Author: Don Marquis
Category: Humorous
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live my own life
no bells and pink
ribbons for me
archy it is me for
the life romantic i could
walk right into
that cat show and get
away with it
archy none of those
maltese princesses has
anything on me in the
way of hauteur
or birth either or any
of the aristocratic
fixings and condiments
that mark the
cats of lady clara
vere de vere1 but
it bores me archy
me for the
wide open spaces the
alley serenade and
the moonlight
sonata on the back
fences i would
rather kill my own
rats and share
them with a
friend from greenwich
village than lap up
cream or beef juice
from a silver porringer
and have to
be polite to the
bourgeois clans
that feed me
wot the hell i
feel superior to that
stupid bunch me
for a dance
across the roofs when
the red star2
calls to my blood
none of your
pretty puss stuff for
mehitabel it would
give me a grouch
to have to be so
solemn toujours
gai archy toujours
gai is my
motto
1920
JANUARY 17
Archy Is Ill
“What has become of Archy?” several Archy fans have asked us lately. Archy is ill; he is, in fact, just one frost bite from bowsprit to tiller. Archy heard some one tell of a method of making apple brandy by freezing instead of by the ordinary method of distilling it from hard cider . . . the idea is, we believe, that you allow the cider in a barrel to freeze, and find at the center of the frozen mass a little cupful of highly alcoholic liquid that has not frozen. This cupful, the life and delectable quintessence of the cider, is your apple-jack.
Archy, as we have said, heard of this process, and wished to witness it at first hand. He selected a barrel of cider somewhere in New Jersey and crawled into it to get a close up of the process. But he must have gone to sleep in there, or something. He was frozen into the cider as a mastodon within a glacier. Luckily he had succeeded in working himself so near the cave filled with unfrozen apple-jack at the centre of the barrel that he could take a sip from time to time, and the fiery liquid thus consumed was all that saved his life.
A New Jersey reader of the Sun Dial found him when the barrel was opened, and, recognizing him by his high forehead and look of intelligence, rarely met with among cockroaches, forwarded him to us by mail. He cannot work the typewriter; he can only lie in a cigar box lined with cotton and look at us and moan piteously . . . poor bug!
It is exceedingly doubtful that he will ever be able to write again. And, of course, if he is useless to us, out the window he goes. We cannot afford to maintain a cockroach in idleness, with living expenses what they are. We pity him, but we owe it to ourself to get rid of him at once the moment he becomes a drag upon us. As a modernist and an artist, we insist on freedom; we must live our own life, untrammeled.
FEBRUARY 9
The Anti Cockroach Conspiracy
washington d c feb ninth
nineteen twenty special to the
sun dial i am down here
conducting the fight against
the anti cockroach conspiracy
i suppose you saw in the
papers the proposition to
appropriate nineteen thousand
dollars for the purpose of killing
all the cockroaches in the
house office building and
about the capitol this is the
most iniquitous bill ever brought
before the national
legislature and
one of the most unpatriotic
measures ever proposed the
contention is that the cockroaches
eat up valuable books and
papers belonging to congressmen
speeches and that sort of
thing of course they eat them up
and they are performing a service
to their country in doing so
somebody has to edit the
congressional record and i have
taken it upon myself as a true
friend of the country and
organized my gang of editors
to eat up all the foolish
stuff that might
otherwise get into print and
bring ridicule upon the
American congress also we are
performing a patriotic service
in eating up thousands of
speeches that were intended to be
franked out to the
voters as campaign documents
no wonder a certain set of
congressmen are against us
it is a congressional conspiracy
and we shall fight it to the
bitter end may i not
add that there must be other
records in washington that have
accumulated during the
past five years which it might
be just as well to eat up
MARCH 8
A Threat
don marquis
I HAVE JUST RETURNED
FROM THE ARCTIC
CIRCLE
UP IN THE BRONX,
WHERE I HAVE BEEN SPENDING
THE WINTER.
I SEEN WHAT YOU WROTE ABOUT
ARCHY
IN THE SUN DIAL.
YOU HAVE WENT A LONG WAY
TO KNOCK
THE BEST COCKROACH THAT
EVER WORKED FOR YOU.
NOW,
YOU TUMBLE BUG—
GET READY!
WE ARE A LARGE FAMILY
AND THERE ARE
BILLIONS MORE OF US
WHERE ARCHY COME
FROM.
YOU ARE FACING
TROUBLE—
AND
YOU
KNOW
IT.
ARCHY’S KINSMEN.
MARCH 11
The Shimmie
In reply to inquiries as to where Archy is we print the despatch below, lifted from the San Francisco Chronicle of recent date. . . . Archy is touring the country introducing the dance mentioned:
PORTLAND, ORE., Feb. 18.—The shimmie is fast becoming the popular indoor sport for cockroaches. The fact was divulged at Reed College here today by Dr. Helen Clark, head of the Reed psychology department. Miss Clark says soft, tuneful music will send a healthy cockroach into an emotional trance, which finds expression in a rhythmic dance, which has every semblance to the shimmie.
APRIL 10
A Former Doughboy
boss i heard a former
doughboy
talking to himself
and this is what i heard him
saying to himself
fourteen dollars
for a single pair of shoes
fourteen dollars
for some little bits of leather
i hope the man that charges
fourteen dollars
for a single pair of shoes
will walk through hell
barefoot at noon
on hells hottest day
sixty nine cents
for a little pound of butter
weighing fourteen ounces
one a set of crooked scales
i hope the man that charges
sixty nine cents
for a crooked pound of butter
will fry in hell<
br />
in a kettle full of butter
for a hundred million years
i went and got
myself all gassed
i went and got
a bullet through my shoulder
and i cant do
a half of the work
that i did before the war
and a fat lot of money
i am getting from the government
eighty seven dollars
for a single suit of clothes
i cant hold a job
of any damned kind
who in hells to blame
i dont know
but eighty seven dollars
for a single suit of clothes
gets my goat
ninety bones a month
for three dinky rooms
for myself and my wife
and two kids here
and another kid a coming
and a fat lot of money
i get from the government
if i could be a miner
i could ride in an auto
at least so they say
if i could be a railroad
man or a plumber
i could garner kale
if i could drive a milk cart
out of salary and collections
i could count on seventy
bones every week
but what the hell can i do
in the way of manual work
i went and got myself
all gassed up
like a gosh darned fool
i went and got
a bullet through my shoulder
all the kind of work
i ever did or knew
was inside work
office stuff and routine
and that kind of thing
and you know what it pays
and you know i gotta have
decent shoes and collars
and a fat lot of money
i get from the government
i have a feeling
something is wrong
but i dont know where
every one but me
is cleaning up on money
landlords and grocers
tailors and miners
masons and carpenters
are all getting money
but i went and got myself
all gassed up
and a bullet through my shoulder
and i hope to god my landlord
goes and chokes to death
i dont know
who the hells to blame
but sooner or later
it will force me into politics
if they dont watch out
i got no platform
but i have got a kind of feeling
that everything is wrong
and a fat lot of thanks
i am getting from the people
that are boosting up the prices
no i cant live at all
i aint a bolshevist
i aint a socialist
but i got a feeling
everything is wrong
well boss i listened to that
ex service man for quite a while
and i got the idea that while
he doesnt quite know yet just
where he is going he is on
his way somewhere
APRIL 15
Pretty Soft for You
boss i have just had a
grand idea if
everything else fails leave
it to me to get
food into the city
i shall call for an army
of one thousand million
cockroaches to bring
it over from jersey a grain
at a time walking on the
rails through the
hudson tunnels it may have the
effect of introducing better feeling
between cockroaches and
human beings i must confess that
there is not much of this
entente stuff between them
as things stand now say the
word and i will start my
huskies on the job along will
come a cockroach with a crumb of bread
and then another cockroach with another
crumb of bread and then
another cockroach with another crumb of
bread and then another
cockroach with another
crumb of bread and then another
cockroach
but really it would be
pretty soft for you if i wrote your
whole column that way
APRIL 24
A Little Waterbug
i know a little waterbug
who is not very clean
although he gambols round the sink
for all his jolly baths i think
he is not very clean
MAY 1
An Archy Drive
well boss there have been
all sorts of drives
why not start an
archy drive
the idea is my own and i
think it is a good one
something should be done toward
endowing me so that i
would not have to work except
when i feel like it
even if i should never feel
like it the move would be in the
right direction
a great artist such as yours
truly should never have to
worry about where his living is to
come from he should be far above all
the vulgar strife of life
sordid material
considerations should not be
thrust upon his attention if i
were endowed i could give my
best efforts to my art
i could sit and think and think and think1
before i wrote anything
i would prefer not to
set any definite figure on the
amount required let us
start the drive first and then see
what sum is likely to come in
if something of this sort
does not happen soon i am afraid
that i will be forced into
the movies2
see what you can do
JUNE 24
Sentimental about Birds
i could never understand
why people get so sentimental
about birds
i was taking a walk in the park
the other day and a big
brutal robin saw me
and rushed at me the way
the winged lizards used to rush
at the semi human semi simian
in the good old pleistocene days
mouth open tongue hanging out
and the greedy red canal of his
esophagus plainly visible almost as
far south as his
grand central station
i had no time to find an alibi
but fortunately i found a hole
in the ground
this little robin redbreast stuff
doesnt make any hit with me
i lay in that hole
for twenty minutes and i was
interviewed by red ants and i hate
ants just as much as you hate cockroaches
and when i got ready to come out
there was a sparrow waiting for me
bug said he come out of your hole
and climb upon my back
i will give you a breezy ride to
the tree tops
birdie said i
i distrust you
i think your intentions
are distinctly gastronomic
as i live said he i have conceived
an affection for you
you are such a cute little thing
so quaint and clownish and i woul
d like
to know you better
birdie i said you talk like a
promoter trying to sell oil stock
to the plain people
but he suddenly vanished and i saw the reason
a rat was coming
cockroach said the rat
jog along with me over among the bushes
i know where there is a nest with some eggs
in it i am drawn to you i said
because you kill birds but nevertheless you
do not have my complete confidence
your reputation is not of the best
i feel drawn to you too said the rat
i do not know when i have seen a cockroach
to whom i gave my heart more fully and freely
on such short acquaintance
come out of your
hole for a little pleasant ramble
and i swear that you will not
live to regret it
there is a subtle equivocation in your speech i said
tut tut he said why so
suspicious i am not deceiving you
indeed you are not i told him
no rat has ever deceived me in the past
and you do not deceive me now
just then he hastened away and i saw
that a cat had entered l u e
cats will not eat cockroaches
when there is anything else but all too often
there is nothing else and i was just
wondering whether this one might not try
to dig me out when i saw that it was our
old friend mehitabel saved i cried
my gawd archy said she and are you too
reduced to walking the parks in search
of sustenance and casual eats aint the world
full of ups and downs deary but cheerio
toujours gai is my motto little friend
and with a no great urging she
narrated me the story of her recent adventures
which will be continued in my next
OCTOBER 9
A Sad Time Dieting
i see by the
paper that you are
having quite a
sad time dieting at last
you know what
hunger is i have been
trying for three
years to get a raise
in salary from you so that
i could eat now and
then but you have denied me with
scorn and contumely can you
wonder that now i gloat over
you sufferings hoping you
starve almost to death with
every pound you lose and
then gain every pound back and
do it over again i am yours