The Lives and Times of Archy and Mehitabel

by Don Marquis

  by cripes i have danced the shimmy

  in rooms as warm as a dream

  and gone to sleep on a cushion

  with a bellyfull of cream

  it s one day up and next day down

  i led a romantic life

  it was being abducted so many times

  as spoiled me for a wife

  dance mehitabel dance

  till your old bones fly apart

  i ain t got any regrets

  for i gave my life to my art

  whirl mehitabel whirl

  caper my girl and grin

  and pick at your guts with your frosty feet

  they re the strings of a violin

  girls we was all of us ladies

  until we went and fell

  and oncet a thoroughbred always game

  i ask you wotthehell

  it s last week up and this week down

  and always the devil to pay

  but cripes i was always the lady

  and the word is toujours gai

  be a tabby tame if you want

  somebody s pussy and pet

  the life i led was the life i liked

  and there s pep in the old dame yet

  whirl mehitabel whirl

  leap shadow leap

  you gotta dance till the sun comes up

  for you got no place to sleep

  archy

  archy at the zoo

  the centipede adown the street

  goes braggartly with scores of feet

  a gaudy insect but not neat

  the octopus s secret wish

  is not to be a formal fish

  he dreams that some time he may grow

  another set of legs or so

  and be a broadway music show

  oh do not always take a chance

  upon an open countenance

  the hippopotamus s smile

  conceals a nature full of guile

  human wandering through the zoo

  what do your cousins think of you

  i worry not of what the sphinx

  thinks or maybe thinks she thinks

  i have observed a setting hen

  arise from that same attitude

  and cackle forth to chicks and men

  some quite superfluous platitude

  serious camel sad giraffe

  are you afraid that if you laugh

  those graceful necks will break in half

  a lack of any mental outlet

  dictates the young cetacean s spoutlet

  he frequent blows like me and you

  because there s nothing else to do

  when one sees in the austral dawn

  a wistful penguin perched upon

  a bald man s bleak and desert dome

  one knows tis yearning for its home

  the quite irrational ichneumon

  is such a fool it s almost human

  despite the sleek shark s far flung grin

  and his pretty dorsal fin

  his heart is hard and black within

  even within a dentist s chair

  he still preserves a sinister air

  a prudent dentist always fills

  himself with gas before he drills

  archy

  the dissipated hornet

  well boss i had a

  great example of the corrupting

  influence of the great

  city brought to my notice recently a

  drunken hornet blew in here

  the other day and sat down in the

  corner and dozed and buzzed not a

  real sleep you know one of those wakeful

  liquor trances with the

  fuzzy talk oozing out of it to hear

  this guy mumble in his dreams he was right

  wicked my name he says is crusty bill

  i never been licked and i never will and

  then he would go half way asleep

  again nobody around here wanted to

  fight him and after a while he got

  sober enough to know how drunk he had

  been and began to cry over it and get

  sentimental about himself mine is a wasted

  life he says but i had a good

  start red liquor ruined me he says and

  sobbed tell me your story i

  said two years ago he said i was a country

  hornet young and strong and handsome i

  lived in a rusty rainspout with my

  parents and brothers and sisters and all was

  innocent and merry often in that happy

  pastoral life would we swoop down

  with joyous laughter and sting the school

  children on the village green but on an evil

  day alas i came to the city in a crate

  of peaches i found myself in a market

  near the water front alone and friendless in the

  great city its ways were strange to

  me food seemed inaccessible i thought

  that i might starve to death as i was buzzing

  down the street thinking these gloomy

  thoughts i met another hornet

  just outside a speak easy kid he says

  you look down in the mouth forget

  it kid i will show you how to live without

  working how i says watch me he says just

  then a drunken fly came crawling out

  of the bar room in a leisurely way my new

  found friend stung dissected and consumed that fly

  that s the way he says smacking his lips

  this is the life that was a beer fly

  wait and i will get you a cocktail fly this

  is the life i took up that life alas the

  flies around a bar room get so drunk drinking

  what is spilled that they are helpless all a

  hornet has to do is wait calmly until

  they come staggering out and there is his

  living ready made for him at first being

  young and innocent i ate only beer flies but

  the curse of drink got me the mad life began

  to tell upon me i got so i would not eat a

  fly that was not full of some strong and heady

  liquor the lights and life got me i would

  not eat fruits and vegetables any more i scorned

  flies from a soda fountain

  they seemed flat and insipid to me

  finally i got so wicked that i

  went back to the country and got six innocent

  young hornets and brought them back

  to the city with me i started them in the

  business i debauched them and

  they caught my flies for me now i am in

  an awful situation my six hornets from the

  country have struck and set up on their own

  hook i have to catch my flies myself

  and my months of idleness and

  dissipation have spoiled my technique i

  can t catch a fly now unless he is dead drunk

  what is to become of me alas the curse

  of alcoholic beverages especially with each

  meal well i said it is a sad story

  bill and of a sort only too

  common in this day of ours it is he says i

  have the gout in my stinger so bad

  that i scream with pain every time i spear

  a fly i got into a safe place on the

  inside of the typewriter and yelled out at him

  my advice is suicide bill all the time

  he had been pitying himself my sympathy had

  been with the flies

  archy

  unjust

  poets are always asking

  where do the little roses go

  underneath the snow

  but no one ever thinks to say

  where do the little insects stay

  this is because

  as a general rule
/>   roses are more handsome

  than insects

  beauty gets the best of it

  in this world

  i have heard people

  say how wicked it was

  to kill our feathered

  friends

  in order to get

  their plumage and pinions

  for the hats of women

  and all the while

  these same people

  might be eating duck

  as they talked

  the chances are

  that it is just as discouraging

  to a duck to have

  her head amputated

  in order to become

  a stuffed roast fowl

  and decorate a dining table

  as it is for a bird

  of gayer plumage

  to be bumped

  off the running board of existence

  to furnish plumage

  for a lady s hat

  but the duck

  does not get the sympathy

  because the duck

  is not beautiful

  the only insect

  that succeeds in getting

  mourned is a moth

  or butterfly

  whereas every man s

  heel is raised against

  the spider

  and it is getting harder

  and harder for spiders

  to make an honest living

  at that since

  human beings have invented

  so many ways

  of killing flies

  humanity will shed poems

  full of tears

  over the demise of

  a bounding doe

  or a young gazelle

  but the departure of a trusty

  camel leaves the

  vast majorities

  stonily indifferent

  perhaps the theory is

  that god would not have made

  the camel so ugly

  if the camel were not wicked

  alas exclamation point

  the pathos of ugliness

  is only perceived

  by us cockroaches of the world

  and personally

  i am having to stand for a lot

  i am getting it double

  as you might say

  before my soul

  migrated into the body

  of a cockroach

  it inhabited the carcase

  of a vers libre poet

  some vers libre poets are beautiful

  but i was not

  i had a little blond mustache

  that every one thought was a mistake

  and yet since i have died

  i have thought of that

  with regret

  it hung over a mouth

  that i found it difficult to keep closed

  because of adenoidal trouble

  but it would have been better

  if i could have kept it closed

  because the teeth within

  were out of alignment

  and were of odd sizes

  this destroyed my acoustics

  as you might say

  my chin was nothing much

  and knew it

  and timidly shrank

  into itself

  receding from the battle of life

  my eyes were all right

  but my eyebrows

  were scarcely noticeable

  i suppose though that if

  i had had noticeable eyebrows

  they would have been wrong

  somehow

  well well not to pursue

  this painful subject

  to the uttermost and ultimate

  wart and freckle

  i was not handsome and it hampered

  me when i was a human

  it militated against me

  as a poet

  more beautiful creatures could

  write verse worse than mine

  and get up and recite it

  with a triumphant air

  and get away with it

  but my sublimest ideas

  were thought to be a total

  loss when people saw

  where they came from

  i think it would have been

  only justice

  if i had been sent to inhabit

  a butterfly

  but there is very little

  justice in the universe

  what is the use

  of being the universe

  if you have to be just

  interrogation point

  and i suppose the universe

  has so much really important

  business on hand

  that it finds it impossible

  to look after the details

  it is rushed

  perhaps it has private

  knowledge to the effect

  that eternity is brief

  after all

  and it wants to get the big

  jobs finished in a hurry

  i find it possible to forgive

  the universe

  i meet it in a give and take spirit

  although i do wish

  that it would consult me at times

  please forgive

  the profundity of these

  meditations

  whenever i have nothing

  particular to say

  i find myself always

  always plunging into cosmic

  philosophy

  or something

  archy

  the cheerful cricket

  i can t see for the

  life of me what there is

  about crickets that makes people

  call them jolly they

  are the parrots of the insect race

  crying cheer up cheer up

  cheer up over and

  over again till you want to

  swat them i hate one of these

  grinning skipping smirking

  senseless optimists worse

  than i do a cynic or a

  pessimist there was

  one in here the other day i was

  feeling pretty well

  and pleased with the world when

  he started that confounded

  cheer up cheer up cheer up stuff

  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

  archy

  all a spook has to do is stick around

  clarence the ghost

  the longer i live the more i
r />   realize that everything is

  relative even morality is

  relative things you would not do

  sometimes you would do other

  times for instance i would not consider

  it honorable in me as a

  righteous cockroach to crawl into a

  near sighted man s soup that

  man would not have a sporting chance but

  with a man with ordinarily good eye

  sight i should say it was

  up to him to watch his soup himself and

  yet if i was very tired and hungry

  i would crawl into even a near

  sighted man s soup knowing all the

  time it was wrong and my necessity would

  keep me from reproaching myself too

  bitterly afterwards you can

  not make any hard and fast rule

  concerning the morality of crawling into

  soup nor anything else a certain

  alloy of expediency improves the

  gold of morality and makes

  it wear all the longer consider a

  ghost if i were a ghost i

  would not haunt ordinary people but i

  would have all the fun i wanted to with

  spiritualists for spiritualists are

  awful nuisances to ghosts i knew a

  ghost by the name of clarence one

  time who hated spiritualists with a

  great hatred you see said clarence they

  give me no rest they have got my

  number once one of those psychics gets a

  ghost s number so he has to come

  when he is called they work him till

  the astral sweat stands out in beads

  on his spectral brow they seem to think

  said clarence that all a spook has to do

  is to stick around waiting to dash in

  with a message as to whether mrs millionbucks

  pet pom has pneumonia or only wheezes

  because he has been eating too many

  squabs clarence was quite

  bitter about it but wait he says till

  the fat medium with the red nose

  that has my number

  passes over and i can get my

  clutches on him on equal terms there s

  going to be some initiation beside

  the styx several of the boys are

  sore on him a plump chance i have

  don t i to improve myself and pass on

  to another star with that medium

  yanking me into somebody s parlor to

  blow through one of these little tin

  trumpets any time of the day or night

  honest archy he says i hate the sight of a

  ouija board would it be moral he

  says to give that goof a bum tip on the

  stock market life ain t worth

  dying he says if you ve got to fag