by Don Marquis
mistake i wish to state
publicly that i am not the
person the salary i receive for
my writings in the sun
dial falls considerably below that
figure even in good
years yours for
vers libre as usual
JUNE 21
The Raiding Habit
boss please leave your
door locked nights and
the keyhole open there is
no telling when i
may want to enter
quickly leaving some large
uniformed person
on the outside the
district attorney1 has the
raiding habit very
badly his maxim seems to
be in case of doubt
raid what is set before
you the turn of the
insects will come next no
doubt it is true that
after making his raids he
seldom brings people to trial
but that may only be
because he has no
evidence and in the
meantime one has been
raided i think
perhaps he is suffering
from a case of
psychological suggestion it
is the word raid
which appeals to him and
inflames his imagination he
sees it in the papers
perhaps in connection with
the war and every time
he reads of a trench
raid he pulls a
raid here at least
that is one explanation
yours for less—and
better government
Archy tells us that he is busily engaged organizing an army of potato bugs to crawl into Germany and eat the new crop. All he wants is transportation assured him.
JUNE 24
A Loyal Allied Cootie1
sir you stated in the
sun dial the other day that archy
was to lead an army of potato
bugs into germany to eat the
crop you have been
misinformed and it is my request that
you give this correction as prominent
place as you gave
your original error otherwise i
shall be compelled to bring suit
against the sun dial i
take no stock in any of
these get peace quick schemes and
more than that you do
me an injury when you
imply that i habitually
associate with potato
bugs the potato bug is one of the
least intelligent of insects and
his moral character is
not above reproach i do
not wish to muckrake even
the lower animals but i
could tell you a lot about the
sort of life led by
potato bugs if i chose the
potato bug is entirely
untrustworthy i would be willing to
use him against germany if i
were not sure that he
would prove a traitor to the cause he
would immediately begin to eat
allied rations upon his arrival in france
this potato bug story was put
over on you by some
german
propagandist i met with
a cootie that came back from france
recently who has been in the
german trenches for two years he is a
loyal allied cootie and
he tells me that most of the
cooties now in the
allied trenches are pro
german cooties they have been
trained by the german high
command for years before the war
drilled and redrilled and it is their
job to bite riflemen
machine gunners and so forth
at just the right place at the
right time to destroy their aim when
the germans are launching an
attack every
morning hindenburg2 ludendorff3 and
the kaiser4 hold a
cootie review at headquarters so
my informant tells me and the
cooties are glad to get out of
germany as the rations are
getting slimmer and slimmer
there but even the cooties are
getting scarce in germany now they
are calling on the
cootie class of 1920 he says he
volunteered he says to go into the
german trenches and bite
german machine gunners but it was
only his loyalty that held him to the
job for so long finally he
says instead of the cooties
biting germans the
germans began to bite cooties and when
that came about he
thought it almost time to leave
it must be an interesting sight to see
the kaiser on a reviewing
stand with a million
cooties drilling by each one trying
to do the goose step yours
for fewer and better germans
JULY 2
Dialogue among the Plants
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 disillusioned 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
JULY 11
Ye Instead of The
“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
of those quaint
places boss and all those
quaint places have to
be ye instead of the
in a ye place you can
serve almost anything
and get away
with it but in a
the place you have to
have a certain amount
of eats and drinks
and that increases the
expense of operation
enormously i am no
pig but i do wish to
make enough money once in
my life to be
among the
excess prophets or the
excise profits or
what ever you call
them
For our part, we shall never eat goulash in a place that is conducted by Archy—so many of these Greenwich Village artists are always Putting Themselves Into Their Work.
JULY 23
One Thing That Makes Crickets So Melancholy
well boss it may
surprise you to learn
that a cricket does not
sing to be cheerful
as chas dickens believed1
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
temperament2
AUGUST 2
Sphinx
what is all this mystery
about the sphinx
that has troubled so many
illustrious men
no doubt the very same
thoughts she thinks
are thought every day
by some obscure hen
• • •
the dachsund
thinks the giraffe
is a very
queer looking
animal
AUGUST 6
Reports of My Exit
look a here boss this thing
has gotta stop i
appeal to you for protection that
roughneck guy down cellar who
sent up the dessicated remnant of
a common chocolate colored water bug
and put it down by our typewriter
labeled exit archy is a person wholly
/> devoid of any real human
sensibility it
wasnt even decently preserved frag
mentary if you get what i mean when
my time to exit comes again i am
not going out that way in the cellar of
a printing shop i think i shall be a
humming bird next time or maybe i
shall take on something practical like
being a pawnbroker that depends a good
deal on how i am treated in this place
anyhow i am tired of this kind of
practical joke the reports of my exit
as uncle mark twain said are greatly
exaggerated1
AUGUST 10
Glorious Footfulness
in many places here and
there
i think that fate
is quite unfair
yon centipede upon
the floor
can boast of
tootsies by the score
consider my
distressing fix
my feet are limited
to six
did i a hundred
feet possess
would all that glorious
footfulness
enable me
to stagger less
when i am
overcome by heat
or if i had
a hundred feet
would i
careering oer the floor
stagger
proportionately more
well i suppose
the mind serene
will not tell
destiny its mean
the truly
philosophic mind
will use
such feet as it can find
and follow calmly
fast or slow
the feet it has
where eer they go
AUGUST 13
