The Best of Archy and Mehitabel (4 page)

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 osiris

says the princely raisin

and by pish and phthush and phthah

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

it being the only time

i ever actually saw anybody

put the cough

into sarcophagus

dear boss as i scurry about

i hear of a great many

tragedies in our midsts

personally i yearn

for some dear friend to pass over

and leave to me

a boot legacy

yours for the second coming

of gambrinus

archy

i heard a spider

and a fly arguing

wait said the fly

do not eat me

i serve a great purpose

in the world

you will have to

show me said the spider

i scurry around

gutters and sewers

and garbage cans

said the fly and gather

up the germs of

typhoid influenza

and pneumonia on my feet

and wings

then i carry these germs

into the households of men

and give them diseases

all the people who

have lived the right

sort of life recover

from the diseases

and the old soaks who

have weakened their systems

with liquor and iniquity

succumb it is my mission

to help rid the world

of these wicked persons

i am a vessel of righteousness

scattering seeds of justice

and serving the noblest uses

it is true said the spider

that you are more

useful in a plodding

material sort of way

than i am but i do not

serve the utilitarian deities

i serve the gods of beauty

look at the gossamer webs

i weave they float in the sun

like filaments of song

if you get what i mean

i do not work at anything

i play all the time

i am busy with the stuff

of enchantment and the materials

of fairyland my works

transcend utility

i am the artist

a creator and a demi god

it is ridiculous to suppose

that i should be denied

the food i need in order

to continue to create

beauty i tell you

plainly mister fly it is all

damned nonsense for that food

to rear up on its hind legs

and say it should not be eaten

you have convinced me

said the fly say no more

and shutting all his eyes

he prepared himself for dinner

and yet he said i could

have made out a case

for myself too if i had

had a better line of talk

of course you could said the spider

clutching a sirloin from him

but the end would have been

just the same if neither of

us had spoken at all

boss i am afraid that what

the spider said is true

and it gives me to think

furiously upon the futility

of literature

archy

the high cost of

living isn t so bad if you

don t have to pay for it i met

a flea the other day who

was grinning all over

himself why so merry why so

merry little bolshevik i asked him

i have just come from a swell

dog show he said i have

been lunching off a dog that was

worth at least one hundred

dollars a pound you should be

ashamed to brag about it i said with so

many insects and humans on

short rations in the world today the

public be damned he said i

take my own where i find it those are

bold words i told him i am a bold

person he said and bold words are

fitting for me it was

only last thursday that i marched

bravely into the zoo

and bit a lion what did he do i asked

he lay there and took it said

the flea what else could he do he knew i

had his number and it was

little use to struggle some day i said

even you will be conquered terrible as

you are who will do it he

said the mastodons are all dead and i

am not afraid of any mere

elephant i asked him how about a microbe and

he turned pale as he thought it

over there is always some

little thing that is too

big for us every

goliath has his david and so on ad finitum

but what said the flea is the

terror of the smallest microbe of all

he i said is afraid of a vacuum what is

there in a vacuum to make one afraid

said the flea there is nothing in it

i said and that is what makes one

afraid to contemplate it a person

can t think of a place with nothing at

all in it without going nutty and if he

tries to think that nothing is

something after all he gets nuttier you are

too subtle for me said the

flea i never took much stock in being

scared of hypodermic propositions or

hypothetical injections i am

going to have dinner off a

man eating tiger if a vacuum gets

me i will try and send you word

before the worst comes to

the worst some people i told him inhabit

a vacuum all their lives and

never know it then he said it don t

hurt them any no i said it don t but it

hurts people who have to associate

with them and with these words

we parted each feeling

superior to the other and is not that

feeling after all one of the great

desiderata of social intercourse

archy

i met a toad

the other day by the name

of warty bliggens

he was sitting under

a toadstool

feeling contented

he explained that when the cosmos

was created

that toadstool was especially

planned for his personal

shelter from sun and rain

thought out and prepared

for him

do not tell me

said warty bliggens

that there is not a purpose

in the universe

the thought is blasphemy

a little more

conversation revealed

that warty bliggens

considers himself to be

the center of the said

universe

the earth exists

to grow toadstools for him

to sit under

the sun to give him light

by day and the moon

and wheeling constellations

to make beautiful

the night for the sake of

warty bliggens

to what act of yours

do you impute

this interest on the part

of the creator

of the universe

i asked him

why is it that you

are so greatly favored

ask rather

said warty bliggens

what the universe

has done to deserve me

if i were a

human being i would

not laugh

too complacently

at poor warty bliggens

for similar

absurdities

have only too often

lodged in the crinkles

of the human cerebrum

archy

back to the city archy

and dam glad of it

there s something about the suburbs

that gets on a town lady s nerves

fat slick tabbies

sitting around those country clubs

and lapping up the cream

of existence

none of that for me

give me the alley archy

me for the mews and the roofs

of the city

an occasional fish head

and liberty is all i ask

freedom and the garbage can

romance archy romance is the word

maybe i do starve sometimes

but wotthehell archy wotthehell

i live my own life

i met a slick looking torn

out at one of these long island

spotless towns

he fell for me hard

he slipped me into the

pantry and just as we had got

the icebox door open and were

about to sample the cream

in comes his mistress

why fluffy she says to this slicker

the idea of you making

friends with a horrid creature like that

and what did fluffy do

stand up for me like a gentleman

make good on all the promises