some one will push me
into the food bill up
to date i am the only thing
in this country that
has not been added to it by
the time this is
published nothing that
i have said may be
true however which is a
thing that is constantly happening
to thousands of
great journalists now in
washington it is so hot here that
i get stuck in the asphalt
every day on my
way from the senate press
gallery back to
shoemakers where the
affairs of the nation
are habitually settled by
the old settlers it
is so hot that you can
fry fish on the
sidewalk in any part of
town and many people
are here with fish to fry
including now
and then a german
carp i am lodging on
top of the washington
monument where i can
overlook things
you cant keep a good bug
from the top of
the column all the time i
am taking my meals with
the specimens in the
smithsonian institution when i
see any one coming i hold
my breath and look like another
specimen but in the
capitol building there
is no attention paid to me
because there are so
many other insects
around it gives you a
great idea of the
american people when you
see some of the
things they elect after july
27 address me care
st elizabeth hospital
for the insane i am going out
there for a visit with
some of your other
contributors
archy
ballade of the under side
by archy
the roach that scurries
skips and runs
may read far more than those
that fly
i know what family skeletons
within your closets
swing and dry
not that i ever
play the spy
but as in corners
dim i bide
i can t dodge knowledge
though i try
i see things from
the under side
the lordly ones the
haughty ones
with supercilious
heads held high
the up stage stiff
pretentious guns
miss much that meets
my humbler eye
not that i meddle
perk or pry
but i m too small
to feel great pride
and as the pompous world
goes by
i see things from
the under side
above me wheel
the stars and suns
but humans shut
me from the sky
you see their eyes as pure
as nuns
i see their wayward
feet and sly
i own and own it with
a sigh
my point of view
is somewhat wried
i am a pessimistic
guy
i see things from the
under side
l envoi
prince ere you pull a bluff
and lie
before you fake
and play the snide
consider whether
archy s nigh
i see things from
the under side
archy wants to end it all
well boss from time
to time i just simply
get bored with having
to be a cockroach my
soul my real ego if
you get what i mean is
tired of being shut
up in an insects body the
best you can say for it is that it
is unusual and you could
say as much for mumps so
while feeling gloomy the
other night the thought came
to me why not
go on to the next stage as
soon as possible why not
commit suicide and
maybe be reincarnated in
some higher form of life why
not be the captain of my
soul the master of my fate and
the more i pondered over it the
more i was attracted to
the notion well boss you would
be surprised to find
out how hard it is for a
cockroach to commit suicide unless
you have been one
and tried it of course i
could let mehitabel the
cat damage me and die that
way but all my finer sensibilities
revolt at the idea i jumped out
the fourth story window and
a wind caught me and blew
me into the eighth story i
tried to hang myself with a
thread and i am so light i
just swung back and forth and
didnt even choke myself shooting
is out of the question and poison
is not within
my reach i might drown myself
in the ink well but if
you ever got a mouthful of it you
would know it was a
thing no refined person could go
on with boss i am going to
end it all before long and i
want to go easy have you
any suggestion yours
for transmigration
archy
book review
boss a new book
has appeared
which should be
read by every one
it is entitled
the cockroach
its life history
and how to deal
with it and
the author
is frederick laing
who is assistant
in the department
of entomology in the
british museum
of natural history
it is one of the
best books i ever
tasted i am eating
the binding from
a copy with
a great deal of
relish and
recommend it
to all other
insects yours
truly
archy
he used to be a pet of charlemagne
archy and the old un
one of the saddest
creatures i ever saw
was a turtle who said
he was a thousand
years old
no turtle looks very
joyous the style of
architecture peculiar
to the faces and necks of
turtles is such
that even if they were to
feel gay internally
they would find difficulty
in expressing their joy
a kind of melancholy dwells
in the wrinkles of a
turtles neck the only thing
that looks sadder than a turtle
is the little dead fish
that is served in an italian
tabledhote restaurant
well this turtle i am telling you
about was so old that
he used to be a pet
of charlemagne
and he finally committed suicide
he stood on his hind
legs and jumped up
and bit himself on the
forehead and held on until
he died
i wrote a poem
about this turtle
after his death
which goes as follows
why did he die perhaps he knew
too much about
the ways of men and turtles
he had seen too much no doubt
optimist in youth of course
youth never quails
he preached to all his brother turtles
moral turtles turn to whales
but the weary ages passed
and he perceived
turtles still continued turtles
then he doubted disbelieved
brooding for two hundred years
in discontent
he became a snapping turtle
savage cynic in his bent
timon of the turtle tribe
so he withdrew
from the world remarking often
piffle there is nothing true
nothing changes all the salt
that used to be
scattered widely through the ocean
still gives flavor to the sea
nothing changes all the bunk
of long ago
still is swallowed by the nations
progress always stubs its toe
the moral well the morals quite
an easy one
do not live to be a thousand
youll be sorry ere youre done
the only way boss
to keep hope in the world
is to keep changing its
population frequently
i am sorry to be so
pessimistic today
but you see i need a change
very badly
when do we start
for hollywood
i am eager to be gone
i wish to cheer myself
up in some fashion
your faithful little
cockroach
archibald
archygrams
the wood louse sits on a splinter
and sings to the rising sap
aint it awful how winter
lingers in springtimes lap
it is a good
thing not to be too
aristocratic
the oldest and
most pedigreed
families in this
country are the
occupants of various sarcophagi
in the museums
but it is dull associating
with mummies no
matter how royal their
blood used to be when
they had blood
it is like living in
philadelphia
honesty is a good
thing but
it is not profitable to
its possessor
unless it is
kept under control
if you are not
honest at all
everybody hates you
and if you are
absolutely honest
you get martyred.
as i was crawling
through the holes in
a swiss cheese
the other
day it occurred to
me to wonder
what a swiss cheese
would think if
a swiss cheese
could think and after
cogitating for some
time i said to myself
if a swiss cheese
could think
it would think that
a swiss cheese
was the most important
thing in the world
just as everything that
can think at all
does think about itself
these anarchists that
are going to
destroy organized
society and civilization
and everything remind
me of an ant i
knew one time
he was a big red ant a
regular bull of an
ant and he came bulging down a
garden path and ran
into a stone gate post curses on
you said the ant to the
stone gate post get out of my
way but the stone never budged
i will kick you over
said the ant and he kicked but
it only hurt his hind legs
well then said
the ant i will eat you down and
he began taking little bites
in a great rage maybe i said
you will do it in
time but it will
spoil your digestion first
a good many
failures are happy
because they don t
realize it many a
cockroach believes
himself as beautiful
as a butterfly
have a heart o have
a heart and
let them dream on
boss i believe
that the
millennium will
get here some day
but i could
compile quite a list
of persons
who will have
to go
first
tis very seldom i have felt
drawn to a scallop or a smelt
and still more rarely do i feel
the oyster is useful in his fashion
but has little pride or passion
when the proud ibexes start from sleep
in the early alpine morns
at once from crag to crag they leap
alighting on their horns
and may a dozen times rebound
ere resting haughty on the ground
i do not like their trivial pride
nor think them truly dignified
did you ever
notice that when
a politician
does get an idea
he usually
gets it all wrong
archy says
one queer thing about
spring gardens is
that so many people
use them to
raise spinach in
instead of food
everybody has two kinds of friends
one kind tries to run
his affairs for him
and the other kind
well i will be darned if i can remember
the other kind
now and then
there is a person born
who is so unlucky
that he runs into accidents
which started out to happen
to somebody else
what kind of angels are they out there
sings of los angeles
boss i see by
the papers there
has been more than
one unconventional
episode
in the far west
and i have made
a little song
as follows
los angeles
los angeles
the home of the movie star
what kind of angels
are they
out there where you are
los angeles
los angeles
much must be left
untold
but science says
that freuds rush in
where angels
fear to tread
los angeles
los angeles
clean up your
movie game
or else o city of angels
you better
change your name
yours for all the morality
that the traffic
will bear
archy
wants to go in the movies
boss i wish you would
make arrangements to put me
into the movies a
lot of people who are no
handsomer in the face than i
am are drawing millions of
dollars a year i
have always felt that i
could act if i
were given the chance and a
truly refined cockroach might
be a novelty but do not pay
any attention to the
wishes of mehitabel the cat along
this line mehitabel
told me the other day that several
firms were bidding against
each other for her
services i would be the greatest
feline vamp in the
history of the screen said
mehitabel wot the hell archy
wot the hell ain t i a
reincarnation of cleopatra and
dont the vamp stuff come quite
natural to me i will say it
does but i have refused all
offers archy up to
date they must pay me
my price the
truth is that mehitabel hasnt a
chance and she is not a
steady character by the way
here is a piece of political news
for you mehitabel tells me that
the cats in greenwich
village and the adjoining
neighborhoods are forming soviets now
they are going in for bolshevism
her soviet she says
meets in washington mews
they are for the nationalization
of all fish markets
archy
140 degrees
the retreat from hollywood
Archy, the Free Verse Cockroach, and Mehitabel the Cat, are on their way back from Hollywood, hitch-hiking. Mehitabel was forcibly ejected at least twice from every moving-picture studio in Hollywood, and nourishes animosity against the art of the cinema. Archy reports that when they left Hollywood Mehitabel and seven platinum-blonde kittens, who were attempting to follow her across the desert … but here is the latest bulletin from Archy:
mehitabels third kitten succumbed
to a scorpion today
poor little thing she said
i suppose the next one will perish
in a sandstorm and the next one
fall into the colorado river
it breaks my heart i am all