by Don Marquis
your literary slave no longer
FEBRUARY 26
Poetry Is
Poetry is the chinking of a couple of unexpected coins in the shabby pocket of life.
Poetry is a young deity who used to shake dice with Kit Marlowe to see who should pay for the next round.
Poetry is a rather giddy young blighter Rudyard Kipling used to know.
i could tell you what
poetry is but
why should i stir up
feeling yours for
vers d’archibald
archy
Poetry is a cast shoe from one of Apollo’s stallions. Societies and organizations pick it up and are just as likely to nail it onto a cow as onto a horse.
MARCH 25
Window Box War Gardens
well boss i am
going out of the shoe shining and
typewriter cleaning business people
arent spending as much
money to have their shoes shined
as before the war and they are
economizing and cleaning
their own typewriters or
letting them stay gummed up i
am now going in for making
window box war gardens for
apartment house dwellers i put my head
down in the soil and revolve
myself till i bore a hole to
plant the seed and then i
plant it and cover it up and my
contract also calls for keep
ing the weeds chewed off even with the surface
of the soil i am working on
the shares and hope to get enough to eat
this spring and summer i cant say
i ever got that much out of liter
ature when i used to be one of your
regular contributors yours till the
kaiser comes to an huntimely end
MARCH 30
The Crippled Cockroach
[In this column, Marquis’s character Fothergill Finch declares his intention to open a restaurant called The Golden Finch.]
We also find on our desk the following communication from Archy:
well boss i have just
perused fothergill’s letter i
think i will start a
cafe of my own i have a
lot of playmates who
are familiar with the res
taurant business in its most
occult phases and i
could depend upon them for
attendance if not for col
lections i shall call it the
crippled cockroach and the
motto shall be drop in boys the
onion soup is fine the
management will keep an eye
on the hats and coats but
refuse to be responsible
for the food served this
restaurant of mine will
be different yours till
they find a diet
cure for the tropic of cancer
MAY 24
We Suspect Archy
[In the “Sun Dial” column for April 5, Marquis announced his departure for a seven-week vacation. Upon his return, the column for May 24, under the title “Memoranda for a Gentleman Returning from His Vacation,” included, along with updates about damage to the office, this note:]
Your typewriter fell off the desk one night and was broken in several new places. We suspect Archy.
MAY 25
Cockroachism
a big brown cockroach
came in to see me yesterday
all flustered and
exalted with a new win the
war hunch archy he says
i have the idea
at last shoot little
machiavelli i said archy he
said will you be one
of a hundred billion
cockroaches to march into
germany and eat every scrap of
vegetation and every morsel
of food the minute it is
brought from russia just
think he said growing more and
more excited nothing could
stop us nothing could
hold us back neither trenches nor
guns we could crawl through
around under and over
will you not put a piece in
the sun dial seeking
for transportation to europe what
we want from you is
publicity i will not i said
slacker he cried pro german
boche hun why will
you not because i said if
a hundred billion
cockroaches crawled into
germany the huns would
say gott had sent them
fresh meat and would live
on them for a year i
never thought of that he
said a lot of you
fellows with win the war
schemes that yell pro german
when they can’t get
publicity have another think
coming i said yours for
constructive cockroachism
MAY 28
Named after the Washington Arch
please deny for me
that i was named
for those anti
aircraft guns on the west
ern front they spell it
archie1 i
was named after
the washington arch
at the base of which my
father and my
mother first met and
courted and i spell
it with a y another one
of those get peace quick
fellows suggested to me
that i eat poison and
then go and die in
the kaisers soup so he
would perish
shortly after nothing
doing said i it
would be usless to put poison
in his meat he is
the modern mithridates2 and
they feed him
noxious drugs by the
handful to keep his
hate up besides why
allow the kaiser to die
and escape the thing
to do is to keep
him intact uniform
and all and make him
run the elevator in a
new temple of peace
after the war yours
for cruel and hun usual
punishments
MAY 31
Aeroplane Mail
Archy is clamoring to be sent to Washington by aeroplane mail. If we can get a motor to fit him we intend to turn him into an aeroplane and let him ramble.
JUNE 4
Assisting at a Suicide
well boss i have just
been assisting at a suicide i think the
gentleman who killed himself was
quite right in doing so too
i went into the kitchen of an
up town hotel the other
evening for a bite to eat and after
i had dined i thought
i would look the place over and if
i found a room that appealed to me i
would spend the night there
the room i got into was already
infested by a little old bald headed fellow
with scared eyes and a face like
a petrified turnip who was
hunched up under a reading lamp
reading a
bible all of a sudden he gave a
jump and said gawd gawd there it
is again and i saw a puff of
smoke floating across the
table in front of him it seemed to come
from nowhere in particular smoke
smoke cried the old man i am
haunted by smoke and as
he spoke another puff of smoke
<
br /> suddenly appeared from nowhere on
the table in front of him
gawd gawd he cried spare me spare
me do not persecute me this way
and i will give all the money to charity
i will give it to the red
cross or any church you
may designate i know
i did wrong to burn down that
building for the
insurance money but how was i
to know there was any one in it i
did not plan a murder a third
puff of smoke seemed to start out of
his own shoulder and floated in
front of his eyes and a fourth
puff hit him on his bald head and made
a little veil in front of his face
gawd gawd he cried and threw
himself on the rug and began to
pray with his face hidden i
thought to myself those
puffs of smoke are peculiar there
isnt anything on fire in
here and then i got a whiff of it
and it smelled like tobacco smoke
then i saw something that looked
like a gray globe floating from the
direction of the bathroom door it
drifted across the room and hit
the reading lamp and vanished with a
puff of smoke i looked at the
bathroom door and i thought i
heard some one chuckle over there and
then i saw another gray globe of
smoke forming at the keyhole it
slowly grew and grew till it was as
big as a baseball and then it
detached itself from the door and
floated across the room
i crawled noiselessly under the bath
room door it was one of those bath
rooms midway between two sleeping
rooms and there were a couple of
chuckle headed young fellows sitting
on the floor laughing to
themselves both were about half
soused and they were having a good
time one of them had a slender hollow
brass curtain rod and he was soaping
the end of it and
sticking it into the keyhole then he
would fill his mouth with cigarette
smoke and blow a soap bubble which
drifted into the old mans room what
is he doing now said one of them he
is on the floor praying said the
other taking the rod out of the
keyhole and looking through let me
blow a couple said the first young
man you are too soused said the
second one dont be selfish said the
first one gawd gawd said the voice
from the room i had just left i am
haunted by ghostly smoke i will live
right all the rest of my life if you
only let me off this time
give him another bubble said the
first young man he has got it
coming to him evidently so
they gave him half a dozen more
bubbles the noise
in the haunted mans room ceased for
some minutes what is he doing now
said the first young man i cant see
him said the second one just then
there came a kicking kind of a noise
on the wall i went into the
haunted mans room and found his
closet door was open i went in and he
was just dying he had hanged himself
to a hook on the wall with a trunk
cord those two young fellows had
just the wrong man for their little
practical joke or
just the right man if you want to
look at it that way i
went away from there at once not
wishing to be on hand if there
was any investigation yours
for conscience and coincidence
and may they never meet
JUNE 6
Not a Fish
well boss i have
been over to
take a look at that 300
pound mola mola fish1
and it is my opinion that it
should not be
allowed in any american
aquarium at all
it is not a fish
take it from me it is
some kind of a german
pancake with fins eat
it and the infernal thing
will explode inside of you it is
just as well to distrust any
strange looking fish that may
be caught off these coasts while
the u boats are
around beware the
hunderhand methods of
the enemy yours till the
recording angel catches up with
his story of
hohenzollerns i have known
JUNE 7
At the Zoo
speaking of the aquarium i
was up at the zoo the
other day and when i saw all
the humans staring at
the animals i grew thankful that
i am an insect and
not an animal it must be
very embarrassing to
be looked at all the time by an
assorted lot of human beings and
commented upon as if
one were a freak the animals find the
humans just as strange and silly looking
as the humans find the
animals but they
cannot say so and the fact that
they cannot say so
makes them quite angry the leopard
told me that was one thing that
made the wild cat wild as for
himself he says there is
one gink that comes every day and looks
and looks and looks at him i
think said the leopard he
is waiting to see if i ever really do
change my spots
JUNE 10
Prohibition1 Rushes Toward Us
i went into a
speakeasy the other night
with some of the
boys and we were all sitting
around under one of
the tables making
merry with crumbs and
cheese and what not but
after while a strange
melancholy descended
upon the jolly crew and
one old brown veteran roach
said with a sigh well
boys eat drink and
be maudlin for
tomorrow we are dry the
shadow of the padlock
rushes toward us
like a sahara sandstorm
flinging itself at an oasis
for years myself and my
ancestors before me have
inhabited yonder ice box but
the day approaches
when our old homestead
will be taken away from
here and scalded out
yes says i soon there will
be nothing but that
eheu fugaces stuff2
on every hand i
never drank it says he
what kind of a
drink is it
it is bitter as wormwood
says i and the
only chaser to it is
the lethean water3
it is not the booze itself
that i regret so
much said the old brown
roach it is the
golden companionship of
the tavern myself
and my ancestors have been
chop house and tavern
roaches for hundreds of
years
countless generations back
one of my elizabethan
forbears was plucked from
a can of ale in the
mermaid tavern by
will shakespeare and
put down kit marlowe s back
what subtle wits they were in
those days said i yes
he said and later
another one of my
ancestors was
introduced into a larded
hare that addison
was eating by dicky steele
my ancestor came
skurrying forth dicky
said is that your own
hare joe or a wig a
thing which addison
never forgave yours is a
remarkable family
history i said yes he
said i am the last
of a memorable
line one of my
ancestors was found drowned
in the ink well
out of which poor
eddie poe wrote the
raven we have
always associated with wits
bohemians and bon
vivants my maternal
grandmother was slain by
john masefield with
a bung starter4 well well it
is sad i said the
glad days pass yes
he says soon we will all
be as dry as the
egyptian scarab that
lies in the sarcophagus
beside the mummy of rameses and
he hasn t had a
drink for four thousand
years it is sad for
you he continued but
think how much sadder it
is for me with
a family tradition such as
mine only one of my
ancestors cheese it i said
interrupting him i do
not wish to injure
your feelings but i weary
of your ancestors i
have often noticed that
ancestors never boast
of the descendants who boast
of ancestors i would
rather start a family than
finish one blood will tell but often
it tells too much
JUNE 19
Income Tax Slacker1
boss i see by the
papers that there is
one income tax slacker who
owes 14 800 000 dollars lest
there be any possibility of
