by Don Marquis
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
twere more like reason if they said such words
unto their bosses than tear the hair
and beat the head and blame luck
for their losses
archy
the sad crickets
well boss it may
surprise you to learn
that a cricket does not
sing to be cheerful
as chas dickens believed
he sings because he
feels so melancholy i
asked one with whom
i have become well
acquainted what his song
meant and he
replied
there are no words
to go with
that music but the
music is sad i
make that music these
hot nights because i
have prickly heat
and there is nothing else
to do and another
cricket said yes
our song is sad i am
not troubled by the
heat but my song is
melancholy too the words to
my song said the second
cricket are as follows
and he repeated them for
me to wit
my love fell into a spiders web
squeak squeak squeak
and she screamed with pain as he
crunched her bones into his
bloody beak squeak squeak
squeak yes i said that is
sad very sad said the
cricket but not as sad as the
second stanza which goes
as follows my love got caught in
the crack of the door squeak
squeak squeak and i think with
grief of the way she died whenever
i hear it creak
squeak squeak squeak
whenever i hear it creak
squeak squeak squeak
that brings tears to my eyes
i said yes he said
there is nothing you could call
jolly about the
second stanza nor the
third fourth and fifth stanzas
friend i said
hurriedly let me hear the
last stanza
he looked at me as if
i had struck him
and hurried off with
tears in his gentle eyes
one thing that
makes crickets so
melancholy is that
they have the artistic
temperament
archy
fond recollections
boss i saw a
pitiful sight yesterday i
was crawling across the
ruins of an old house that
the workmen are tearing
down up town and
i saw a middle
aged man sitting on a
pile of bricks with
his gray hair in his hands he
was weeping and moaning
and i gathered from his
remarks that the place was once
a boarding house where
he had spent
many happy years i caught
a few strophes of his
song of woe as
follows
o workman spare that bathtub o
that bathtub made of zinc
that bathtub in the boarding house
that i lived in for years
fond recollections of
my youth surge oer
me when i think
upon that bathtub in that
boarding house and i
choke up with tears
when splashing of a Sunday
morn a peevish voice and surly
would tell me to make
haste and be
myself again adorning
throughout the week it
had few friends
but o on sunday morning
that bathtub in the
boarding house was
busy bright and early
how well i can remember how
as i tripped down the hall
the boarders heads would
be poked out along the
corridor
the sound of some one singing
upon my ears would fall
and sounds of others waiting
and getting very sore
o workman spare that
bathtub to me it does
bring back
the merry days when i was
young and all the world was pink
o workman spare that bathtub
from ruin and from rack
the bathtub in the
boarding house
the bathtub made of zinc
archy
immorality
i was up to central
park yesterday watching some
kids build a snow man when
they were done and had
gone away i looked it
over they had used two
little chunks of wood for
the eyes i sat on one
of these and stared at
the bystanders along came a
prudish looking
lady from flatbush she
stopped and regarded the
snow man i stood
up on my hind legs in
the eye socket and
waved myself at her
horrors she cried even the
snow men in manhattan
are immoral officer arrest
that statue it winked
at me madam said the cop
accept the tribute
as a christmas present
and be happy my own
belief is that some
people have immorality
on the brain
archy
archy is excited
dear boss i am
acquiring more
and more contempt
for you humans
i heard a couple
of girls yesterday
saying what a nice
christmas present it
would make to catch
a live archy
and have him gilded and
wear him on
a little chain
attached to a scarf
pin yours for red rum
ruin revolt and rapine
archy
archy reports
ive got just one
resolution for this year boss
and here it is
better stuff and more rhymes
what have i got to look
forward to otherwise if
a vers libre poet is
reincarnated into
a cockroach what will
a vers libre cockroach
be reincarnated into i
ask you
i don t want to be
a amoeba next time do i
i sing the glad noo year
thats tending toward the norm
my song is one of cheer
im going to reform
see
archy
archy says
i suppose the human race
is doing the best it can
but hells bells thats
only an explanation
its not an excuse
i heard a dry telling a flapper
the other day that since repeal
the women are drinking
too much g
in
and the young lady
thoughtfully replied o nerts
there aint too much gin
there aint hardly enough
mehitabel the cat
was running around with a torn cat
off a cruiser when the fleet
was in new york
and she said to me yesterday
archy i wish you would come
down to shinbone alley
and see the seven funny little
sea serpents yowling around there
trying to put it across on me
that i am their parent
every time i go in for
a platonic friendship
there aint too much gin there aint hardly enough
it turns out plutonic
my maternal instinct
has proved to be a great drawback
it started when i was practically
a debutante and has been going
from bad to worse ever since
my ideals are putty
your ikons made of mud
and so you think me nutty
and i think youre a dud
archy
the book worm
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 pallidum 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
pioochroic 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 phlogopito
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
archy
i rode on it that s how i got back here
archy s comet
several persons have
asked me during
the last few days have
you seen the comet
and my answer has been
seen it why
i rode on it
that is how i got
back here after my
travels it is my private
comet i park
it up there and it
waits until i am ready
to go somewhere
else ask me something
different
archy
progress
if mars
and earth ever do
get into communication
probably they will be
swapping
scandalous stories
inside of three hours
archy
he has enemies
boss i dont want to
be importunate or nag you or
anything like that but
working nights and sleeping by day as
much as i do i dont get
time to hustle up any
grub for myself wont
you please leave
something behind the radiator it has
been three days since i ate i might
have dined on an apple core last night
but there was white powder
sprinkled near it and over it i
have my enemies boss a little scrap of
dried beef would be appreciated
archy
barbarous
in a restaurant uptown
i dropped into a beef stew
yesterday for a warm bath
and a bite to eat
and i heard a horrid discussion
between a waiter and a customer
they were talking about fishing
and the customer says the best luck
he ever had was one time when he
was staying at a run down hotel
in the country and he used cockroaches for bait
the waiter made a note
and says he is going to write
to a rod and gun column in a paper about it
yes says the customer do so and i bet you
in a year from now
they won t be using anything but cockroaches
and they will be worth almost
their weight in gold
boss please petition congress at once
and get a law passed
against cruel and unusual bait
after all i have done for this country
am i to be in danger
of getting the hook like that
if you abolish the cockroaches
no boarding house will seem like home
and no home like a boarding house
why i have lived in places
which would have fallen down
if the spider webs and cockroaches
had been removed
i consider fishing a barbarous sport anyhow
archy
pulled a piece of cheese rind over my head
the demon rum
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
archy
ancient lineage
professor slosson
says that the cockroach
is one of the eldest of the
creatures that inhabit
the globe
two hundred and fifty
millions of years
ago the cockroach
existed just as he exists
today of course it is
very flattering
to have this scientific
testimony to my ancient
lineage i can trace my
ancestry back without
a break to old adam cockroach
himself but the real question is
how much has the cockroach
learned in two hundred and
fifty million of years
well i can tell you
in a few brief words
the cockroach has learned
how to make man
the so called lord
of creation work for him
the cockroach lives
in peace and plenty
while the human race
hustles to support him
all the social institutions
of all time have existed
merely for the purpose
of forming a pyramid
on the apex of which
perches the cockroach triumphant
it has taken us a long
time but we point
with pride to the achievement
if you don t believe me
read professor slosson s
article
archy
quaint
“Does Archy ever visit Greenwich Village?” asks R.P. “I found myself in company with a cockroach of a dissipated but still scholarly appearance in one of the cafés over there the other evening.…”
Archy, we regret to say, will frequent the Village. Indeed, we hear that he is planning to open a café of his own to be known as “Ye Crusty Cockroach.”
“But why the ‘Ye,’ Archy?” we asked him. “Why not merely ‘The’?”
And Archy, loping six-leggedly to the typewriter, laboriously replied:
it is going to be one