mark what i wouldn t give for uninterrupted
access to a computer keyboard with
its easy action keys soft on the chitinous
noggin floating cursor delete capabilities
et cyber cetera but your office is also
the last one to keep a supply of white paste handy
on which i subsist so qed
anyhow don t mind my griping
the news i got is more important
than personal complaints
it s all tied up with mehitabel
natch ain t she always at the heart
of most of my news question mark
now you know the history of this
bad cat what she has done or what
hasn t she done in her long
scroungy irresponsible life
of racketing up and down the alleys
and boulevards of this mean old town
plus paris france and other environs
from past lives even when she claimed
to be cleopatra and sundry other
high class gals who weren t around anymore
to refute her outrageous claims
and in every situation her motto has been
open quote toujours gai close quote
which she has never been slow
to back up with a sharp set of claws and
matching razor teeth
but mehitabel finally met her predestined
nameless fate which not even high spirits
or a sneaky one two punch could defeat
and that is namely to buy the farm
if by farm you mean a dumpster
behind the ming gardens restaurant
down in chinatown
where radish curls formed her only wreath
and leftover chow mein her bier
that is how i encountered mehitabel
for what i thought was surely the last time
during a little expedition of my own
double dash looking for some cockroach
love if you must know double dash
and i felt like hell at the sight of her
bloody corpse and i cursed all the gods
who had led her to this unseemly end
and who had made me an insect who
couldn t even cry for his best friend
physiologically speaking because i
sure was weeping inside
needless to say the next few weeks were
pretty miserable and grim all
the life seemed to have fled this lousy
burg with mehitabel s untimely exit
i got so down i couldn t even eat paste
and was on the point of withering away
to mayfly weight why not die i said to myself
and maybe get reborn as something better
if not a human poet again then at least
a journalist ha forgive me ha
but nearly on the point of expiring i bethought
me of a pal who might be able to lift
this load of blues off my wings
and that was clarence the ghost
clarence i figured with his access to
astral realms beyond the styx and
unto the farthest starry spheres
might have some comforting dope
on mehitabel s progress in the great hereafter
so i hastened to get in touch with
my spectral pal through a ouija
board inside the games room
of the west side ymca one night
after hours pushing the planchette around
like sisyphus shouldering his boulder and
sure enough clarence materialized
before too long dripping ectoplasm
onto a pile of convenient towels
clarence i yelled without even making
polite noises because after all
the dead are really immune to
such chitchat tell me what you know
about the soul of mehitabel
exclamation point
clarence replied archy i was just
waiting for you to call so i could share
with you the biggest news from hell
since the kaiser kicked napolean s
keister from pit to pit
mehitabel is down there causing
the sweetest stink i ve ever seen
unlike all the other humbled and despairing souls
who capitulate immediately upon finding
themselves in the land of brimstone sulfur and flames
she refuses to kowtow to old nick and his minions
raking her claws across the faces and
flabby behinds of all the lesser demons
assigned to corral her and once
when old nick himself intervened
even scoring a nice set of stripes on his gross gut
she just won t take her licks like he had planned
for her something about being buried
up to her neck inside a ring of catnip
placed just out of reach of her questing
tongue and unless she submits to her
allotted punishments then she will
never get a chance to be reborn
boss i can t tell you how this lifted
my heart knowing mehitabel had maintained
even in hell her indomitable courage
and piss pardon my french
but at the same time i was worried
because who wants to be an eternal rebel
in hell when with just a little
submission
contrition
and endurance
over a subjective eternity or two
you can be reborn into this sad yet delightful
lapcat gangster s moll or nautch dancer
any one of which roles i could easily
envision mehitabel filling and excelling in
clarence i inquired further what will happen
to mehitabel question mark must she give in
or is there another way out for her question mark
the ghost paused and wavered an indication
i knew of deep thought and in fact i could see
firefly neurons firing inside his transparent
head in elaborate cascades of reasoning
well clarence finally said there is me
you i queried
yes me a ghost obviously
i died yet was not reborn
into a mortal carcass
that is an option for some
an escape clause in the celestial
infernal contract inked eons ago
between adam and eve and pinch me
to leave behind either heaven or hell
and stalk the earth in less substantial form
for an indefinite time
i cogitated myself on this option
for a time but something just didn t
jibe between this possibility
and mehitabel s essential nature
then of course it hit me colon
mehitabel was such a carnal creature
a thing of sinews and hormones
juices and bones that existence
as a ghost among mortals double dash
herself airy and nontactile yet
perpetually taunted
with the pleasures
of the flesh double dash
would be a punishment
more cruel than anything old nick
had in store for my friend
i explained all this to clarence and after
some more luminous pinball style mental
efforts on his part he volunteered that there
were other kinds of boggles than ghosts
enumerate i ordered and he did
stop i yelled when he uttered a term
i recognized from my poetaster days
a term w
e bards were fond of using
for certain super seductive inamoratas
that s perfect exclamation point
clarence can you intervene as mediator
between old nick and mehitabel
for friendship s sake and try to strike
this deal i think they’ll both agree
happy to be out of each other s hair
sure said clarence and i ll report back
tomorrow night
boss that twenty four hours crawled by
like a beetle down an endless drain
but somehow i survived the anxiety
and when i got clarence all focused
on our earthly plane i held my breath
it s a done deal he said
and so you see boss
i am ultimately the one responsible
for all those spooky headlines in your own
newspaper lately to wit colon
devil cat alarms midnight frolickers
epidemic of missing felines
dogs frightened barkless
et demonically cetera
for mehitabel you see is now a feline
succubus as corporeal as they come
her fur is lush and seductive her eyes
burning garnets her sleek haunches
perpetually raised high in lordosis
luring tomcats everywhere into
frenzied matings impossible to resist
which leave them pitiful shells
of their former tough yegg selves
and when she s not sexing it up
mehitabel is happily raising cain among all her
old enemies such as phonies swells canines
politicians and cheapskates
Oh yes one final thing colon
the oddest feature of succubi wombs is that
they gestate really quickly
like in about a day so that mehitabel is
regularly dumping half mortal half infernal kittens
by the bushel basket full
and so i would be very careful
boss if you go to adopt any strays
in this town better check first
for a certain sparkle in the eyes
and a tendency to spit acid
archy
Table of Contents
Little Doors
Billy
Moloch
The Grange
Sleep Is Where You Find It
The Horror Writer
My Two Best Friends
The Death of Salvador Dali
Our House
Jack Neck and the Worrybird
Stealing Happy Hours
Singing Each to Each
Rare Firsts
Return to Cockaigne
The Short Ashy Afterlife of Hiram P. Dottle
Slumberland
Mehitabel in Hell