The Lives and Times of Archy and Mehitabel

by Don Marquis

  bed and go up on the

  roof in your

  spirit and float around

  like a toy balloon its

  great stuff well while

  i was sitting there

  thinking what i

  would inhabit next if

  it was up to me

  personally i had

  a swooning sensation

  and when i came

  to i was in the

  flesh again dad gum

  it i lifted first

  one leg and then

  another to see what i

  was this time and

  imagine my chagrin and

  disappointment when i

  found myself inside

  another cockroach the

  exact counterpart of the

  one you smashed whats

  the use of dying if

  it dont get you

  anywhere i was so

  sore i went and

  murdered a tumblebug i

  suppose as a cockroach

  i was not good enough

  to be promoted

  and not bad enough to

  be set back boss a

  thing like that makes a

  fellow feel awful humble i

  came back to town in

  that special delivery letter i

  would rather dodge

  the thing

  they cancel stamps with

  all day than walk again

  say boss

  please thank my friends

  for all the kind

  words and flowers i

  must close in haste there

  is a new rat

  in your office since i

  was here last i

  wish you would sprinkle a

  little cereal in the

  bottom of the waste paper

  basket

  archy

  a discussion

  there is a good deal

  of metaphysical discussion going on

  amongst my own little group here

  i said freddy the rat was no

  more he expired at the moment he

  slew that tarantula well he had

  once been a human and had

  transmigrated into a rat just

  as i had transmigrated into a

  cockroach the question now

  is where will freddy turn up next will

  he go up or down the scale and

  that has led to the further question as

  to what is up and what is down

  producing considerable dissension all the

  spiders claim they are higher in

  the scale than the cockroaches and that

  lazy cat mehitabel looks on superciliously

  as if confident that she has it on

  all of us spiritually speaking

  well all i have to say is that in

  my case a soul got out of a vers libre

  bard into a cockroach but i have

  known cases which are exactly the

  reverse if you get what i mean

  not that i would name any names

  archy

  quarantined

  well boss i suppose you

  wonder what has become of

  me lately i have been

  quarantined or rather

  i quarantined myself

  voluntarily lest

  i help spread the

  influenza on the

  back of a cockroach

  no larger than

  myself millions of

  influenza germs may lodge i

  have a sense of responsibility

  to the public and i

  have been lying for two weeks

  in a barrel of moth

  balls in a drug store

  without food or water it

  strikes me as a good time to

  come across with that

  raise of salary you

  are always promising me

  archy

  archy s statue

  say boss but its great to

  be famous when i saw that pedestrian

  statue of myself on your desk i reflected that not

  every one is privileged to see his

  monument erected before he dies nor

  after either for that matter it

  gave me the feeling that i was looking at my own

  tombstone erected in memory of my good

  deeds how noble i will have to be to live up

  to all that i felt just as a person might

  feel who was hearing his own funeral

  sermon preached over him i

  stared at the statue and the statue stared at

  me and i resolved in the future to be

  a better cockroach of course it doesn’t flatter me

  any my middle set of legs arent really

  that bowed but the intellectual look

  on my face is all there

  archy

  the open spaces

  one trouble with

  cockroaches is that they

  do not get

  out into the open

  air enough

  even the tumble

  bugs play golf

  and it keeps

  them serene and

  wholesome even the

  angle worms feel

  drawn to the

  brook side in the

  spring i am trying

  to start a

  back to nature movement

  among my fellow

  cockroaches maybe i

  can count on the

  co operation of the

  housewives league i

  am convinced that a

  great deal of the

  popular prejudice against

  cockroaches would

  vanish if they

  took to the great

  open spaces yours

  archy

  short course in natural history

  you should be glad

  you re not a tomcat

  for when all is said

  and done

  you know youd hate

  to pay insurance

  on nine lives instead of one

  be glad you re not

  a centipede

  you might your whole

  ambition lose

  if you had to find

  the cash

  to keep a centipede

  in shoes

  be glad you re not

  a devilfish

  if you had four pairs

  of feet

  what a trail

  you d leave behind you

  when you staggered

  with the heat

  archy

  archy protests

  well boss now youve got

  your desk all cleaned up for the

  first time since ive known you what

  am i going to do for

  a safe retreat in times of dire

  need formerly i could crawl under a

  bushel of poems and mehitabel the

  cat could not find me this

  room is as bare as the inside of

  a drum you might at

  least have left me a tobacco can i

  feel as visible as a hyphen and not

  half so sure of myself

  archy

  archy on amateur gardens

  well boss i have

  been looking over your

  garden and my

  thoughts on the

  subject have fallen naturally

  into the form of a little

  dialogue among the

  plants and inhabitants of the

  garden to wit as follows

  garter snake

  how wan on the first of july

  the gardens of april appear

  now the plants that aspired to the sky

  droop and think of the bier

  first onion

  i am a disillusione
d onion plant

  so sad so sad am i

  that if one fed me to a maiden ant

  she would curl up and die

  indeterminate vegetable

  in youth i hoped a bean to grow

  but what i am i do not know

  first beet

  i have malaria croup and botts

  second beet

  i have such leprous looking spots

  third beet

  i was a beet of promise as a young beet

  but now i have the mournful feeling

  that neither root nor top nor peeling

  will ever be fit to eat

  garter snake

  ah what a melancholy patch

  toad

  yon egg plant there will never hatch

  indeterminate vegetable

  one paused by me but yesterday

  and spoke of me as hay

  but what i really am i do not know

  cucumber vine

  strange insects walk me to and fro

  pepper plant

  had i been treated with formaldehyde

  that goat that in the dewy eves

  came here to feast upon my leaves

  might not have died

  second onion

  the great splay feet of destiny

  have trodden me have trampled me

  rhubarb

  ah once i hoped to line a pie

  cucumber vine

  will you marauding hen pass by

  or must i die

  indeterminate vegetable

  what thing i am i do not know

  men have no name for me

  garter snake

  i think you are a spinach vine

  toad

  and i should call you eglantine

  sparrow

  perhaps you are a pea

  first bean

  i was a bean

  unto some glad tureen

  i might have given tone

  but a dog yestereen

  hiding a bone

  took from me all my mundane hope

  indeterminate vegetable

  sometimes i think i am a canteloupe

  second bean

  drooping between two hills of corn

  i am the butt of all mens scorn

  third bean

  ah how i aspired

  in the glad may morn

  fourth bean

  i am so tired so tired

  sparrow

  friend toad from yonder plant keep you away

  i saw a neighbor child but yesterday

  from off its foliage pluck a spray

  and then how he yelled

  and his hand turned black and swelled

  indeterminate vegetable

  perhaps im not a plant at all

  but some strange sort of animal

  first cabbage

  pigeons have riddled me and weasels

  second cabbage

  im spotted as with german measles

  first corn stalk

  woe

  second corn stalk

  woe

  third corn stalk

  woe is me ah woe woe woe

  fourth corn stalk

  even the weeds beside me do not grow

  first turnip

  gott

  second turnip

  gott gott gott

  third turnip

  mildew blight and rot

  fourth turnip

  and smallpox like as not

  indeterminate vegetable

  but cheer brothers cheer

  perhaps before the year

  dwindles to winter drear

  well poison some one here

  i know not what i am

  parsley from siam

  a vegetable ham

  or a long island clam

  but this i know i hate

  my miserable state

  and all human beans

  i hate life and fate

  i hate men and greens

  i hate hens and grass

  i hate garden sass

  who gets me on a plate

  shall learn how i hate

  i hate chards romaine

  children and goats

  old men and young men

  people and oats

  and im full of ptomaine

  who puts me within him

  scorpions had better skin him

  who puts me inside her

  had better eat a spider

  i know not what i be

  alfalfa corn or pea

  but cheer brothers cheer

  before the glad new year

  well poison some one here

  i might give you some advice

  about your garden

  boss but likely you would

  not thank me for it

  so i will only make one

  suggestion to wit if the

  garden were mine i

  would set out another cabbage

  plant in it and then

  give it to the butterflies for

  an aviation ground

  archy

  i would rather far get pally with a pretzel and a seidel

  archy on this and that

  1

  an old stomach

  reforms more whiskey drinkers

  than a new resolve

  and the sexton

  stops more than either

  2

  the world would take its ethics

  as seriously as its amusements

  three em dash

  if they were as amusing

  3

  a man who is so dull

  that he can learn only by personal experience

  is too dull to learn

  anything important by experience

  4

  a great many people

  who spend their time mourning

  over the brevity of life

  could make it seem longer

  if they did a little more work

  5

  judging by the number and variety

  of pills and religions in the world

  the chief preoccupation of man

  has been the state of his digestion

  and the condition of his soul

  and just look at both of them

  6

  a lot of people

  would get back to work now

  but they cant afford to take the time off

  from keeping the relief agencies going

  for if they shut up

  that would throw a lot of specialists

  out of jobs

  i heard one of these bozos

  talking to a buddy the other day and made

  a little song out of his sentiments

  as follows

  the dignity of labor

  is a phrase i like to see

  imposing on my neighbor

  but it cant impose on me

  i had rather dilly dally

  rest and loaf and idle

  i would rather far get pally

  with a pretzel and a seidel

  of beer

  mehitabel sees it through

  dear boss i met mehitabel

  last night and asked her if

  she did not think times were getting

  a little better

  she was digging for sustenance in a trash heap

  at the moment and she looked as if

  she might be a part of the heap herself

  one of her legs has been damaged again

  in a fight with a rival in love

  but she began to caper when i spoke to her

  and replied as follows

  good times and bad times

  recoveries and depressions

  wotthehell do i care

  as long as somethings doing

  when i lived on salmon

  and oysters stewed in cream

  i wasnt always happy

  when i dug my scoffins

  out of frozen garbage heaps


  i wasnt always sad

  economic problems

  never tell the story

  as far as im concerned

  once i lived a fortnight

  on moonlight wind and grass

  and i danced every evening

  with the shadows in the alley

  and entertained my boy friends

  with my melodious songs

  wotthehell do i care

  if the stomachs empty

  when the spirits full

  i have had my ups

  boss i think mehitabel is mistaken about the milky way

  and i have had my downs

  but whether i was up

  or whether i was down

  there was something in my blood

  that always set it dancing

  and when the blood was jigging

  the feet began to caper

  some day i will voyage

  on top a garbage scow

  just a stiff dead feline

  wreathed in orange peel and melon rinds

  with shop worn salad garnished

  down the bay theyll take me

  to the dumping grounds

  defunct as ancient nut shells

  but wotchehell do i care

  that day has not arrived

  and good times or bad times

  hard times or easy

  there are three good feet

  on old mehitabel

  and she will keep them jigging

  till the grim reaper slices

  two more of them off

  and then she ll dance on one

  till its frozen and resigns

  and then her soul will caper

  along the milky way

  theres a dance or two in the old dame yet

  and the word is toujours gai

  boss i think mehitabel is mistaken

  about the milky way

  i think she is more like to dance

  on hot cinders in the hereafter

  archy

  mehitabel meets her mate

  tis the right of a modern tabby to choose

  the cats who shall father her kits

  and its nice to be sure their pasts have been pure

  and theyre free from fleas or fits

  trial marriage i tried till i thoroughly tired