by Don Marquis
lady i am as sorry as
sorry can be
but you must realize
that in our business we are
bound to make mistakes
sometimes he just looked like
mister bill billups lying there
in the chair all
lathered up
yes said the widow
it was a terrible mistake
but i can see that in your
line of work you are bound
to make mistakes
we are said the krew krux krank
but i cannot tell you
how bad i feel about this madam
you must not take it to heart
so much said the widow
anybody is likely
to make mistakes
but i do said the krew krux krank
i offer you a thousand
apologies i never
made a faux pas
like that before in all
my experience
oh well said the widow
do not take on so over it
i am sure that
it was quite unintentional
i look to the motive
behind it rather than
to the deed itself
but madam he began
do not be tiresome she
said interrupting him i quite
understand how it occurred
you are what i call
a sensible woman said the krew
krux krank
thank you said she
smiling and dimpling prettily
at the compliment come
little precious she said to her
child let us go home and see
if papa left any life
insurance policies around
anywhere
well said the krew krux krank
to the barber
i wish that everybody
would take the same
enlightened view of our
activities and realize
that in our great
patriotic work accidents
are bound to occur
it takes all sorts of people
to make a world
said the barber
which when you think of it
is just what a barber
always says about things
well boss this is one
tragic story with a cheerful
and happy ending
personally however i think
that the krew
krux kranks
should be prosecuted
under the law
which forbids using
the american flag
for trade purposes
there ought to be somebody
like the armenians in this
country the turks kill
the armenians and the
armenians are used to it
and nothing comes of it
but in this country people
who want to kill people
have no one like the armenians
to pick on
and trouble and unrest follow
their killings
why not have a million
people volunteer to be armenians
so the krew krux kranks
would not get into trouble
i do not pretend to be
a statesman but it is plain
to me that something should be
done about it that by
the way is what the barber said
also he looked in a puzzled
way at the remnants
of mister pete perkins
and he said i think
something should be done
OCTOBER 14
Cursed Fly Swatters1
i have just been reading
an advertisement of a certain
roach exterminator
the human race little knows
all the sadness it
causes in the insect world
i remember some weeks ago
meeting a middle aged spider
she was weeping
what is the trouble i asked
her it is these cursed
fly swatters she replied
they kill off all the flies
and my family and i are starving
to death it struck me as
so pathetic that i made
a little song about it
as follows to wit
twas an elderly mother spider
grown gaunt and fierce and gray
with her little ones crouched beside her
who wept as she sang this lay
curses on these here swatters
what kills off all the flies
for me and my little daughters
unless we eats we dies
swattin and swattin and swattin
tis little else you hear
and we ll soon be dead and forgotten
with the cost of living so dear
my husband he up and left me
lured off by a centipede
and he says as he bereft me
tis wrong but i ll get a feed
and me a working and working
scouring the streets for food
faithful and never shirking
doing the best i could
curses on these here swatters
what kills off all the flies
me and my poor little daughters
unless we eats we dies
only a withered spider
feeble and worn and old
and this is what
you do when you swat
you swatters cruel and cold
i will admit that some
of the insects do not lead
noble lives but is every
man s hand to be against them
yours for less justice
and more charity
1922
MARCH 14
The Cheerful Oyster
well boss here
we are on the job again
you simply cannot
keep a good bug down
as a cockroach friend
of mine once
remarked to a fat man
who had
inadvertently
swallowed him along
with a portion
of hungarian goulasch
although the remark
i understand
originated with jonah
well the main
thing is to keep
cheerful in spite
of the ups and
downs as i
heard an oyster
remark to his mate
last evening
only six weeks till
may says he
and if we go that long
without being eaten
we will get through
till september and
maybe by that time
nobody will want to
eat us no such
luck for us says
she nonsense says
he be more optimistic
i have noticed
every year that if
i get through
march i always
get through the rest
of the year
and just at that
moment a waiter
put the melancholy
oyster on a plate to
be served and eaten
and rejected the
cheerful oyster
there is a great
moral lesson
in this i pick
up a great many
little sermons of this
sort in my capacity as a
roach about town
APRIL 14
Talking to a Moth
i was talking to a moth
the other evening
he was trying to
break into
an electric light bulb
and fry himself on the wires
why do you fellows
pull this stunt i asked him
because it is the conventional
thing for moths or why
if that had been an uncovered
candle instead of an electric
light bulb you would
now be a small unsightly cinder
have you no sense
plenty of it he answered
but at times we get tired
of using it
we get bored with the routine
and crave beauty
and excitement
fire is beautiful
and we know that if we get
too close it will kill us
but what does that matter
it is better to be happy
for a moment
and be burned up with beauty
than to live a long time
and be bored all the while
so we wad all our life up
into one little roll
and then we shoot the roll
that is what life is for
it is better to be a part of beauty
for one instant and then cease to
exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty
our attitude toward life
is come easy go easy
we are like human beings
used to be before they became
too civilized to enjoy themselves
and before i could argue him
out of his philosophy
he went and immolated himself
on a patent cigar lighter
i do not agree with him
myself i would rather have
half the happiness and twice
the longevity
but at the same time i wish
there was something i wanted
as badly as he wanted to fry himself
APRIL 19
Ground for Optimism
there is always
something to be thankful
for you would not
think that a cockroach
had much ground
for optimism
but as the fishing season
opens up i grow
more and more
cheerful at the thought
that nobody ever got
the notion of using
cockroaches for bait
APRIL 22
Waiting for a Vacant Body
you want to know
whether i believe in ghosts
of course i do not believe in them
if you had known
as many of them as i have
you would not
believe in them either
perhaps i have been
unfortunate in my acquaintance
but the ones i have known
have been a bad lot
no one could believe in them
after being acquainted with them
a short time
it is true that i have met
them under peculiar
circumstances
that is while they
were migrating into the
bodies of what human beings
consider a lower order
of creatures
before i became a cockroach
i was a free verse poet
one of the pioneers of the artless art
and my punishment for that
was to have my soul
enter the body of a cockroach
the ghosts i have known
were the ghosts of persons
who were waiting for a vacant
body to get into
they knew they were going
to transmigrate into the bodies of
lizards lice bats snakes
worms beetles mice alley cats
turtles snails tadpoles
etcetera
and while they were waiting
they were as cross as all get out
i remember talking to one of them
who had just worked his way
upward again he had been in the
body of a flea and he was going
into a cat fish
you would think he might be
grateful for the promotion
but not he
i do not call this much of an advance
he said why could i not
be a humming bird or something
kid i told him it will
take you a million years to work your
way up to a humming bird
when i remember he said
that i used to be a hat check boy
in a hotel i could
spend a million years weeping
to think that i should come to this
we have all seen better days i said
we have all come down in the world
you have not come down as far
as some of us
if i ever get to be a hat check boy
again he said i will sting
somebody for what i have had to suffer
that remark will probably cost you
another million years among
the lower creatures i told him
transmigration is a great thing
if you do not weaken
personally my ambition is to get
my time as a cockroach shortened for
good behavior and be promoted
to a revenue officer
it is not much of a step up but
i am humble
i never ran across any of this
ectoplasm that sir arthur
conan doyle tells of but it sounds
as if it might be wonderful
stuff to mend broken furniture with1
APRIL 26
Interviewed the Mummy1
boss i went
and interviewed the mummy
of the egyptian pharaoh
in the metropolitan museum
as you bade me to do
what ho
my regal leatherface
says i
greetings
little scatter footed
scarab
says he
kingly has been
says i
what was your ambition
when you had any
insignificant
and journalistic insect
says the royal crackling
in my tender prime
i was too dignified
to have anything as vulgar
as ambition
the ra ra boys
in the seti set2
were too haughty
to be ambitious
we used to spend our time
feeding the ibises
and ordering
pyramids sent home to try on
but if i had my life
to live over again
i would give dignity
the regal razz
and hire myself out
to work in a brewery
old tan and tarry
says i
i detect in your speech
the overtones
of melancholy
yes i am sad
says the majestic mackerel
i am as sad
as the song
of a soudanese jackal
who is wailing for the blood red
moon he cannot reach and rip
on what are you brooding
with such a wistful
wishfulness
there in the silences
confide in me
my imperial pretzel
says i
i brood on beer
my scampering whiffle snoot
on beer says he
my sympathies
are with your royal
dryness says
i
my little pest
says he
you must be respectful
in the presence
of a mighty desolation
little archy
forty centuries of thirst
look down upon you
oh by isis
and by osiris3
says the princely raisin
and by pish and phthush and phthah4
by the sacred book perembru
and all the gods
that rule from the upper
cataract of the nile
to the delta of the duodenum
i am dry
i am as dry
as the next morning mouth
of a dissipated desert
as dry as the hoofs
of the camels of timbuctoo
little fussy face
i am as dry as the heart
of a sand storm
at high noon in hell
i have been lying here
and there
for four thousand years
with silicon in my esophagus
and gravel in my gizzard
thinking
thinking
thinking
of beer
divine drouth
says i
imperial fritter
continue to think
there is no law against
that in this country
old salt codfish
if you keep quiet about it
not yet
what country is this
asks the poor prune
my reverend juicelessness
this is a beerless country
says i
well well said the royal
desiccation
my political opponents back home
always maintained
that i would wind up in hell
and it seems they had the right dope
and with these hopeless words
the unfortunate residuum
gave a great cough of despair
and turned to dust and debris
right in my face
MAY 1
Archy to the Radio Fans1
JUNE 21
Once Every Seventeen Years
every time
i get to feeling
bad because
i am a cockroach
i think how
much worse it would be
