by Don Marquis
every day on my
way from the senate press
gallery back to
shoemakers where the
affairs of the nation
are habitually settled by
the old settlers it
is so hot that you can
fry fish on the
sidewalk in any part of
town and many people
are here with fish to fry
including now
and then a german
carp i am lodging on
top of the washington
monument where i can
overlook things
you cant keep a good bug
from the top of
the column all the time i
am taking my meals with
the specimens in the
smithsonian institution when i
see any one coming i hold
my breath and look like another
specimen but in the
capitol building there
is no attention paid to me
because there are so
many other insects
around it gives you a
great idea of the
american people when you
see some of the
things they elect after july
27 address me care
st elizabeth hospital
for the insane i am going out
there for a visit with
some of your other
contributors
AUGUST 1
Archy in Washington
well boss from official
circles here I learn
that things could not well be worse
with regard to the war situation and that
this is no time for
pessimism as we have
the enemy licked to a
frazzle everything
is gloom and america
is about to save the
world there is no
hope anywhere and we
should all feel cheerful because
things are going better than
could be expected the
administration is very
angry at the people who are
giving out cheerful
reports and at the same time
wishes to emphasize the fact that
pessimism is part of the
propaganda of our enemies the
way russia is acting now has cheered
everybody up wonderfully and
all seems lost it hampers the
administration frightfully for conflicting
reports to be sent to the
country and I am authoritatively
informed that what the
secretary of war said
yesterday will be denied by the
secretary of the navy
tomorrow it is of the utmost
importance that the people
should realize that
the department of publicity is
doing all it can to
suppress such rumors as it has
not started itself the
situation here is full of
depression and recent reports
from returned observers
say that all is well I am keeping
in touch with everything
that is about to happen and will
let you know from day
to day what the news was about to be
so you can have plenty of time
to deny it in advance
of its publication
AUGUST 20
To Help Win the War
i was asking
myself the other day
what i could do to help
win the war and
like a flash the answer came to
me i can help with
the food problem by keeping
out of the canned goods and
this will not only be better
for the country but
more comfortable for myself there
are thousands and thousands
of other insects all over
the country who
can render a similar service
SEPTEMBER 24
Out of the Cockroach Body
boss i have had a terrible time
since i last wrote you as i
told you long ago i was originally a
vers libre poet and my
soul after leaving that body
migrated into the
body of a cockroach before that
happened i did not believe in the
doctrine of transmigration of
souls but after it happened
how could i refuse to credit it well
it gave me a great deal of interest
in all psychic matters and it
struck me not many weeks ago that
if it were possible for a soul
to leave a poet that way and go into
the body of a cockroach
at the poets death it might be
possible to manage it without death the
truth is that i got tired of being a
cockroach and wanted to be
human again i practised and practised
until i found myself able to get out
of the cockroach body and
naked on the air of heaven ride but it
is not all that it is cracked up to be
there is nothing that can get so
cold as a soul these autumn nights
when it has no body and no blankets
and in winter it is worse yet after i
had gained proficiency i began
to look around for a human to
get into but as far as i could
learn every human was filled with
a soul already but i began to
make longer and longer trips away from
my cockroach body imagine my
consternation and surprise one day
some weeks ago upon returning to the
cockroach body which i had left to find
that it had been squashed and swept out
with a broom i looked at the fragments
with horror it was a very discouraged
looking set of remains but there i
was out in the world with
no shelter all sould up as you might
say and no place to go it may strike you
as nothing to worry about and it
wasnt so bad for a day or two but there
is a horrid sense of helplessness
about it if you are interested in
psychic research and that
sort of thing you can get a
little fun for a while appearing in
seances and balling up the messages
but believe me psychic research is more
interesting when you are the human calling
up the spirits than when you
are the ghost too often
they make you the goat that
soon palled on me and i wandered for
weeks the most lonely thing in new york
city at last in despair i
got into the carcass of another cockroach
again of about the same size and
general appearance of my old frame but
the whole affair has had a most
depressing effect on me imagine taking
all that trouble to get away from
being a cockroach and then get
shoved back into one by
fate again i think i will
stick to the old homestead for a
while how do i know but what the next
time i might get into the body of a
flea or a communist
OCTOBER 13
A German Periscope
well boss after a series of
adventures more thrilling than anything
sindbad the sailor i
found myself clinging to
the top of a german
periscope 300 miles off the
coast of new england any moment the
vessel might submerge and
it would take me hours to wade ashore suddenly
i saw a fleet of
vessels coming in our direction heavens it
was a flock of ships carrying american
soldiers and supplies to france had the
submarine seen it yet i asked
myself i must save that covey
of transports at all costs in a
moment my plan was laid i climbed
onto the lens of the periscope and began
to run rapidly back and forth across it with an
undulating movement as if
i were a ship presently i heard a voice in german
floating up the tube of the periscope which i
translate for the
convenience of your readers heinie1 said the
voice look out the periscope and see if
any transports are about high high
your ayeness i mean aye aye your highness said
heinie and a moment later he
exclaimed i see a queer ship
shaped like a cockroach skooting over the
waters of the atlantic fool let me look you
have been inhaling too much oil said the
commanding officer i redoubled my
efforts to look like a ship it is too true said
the commanding officer the americans
have launched some
terrible new invention in the foreground
is a
vessel like a cockroah and behind it is
a fleet i can scarcely make out but
likely they are all composed of these
new hellish inventions what fiendish
practices they put into operation
against us
poor innocent submarines let us
sink at once and do it as
spurios as possible an instant later the
vessel had sunk and i was on my way
to the
bevy of american ships i had
just saved
OCTOBER 19
Patience Worth1
Archy, our well known vers libre cockroach, who has skipped merrily on from incarnation to incarnation, is planning to interview Patience Worth in the near future.
NOVEMBER 1
Beware the Demon Rum1
well boss on these
rainy days i wish i was
web footed like a jersey mosquito no
one has yet invented
an umbrella for cockroaches i was
over across the street
to the barroom you used to
frequent before you reformed today
and it was raining outside i
pulled a piece of cheese
rind over my head to
protect me from the weather and
started for the door as i
passed by one of the booths a man
who was sitting in it said to
his companion please call a
taxi for me where do you want to go
said his companion i am
bad again said the man i want to
go to some place where they
treat nervous diseases
at once you look all right
said his companion i may look all
right said he but i don’t see
all right i just saw a piece
of cheese rind crawling along the
floor and as i passed by i
said to myself beware the demon rum
it gives your brain a quirk
it puts you on the bum
and gives the doctors work
NOVEMBER 8
Sounds Like a Jolly Gang
well boss i had one gay
time last night i ran
onto a book worm in one of
the tomes on your desk and
found him a friendly
little cuss come he said to
me with his little eyes
shining brightly through his
horn rimmed glasses let us
make a night of it let us
have a gay evening lead on
says i we will go says
he to the annual
exhibit of the new york
microscopical society at the
american museum of natural
history they have there
some treponema pallidum1 some
models of amoeba and
paramoecium and some
pediculus capitis the deuce you
say said i yes said he it
will be a rare treat
indeed there are also some
ziroons there showing their
pleochroic halos the
nerve of them i said do
the authorities know it my
word yes says he the department of
health is responsible for
it come let us hasten there is
also a fine selection
of diplococci to say nothing
of the protococcus nivalis and
a specimen of phlogopite
from canada it sounds like a
jolly gang i said will there
be anything to drink
at this party i understand
he said that cerebro spinal
fluid will flow
like water the gay dogs i
said guide me to
it professor its always
fair weather when good fellows get
together i must warn
you he says that one
is not allowed to feed the
animalculae well when we
got there what do you
suppose the bunch was
germs boss germs just
ordinary germs pardon me i said
i will associate
with insects humans and
ghosts but not knowingly
with germs you must excuse me
one must draw the line somewhere
these friends of yours look
like alien enemies to me they
may have noble names but
their blood is thin
so i left
him flat and dropped into
a beef steak pie in one
of these arm chair restaurants for
a bite to eat and a
warm bath before
going to bed
that book worm was
out for some wild
evening boss its strange how
many of these quiet
looking little high brows have
bohemian tastes
NOVEMBER 12
Interest in Science
boss my interest in science
is keen but my
sympathy with scientists is
declining very rapidly the
more i see of them the less i
want them to see
me i heard a couple of
entomologists talking the
other day you want to be sure
and get over to the brooklyn
museum on thursday evening he said
there is going to be a
lecture on a new
kind of killing bottle good
said the second one i will
surely be there if there is
anything that is needed for
the cause right now
it is a new killing bottle i
looked at him and he
seemed a kind hearted man too
just thoughtless likely
i thought what is sport to
you old fellow is
death to us insects morality
is all in the point
of view if the cockroaches
humans just to study them there
would a howl go up from
danville illinois to
beersheba palestine even germans
are not gassed for study but
only in the way of
business and battle many would
think twice about stepping
on a pacifist who would
send any number of potato bugs
to their funeral pyre without
remorse justice as maurice
maeterlinck points out is not
inherent in the universe and what
man has put there he
uses when he uses it at all
strictly for his own
purposes the world is so sad that
the only way to live
with it is to laugh at it
NOVEMBER 14
He Cried into His Beer
as i go up and down the town
hither to and fro i gather many a
smile and frown and talk of
thus and so i lately
listened and i heard two chaps
their luck bewail life did not get
a pleasant word they
told an awful tale for one of them
had just been fired he
glummed and wondered why he cried
into his beer
aspired
to punch the boss his eye too
true the other one exclaimed this
world s a burning shame the
game of living has been framed it is
a rotten game and ever as they railed
at fate and wooed the sombre muse
they steadily absorbed a great
sufficiency of booze but neither one
that cursed his luck and beat his burning bean
would blame the downfall on the truck
that passed his lips between
and as i listened there i thought it were
more candid far to give its dues to what they bought
across the varnished bar they should indeed
be far more frank about their hard lucks boss
they should remark
each genial tank unto their bosses faces
you can t expect a man to drink as much as i do boss
and have much time to work and think
and put the job across
oh boss you ask too much of me
i do the best i can but who can lush
continually and be a working man
you can t expect a man to booze from morning
until night and feel quite nimble
in his shoes and add his figures right oh boss
you ask too much of us we have no flair for toil
we d rather daily dally thus-imbibing joyful oil
you can t expect a man to souse
and do work for your business house so do not be unjust