wellB · hellB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| If I had a shiny gun | 7 | ····/˘· |
| I could have a world of fun | 7 | ······· |
| Speeding bullets through the brains | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| Of the folk who give me pains | 7 | ······· |
| Or had I some poison gas | 7 | ····/˘· |
| I could make the moments pass | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Bumping off a number of | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| People whom I do not love. | 7 | /˘····· |
| But I have no lethal weapon— | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| Thus does Fate our pleasure step on! | 8 | ···//˘·· |
| So they still are quick and well | 7 | ······· |
| Who should be, by rights, in hell. | 7 | ······· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.