pause for poetry (6)

archy the cockroach

Don Marquis (1878-1937) was a New York newspaper columnist who wrote weird and wonderful poems about Archy and Mehitabel, a cockroach and alley cat respectively.

These poems were put into collections including “archy and mehitabel” (1927), “archys life of mehitabel" (1933), and “archy does his part” (1935).

Marquis explained that one day he discovered a gigantic cockroach jumping about on the keys of his typewriter. The cockroach did not see Marquis who watched as Archy would climb painfully on the machine and throw himself with all his force upon a key, head downward, and his weight and the impact of the blow were just sufficient to operate the machine, one slow letter after another.

Archy could not work the capital letters, and he had a great deal of difficulty operating the mechanism that shifts the paper so that a fresh line may be started. After about an hour of this difficult literary labor he fell to the floor exhausted, and he then crept feebly into a nest of the poems which were always there in profusion.Marquis left a sheet of paper in the machine every night. This was his Archy’s first effort:

expression is the need of my soul

i was once a vers libre bard

but i died and my soul went into the body of a cockroach

it has given me a new outlook upon life

i see things from the under side now

thank you for the apple peelings in the wastepaper basket

but your paste is getting so stale i cant eat it

there is a cat here called mehitabel i wish you would have

removed she nearly ate me the other night why dont she

catch rats that is what she is supposed to be for

there is a rat here she should get without delay

most of these rats here are just rats

but this rat is like me he has a human soul in him

he used to be a poet himself

night after night i have written poetry for you

on your typewriter

and this big brute of a rat who used to be a poet

comes out of his hole when it is done

and reads it and sniffs at it

he is jealous of my poetry

he used to make fun of it when we were both human

he was a punk poet himself

and after he has read it he sneers

and then he eats it

i wish you would have mehitabel kill that rat

or get a cat that is onto her job

and i will write you a series of poems showing how things look

to a cockroach

that rats name is freddy

the next time freddy dies i hope he wont be a rat

but something smaller i hope i will be a rat

in the next transmigration and freddy a cockroach

i will teach him to sneer at my poetry then

dont you ever eat any sandwiches in your office

i haven't had a crumb of bread for i dont know how long

or a piece of ham or anything but apple parings

and paste leave a piece of paper in your machine

every night you can call me archy

This next poem is a favourite:

cheerio my deario

well boss i met
mehitabel the cat
trying to dig a
frozen lamb chop
out of a snow
drift the other day

a heluva comedown
that is for me archy
she says a few
brief centuries
ago one of old
king
tut
ankh
amens favourite
queens and today
the village scavenger
but wotthehell
archy wotthehell
its cheerio
my deario that
pulls a lady through

see here mehitabel
I said I thought
you told me that
it was cleopatra
you used to be
before you
transmigrated into
the carcase of a cat
where do you get
this tut
ankh
amen stuff
question mark

i was several
ladies my little
insect says she
being cleopatra was
only an incident
in my career
and i was always getting
the rough end of it
always being
misunderstood by some
strait laced
prune faced bunch
of prissy mouthed
sisters of uncharity
the things that
have been said
about me archy
exclamation point

and all simply
because i was a
live dame
the palaces i have
been kicked out of
in my time
exclamation point

but wotthehell
little archy wot
thehell
it cheerio
my deario
that pulls a
lady through
exclamation point

framed archy always
framed that is the
story of all my lives
no chance for a dame
with the anvil chorus
if she shows a little
motion it seems to
me only yesterday
that the luxor local
number one of
the ladies axe
association got me in
dutch with king tut and
he slipped me the
sarcophagus always my
luck yesterday an empress
and today too
emaciated to interest
a vivisectionist but
toujours gai archy
toujours gai and always
a lady in spite of hell
and transmigration
once a queen
always a queen
archy
period

one of her
feet was frozen
but on the other three
she began to caper and
dance singing its
cheerio my deario
that pulls a lady
through her morals may
have been mislaid somewhere
in the centuries boss but
I admire her spirit

archy