by Don Marquis
fellow i said i am
cheerful enough or i was till
a minute ago but you
get on my nerves it s all right
to be bright and merry
but what s the use
pretending you have more
cheerfulness than there is in the
world you sound
insincere to me you insist on
it too much you make
me want to sit in
a tomb and listen to the
screech owls telling
ghost stories to the tree toads i
would rather that i heard a door squeak have
you only one record the sun
shone in my soul today before
you came and you
have made me think of the
world s woe groan
once or i will go mad your
voice floats around the world like
the ghost of a man
who laughed himself to death
listening to funny stories
the boss told i listen to you
and know why shakespeare
killed off mercutio so
early in the play it is only
hamlet that can
find material for five acts
cheer up cheer up cheer up he
says bo i told him i
wish i was the
woolworth tower i would fall
on you cheer up cheer up cheer
up he says again
SEPTEMBER 13
White Powder
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
SEPTEMBER 16
My Ultimatum
boss this is my
ultimatum unless you have
made arrangements
for more regular meals for
me by monday
september 18 i will
quit you cold and go out and
live in a
swiss chess i have nothing
to arbitrate
SEPTEMBER 18
Swiss Cheese
thank you boss for the
swiss cheese i hardly hoped
for a whole one i
took up quarters in it at once
the little galleries and caves and
runways appealed to
my sense of adventure after
i had made a square
meal i lay down in the inner
chamber for a nap feeling
safe i had hardly composed my limbs
for slumber when i heard
a gnawing sound and squeaks
of glee cautiously i
approached the north gallery a mouse
was there i hastily
retreated thinking i would make
my escape by way of one of the
windows on the south facade another
mouse was there the citadel
in short was attacked on all sides mice
mice mice coming nearer and nearer
their cold blooded squeaks and the champing
of their cruel teeth made the night
hideous minute after minute i lay
in the stokehold
until the slow minutes grew into
intolerable hours of agony great drops
of perspiration broke through the callous
on my brow i prayed for
dawn or the night watchman suddenly
into my retreat protruded a whisker it
was so near it tickled me closer and
closer it came it twitched i knew
that it had felt me a moment more and
all would be over just as
i prepared myself for another
transmigration mehitabel the cat
bounded into the room and i was saved
if you get me another cheese please
put a wire cage over it
SEPTEMBER 19
Katydid
boss is it not awful
the way some female
creatures mistake ordinary
politeness for sudden
adoration
i met a katydid in a
beef stew in ann
street the other evening her
foot slipped and she
was about to sink
forever when i pushed her a
toothpick since i
rescued her the poor silly
thing follows me about
day and night i always felt
my fate would be a
poet she says to me how lovely
to be rescued by one i
am musical myself my
nature is sensitive to it so
much so that for
months i dwelt in a grand
piano in carnegie hall i
hope you don t think
i am bold no i said you
seem timid to me you
seem to lack courage entirely the
way you dog my footsteps
one would think you
were afraid to be alone i do
not wish any one any
ill luck but if
this shrinking thing got
caught in a high wind and
was blown out to
open sea i hope she would
be saved by a ship
outward bound for
madagascar
SEPTEMBER 21
Suicide Club, Part 1
boss i ran onto a queer bunch
in the back room of a saloon on william street
the other night there were six of them
two cockroaches
a grass hopper
a flea
and two crickets
they have what they call a suicide club
not the sort our old
friend r l s1 made famous
the members of which intend to kill
themselves but each member of this
club has committed suicide already
they were once humans
as i was myself
at least i was a poet
after they killed themselves their souls
transmigrated into the bodies
of the insects mentioned
and so they have got together and
formed a club the other night the grass
hopper told why he had killed himself
it was a misunderstanding
with one i loved he said
which impelled me to the rash act
she and i were walking down a country
road and i got some gravel in one
of my shoes shortly afterward we
boarded a trolley car would you
mind i asked her if i took my shoe off
and shook out the gravel
help yourself she said
just as i got my shoe off we passed
a glue factory
i hastily put the shoe on again by the
time it was on again we were well past
the glue factory
the period during which the shoe was off
and the period during which we
were passing the glue factory exactly
synchronized
she did not see the glue factory
and refused to believe there had been
one in the neighborhood i could
never explain a month later
i killed myself tough luc
k
old top said the flea i will now
tell you why i took the fatal
plunge to be continued
SEPTEMBER 22
Suicide Club, Part 2
continued from thursdays
paper yes said the flea i will
tell you how it was i
committed suicide and transmigrated
into the body of an insect i was
the india rubber man in a circus side
show and fell in love with a
pair of beautiful siamese twins
public opinion was against
me marrying both of them
although both of them loved me as i
loved them both you
must choose between them said the
manager what god has joined together
let no man put asunder i said but
public opinion was too much for me
but the surgical operation which
severed them changed their
dispositions you cant fool with
a freak without running some such
risk when they were cut apart one of
them eloped with the surgeon
who had done the work and the other
married an interne in the
hospital they had a double
wedding and i slew myself that night
well said one of the crickets i will
now tell you how i shuffled off
this mortal coil and
transmigrated into the
body of a cricket and became a member
of this suicide club to be
continued
SEPTEMBER 23
Suicide Club, Part 3
continued from yesterdays
paper yes said the first cricket i
will tell you how it was i
committed suicide and
my soul transmigrated into the
body of an insect and i became a
member of this has been club my father
belonged to a religious sect which
forbids shaving and i was
brought up in that way no
razor ever touched my face when i was
forty years old i had a beard that hung
down to my knees it was red and
glossy i went around the country
posing as a doctor for a medicine
company hitting the tank towns in a
wagon and giving a spiel and
playing on the banjo i did well as
my beard attracted
crowds and was happy and
prosperous until one day a
malignant old man who
had just bought six bottles of tonic1
for five dollars made of roots herbs
and natures own remedies
containing no
mineral ingredients and brewed from
juniper leaves hazel roots choke
cherries and the bark of the
wild cohosh exactly
as the indians made it for a
thousands years
in the unpathed forests before the
pale face came said to me mister
can i ask you a question yes i
said i have nothing to conceal i am on
the level if one wine glass full before
meals does not give you an appetite
take two or three
mister he says the question is
personal go ahead i says i am the
seventh son
of a seventh son a soothsayer and a
seer i can tell by the way
you chew tobacco you have liver
trouble i will make a
special price to you fourteen
bottles for ten dollars cash no he said
it is about your beard it grew i told
him through using this medicine
my chin was bald at
birth it is a specific for erysipelas
botts neuralgia stomach trouble loss
of appetite hearts disease dandruff and
falling hair thirty bottles to you
for twenty dollars and i will throw
in an electric belt
mister he said i only want to ask
you if you sleep
with all your beard outside
of the covers or
under the covers when you go to
bed at night and he give me an evil
grin and went on i
never thought of it
before i had just gone to bed and slept
as a rule but that night when i
climbed into bed i thought of the old
mans question i spread all my
beard outside of the covers and it
was immediately apparent to me
that i did not have the habit of
sleeping with it that way then i put it
under the covers and was
no less certain that i did not
sleep with it that way i worried
about it till morning and each way i
put it seemed at
once to be the wrong way
the next night it was the same
thing i could not keep from
thinking about it i got no sleep at all
and became the mere shadow of my
former self it so preyed upon me
that at last i saw i must either
shave off the beard or end it all but i
could not shave off the beard
without deserting the religious principles
instilled into me by my father and so i
took the fatal plunge hard lines said
the second cricket i will
now relate the circumstances which
led up to my suicide to be
continued
SEPTEMBER 26
Suicide Club, Part 4
continued from last
saturdays paper well said the
second cricket the way i happened to
commit suicide and undergo
transmigration and
thus qualify for a member of this club
was this when i was a
human i was wedded to a lady whose
mother had a very strong
and domineering character she
lived with us night after
night i would lie awake thinking
up schemes to get even
with her i thought up
some lovely schemes but when
morning came my nerve would
leave i never had the courage to
put them into execution finally
the thought came to me that if i was
a ghost i could haunt her and
she would have no come back i slew
myself but alas my soul transmigrated
into the body of a cricket and
if you had ever seen that strong and
bitter old woman slaying spiders and
crickets you could realize
the despair that has settled down on me
since too bad said one
of the cockroaches i will now narrate the
events which led up to my
determination to
take the leap into the
darkness to be continued
SEPTEMBER 27
Suicide Club, Part 5
continued from tuesdays
paper i cant say the first of the
two cockroaches remarked that i
had any good reason for
slaying myself i had done everything
else at least once i was a
young man possessed of a
considerable fortune which it was my only
occupation to dissipate when
everything else palled i
took up theology i made a bet
with another student that the soul
was not immortal the only way to
settle it
was to die and find out we both
did well fellows we both lost mine
proved to be immortal for here i am but his
was not it completely disappeared and
has never been heard of again
which shows you never can tell and
yet i am still interested in
games of chance my story said the
second cockroach breaking in is far more
interesting and far sadder i will
narrate it to be
concluded in my next1
SEPTEMBER 30
Killing Off the Sparrows
boss what is all this talk about
killing off the sparrows
i hold no brief for any bird for
all of them are greedy
insectivorous beasts but why is it
that everyone is sore on the sparrow all
birds put it across on their enemies
when they can but the sparrow
puts it oftener because
he packs the punch
i have an idea that the reason they all
pick on the sparrow is because he is
not beautiful but it discourages him just as
much to get killed as if he were
a nightingale you ought to
know how it is yourself boss if a
fat man falls down or has to chase his hat
or anything of that sort everyone
laughs but if a slim and elegant apollo
sprains his ankle
everyone says too bad too bad lots of
people try to step on cockroaches
boss just because they are not as pretty
as humming birds they think nothing
of the soul within i am
for the sparrow if he is a better
fighter let him win out it isnt
right for humans to take sides in these
wars between birds somebody is
always stepping in and trying to ball
up evolution i stand for the great flock of
sparrows who represent the common
people boss the plain
people1
OCTOBER 12
My Last Name
boss i just discovered what
my last name is i
pass it on to you i belong to the
family of the blattidae1 right o
said mehitabel the cat when i told her
about it they have
got you sized up right you blatt out
everything you hear
i gleaned the information from
a bulletin issued by the
united states department of
agriculture which you left on the
