respectfully
OCTOBER 20
Crazy as a Bed Bug
boss i heard another
cockroach say after
reading your stuff that you
were as crazy as a
bed bug1 i said to him
my boss may be crazy
but a bed bug is not
crazy a bed bug
is the calmest of insects
cool
self possessed
practical
pragmatic
efficient
he has very little
idealism
and almost no
sense of honor
he has a quite
unpleasant
personality
he has never been
touched by the
fine grace of romance
he is essentially
materialistic
and a plodder
but he attains
his object with the
utmost skill
and makes his escape
with a deal of
cleverness
and low cunning
the solid
earthy
unimaginative
qualities are his
deny the bed bug
great spiritual
power and i
will agree with you
but you are
quite wrong in calling
him crazy the
bed bug is anything
but crazy well you are
crazy said this
cockroach i should
rather be called insane
i answered
than stupid
but he did not
get me
NOVEMBER 1
Random Thoughts by Archy
one thing that
shows that
insects are
superior to men
is the fact that
insects run their
affairs without
political campaigns
elections and so forth
a man thinks
he amounts to a lot
but to a mosquito
a man is
merely
something to eat
i have noticed
that when
chickens quit
quarrelling over their
food they often
find that there is
enough for all of them
i wonder if
it might not
be the same way
with the
human race
germs are very
objectionable to men
but a germ
thinks of a man
as only the swamp
in which
he has to live
a louse i
used to know
told me that
millionaires and
bums tasted
about alike
to him
the trouble with
most people is
that they
lose their sense of
proportion
of what use is
it for a
queen bee to fall in
love with a bull
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
NOVEMBER 12
I Saw a Football Game
some people get
hotter cussing the
coal situation
than they could
get by burning
tons of coal
i saw a football
game last saturday if
men were to see a
lot of insects
milling around like
that they would
say how silly
insects are anyhow
1921
JANUARY 15
No Privacy
in reply to all
the clamor and queries
as to where i
have been and what i
have been doing i will
make but two
comments the
first one is can a
public character have no
privacy at all and the
second is why should not
even a cockroach take a rest
JANUARY 21
This Lenin Person
this lenin person1
seems to be the
most active hero in
captivity in the course
of one week he has
been bombed poisoned
and become insane he has resigned
died a natural
death confessed
everything denied all
given up in despair
and planned
four new offensives
i will say he is
active i
never knew of but
one more active creature
that was a chameleon
with whom i was
acquainted i
met him one day looking
rather fatigued and
pale not to say
washed out well joe
i said to him for his
name was joe
you look a little peaked
today what is the
chief trouble archy he
said i am worn out i
admit i have been
too active lately
a week ago i fell into
a kaleidoscope
belonging to a seven year old
kid and i couldn t get
out it was a favorite
toy of that child s and
he has been looking into
it and turning it ever
since for one whole
week archy i
have been what you
might call active but
i have been faithful to my
duty i have kept up
with that kaleidoscope
color for color and change
for change it has made
a nervous wreck of me but
i have not shirked my
duty this morning
thank god the thing was stepped
on and broken and i
made my escape
it strikes me that
lenin will wear himself
out like that
chameleon if he is
too ambitious he ought to
rest up for a week
stick to carbuncles or
some one thing for a while
and take it easy
MAY 2
Organizing the Insects
where have i been so long
you ask me
i have been going up
and down like the devil
seeking what i might devour
i am hungry always hungry
and in the end i shall
eat everything
all the world shall come at
last to the multitudinous maws
of insects
a civilization perishes
before the tireless teeth
of little little germs
ha ha i have thrown off the mask
at last
you thought i was only
an archy
but i am more than that
i am anarchy
where have i been you ask
i have been organizing the insects
the ants the worms the wasps
the bees the cockroaches
the mosquitoes
for a revolt against mankind
i have declared war
&nbs
p; upon humanity
i even i shall fling
the mighty atom
that splits a planet asunder
i ride the microbe
that crashes down olympus
where have i been you ask me where
i am jove and from my seat
on the edge of a bowl of beef stew
i launch the thunderous
molecule
that smites a cosmos into bits
where have i been you ask
but you had better ask
who follows in my train
there is an ant
a desert ant a tamerlane1
who ate a pyramid in rage
that he might get at and devour
the mummies of six hundred
kings who in remote
antiquity had stepped upon
and crushed ascendants of his
my myrmidons2
are trivial things
and they have always ruled
the world
and now they shall strike down mankind
i shall show you how
a solar system
pivots on the nubbin
of a flageolet bean
i shall show you how a blood clot
moving in a despots brain
flung a hundred million men
to death and disease
and plunged a planet into woe
for twice a hundred years
we have the key
to the fourth dimension
for we know the little things
that swim and swarm
in protoplasm
i can show you love and hate
and the future
dreaming side by side
in a cell
in the little cells where
matter is so fine it merges
into spirit
you ask me where i have been
but you had better
ask me where i am
and what
i have been drinking
exclamation point
MAY 19
The Cockroach Its Life History
boss a new book
has appeared
which should be
read by every one
it is entitled
the cockroach
its life history1
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
JUNE 16
My Private Comet
several persons have
asked me during
the last few days have
you seen the comet1
and my answer has been
seen it why
i rode on it
that is how i got
back here after my
travels it is my private
comet i park
it up there and it
waits until i am ready
to go somewhere
else ask me something
different
AUGUST 16
Dodo Birds and Cubist Posters
i saw a piece in the
paper not long ago where
you said the sea
serpent is no longer to be
seen i doubt if this is
strictly true i
was down by the water
front the other day and
overheard the
conversation of a couple of
gentlemen who had
just returned from a
visit to one of the
hooch ships out beyond the
twelve mile line they
had spent several days
on board and one of them
had seen the flying
dutchman scoot by in a
dead calm filled with
dodo birds and cubist posters
and the other one
said he missed that but he
had seen something
equally as good as he would have
called it a sea
serpent he said but that
it started to talk to
him it is my own
opinion that the
hooch boats are bringing
back the romance
to navigation
yours for the
amphibious life
AUGUST 18
To Become Grasshoppers
i was talking
with an insect the
other day about the
hard times that
cockroaches have to
get a living every
mans hand is against them
and occasionally his
foot meals
are few and far between
why in the world
says this
insect do you not
go to the country and become
grasshoppers if
living in town and being
cockroaches is getting
too difficult for you
i was astonished
at the simplicity of the
solution but as i
thought it over it occurred
to me that
perhaps it sounded more
statesmanlike than it
really was
how i asked him are
cockroaches to become
grasshoppers
that is a mere
detail he said which i
leave to you for
solution i have outlined
the general scheme for your
salvation so do not ask
me to settle the mere
that you must do
something for yourself
we philosophers cannot do it all
for you unaided you
must learn self help
but alas i fear that
your inherent stupidity will
balk all efforts
to improve your condition
boss i offer you
this little story
for what it is worth
if you are able to
find in it something
analogous to a number
of easy schemes
for the improvement of the
human race you
may do immense good by
printing it
yours for reform
SEPTEMBER 13
Ku Klux Klam
i dropped into
a clam chowder the
other evening
for a warm bath and
a bite to eat
and i heard a couple of
clams talking
it seems that they
are sore on the
oyster family and
have formed an
organization to
do away with them
they call it the
ku klux klam1
yours for the frequent stew
SEPTEMBER 19
O City of Angels
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
SEPTEMBER 20
Archy Turns Highbrow for a Minute
boss please let me
be highbrow for
a minute i
have just been eating
my way through some of
the books on your desk
and i have digested two of them
and it occurs to me
that antoninus the emperor
and epictetus the slave
arrived at the same
philosophy of life
that there is neither mastery
nor slavery
except as it exists
in the attitude of the soul
toward the world
thank you for listening
to a poor little
cockroach
OCTOBER 5
Krew Krux Kranks1
i went into a
barber shop the other
day where a lady
was having her little
girl s hair cut
and her husband was
getting shaved in the
next chair
in walked two
members of a patriotic
organization called the
krew krux kranks
with masks on and
carrying american flags
one of them seized a razor
and severed the
jugular vein of the
man in the chair who was
getting shaved saying
as he did so there now
mister bill billups i
reckon you will no longer
trouble the swiggles
of the insolvent empire2
goodness gracious said the
lady that man
you have just sliced in two
at the neck was not
mister bill billups
at all i saw mister
bill billups getting off
a street car just five
minutes ago that man
you have just sliced in two
was mister pete perkins
and my husband
boo hoo hoo now i
am a widow
great guns said the
krew krux krank