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 A tentative blog to test the temperature. |
| Archy and Mehitabel Many moons ago, when the earth was young and blogging even younger, I was a chameleon that posted fairly often in one of those dreaded weblogs. At times I would bemoan my fate but, if truth were known, other creatures struggled through far greater difficulties to communicate through the medium of writing. Which thought always brings to my mind the delightful Archy and Mehitabel. Archy was a free verse poet reborn in the form of a cockroach in the early twentieth century. Mehitabel was a cat of Archy’s acquaintance. They were the creation of Don Marquis, a journalist of genius, and the best way to explain how he met Archy is by repeating his own recording of the occasion: We came into our room earlier than usual in the morning, and discovered a gigantic cockroach jumping about upon the keys. He did not see us and we watched him. He would climb painfully upon the framework of the machine and cast himself with all his force upon a key, head downward, and his weight and the impact of the blow were just sufficient to operate the machine, one slow letter after another. He could not work the capital letters, and he had a great deal of difficulty operating the mechanism that shifts the paper so that a fresh line may be started. We never saw a cockroach work so hard or perspire so freely in all our lives before. After about an hour of this frightfully difficult literary labor he fell to the floor exhausted, and we saw him creep feebly into a nest of the poems which are always there in profusion. Congratulating ourself that we had left a sheet of paper in the machine the night before so that all this work had not been in vain, we made an examination, and this is what we found: expression is the need of my soul I was once a vers libre bard but I died and my soul went into the body of a cockroach it has given me a new outlook upon life I see things from the under side now thank you for the apple peelings in the wastepaper basket but your paste is getting so stale i cant eat it there is a cat here at night i wish you would have removed she nearly ate me the other night why dont she catch rats that is what she is supposed to be for there is a rat here she should get without delay most of these rats here are just rats but this rat is like me he has a human soul in him he used to be a poet himself night after night i have written poetry for you on your typewriter and this big brute of a rat who used to be a poet comes out of his hole when it is done and reads it and sniffs at it he is jealous of my poetry he used to make fun of it when we were both human he was a punk poet himself and after he has read it he sneers and then he eats it i wish you would have that cat kill that rat or get a cat that is onto her job and i will write you a series of poems showing how things look to a cockroach that rats name used to be freddy the next time freddy dies i hope he wont be a rat but something smaller i hope i will be the rat in the next transmigration and freddy the cockroach i will teach him to sneer at my poetry then dont you ever eat any sandwiches in your office i havent had a crumb of bread for i dont know how long or a piece of ham or anything but apple parings and paste leave a piece of paper in your machine every night you can call me archy After that, Archy published many of his poems through the medium of Don’s typewriter and they made the journalist an international celebrity. He is, perhaps, one of the greatest of American writers, yet I find that his fame is slipping away and few indeed are those who remember him now. This little post is made in the hope of stemming that progression at least a little. Here’s one of my favourites of Archy’s poems: Pete the Parrot and Shakespeare i got acquainted with a parrot named pete recently who is an interesting bird pete says he used to belong to the fellow that ran the mermaid tavern in london then i said you must have known shakespeare know him said pete poor mutt i knew him well he called me pete and i called him bill but why do you say poor mutt well said pete bill was a disappointed man and was always boring his friends about what he might have been and done if he only had a fair break two or three pints of sack and sherris and the tears would trickle down into his beard and his beard would get soppy and wilt his collar i remember one night when bill and ben johnson and frankie beaumont were sopping it up here i am ben says bill nothing but a lousy playwright and with anything like luck in the breaks i might have been a fairly decent sonnet writer i might have been a poet if i had kept away from the theatre yes says ben i ve often thought of that bill but one consolation is you are making pretty good money out of the theatre money money says bill what the hell is money what i want is to be a poet not a business man these damned cheap shows i turn out to keep the theatre running break my heart slap stick comedies and blood and thunder tragedies and melodramas say i wonder if that boy heard you order another bottle frankie the only compensation is that i get a chance now and then to stick in a little poetry when nobody is looking but hells bells that isn t what i want to do i want to write sonnets and songs and spenserian stanzas and i might have done it too if i hadn t got into this frightful show game business business business grind grind grind what a life for a man that might have been a poet well says frankie beaumont why don t you cut it bill i can t says bill i need the money i ve got a family to support down in the country well says frankie anyhow you write pretty good plays bill any mutt can write plays for this london public says bill if he puts enough murder in them what they want is kings talking like kings never had sense enough to talk and stabbings and stranglings and fat men making love and clowns basting each other with clubs and cheap puns and off color allusions to all the smut of the day oh i know what the low brows want and i give it to them well says ben johnson don t blubber into the drink brace up like a man and quit the rotten business i can t i can t says bill i ve been at it too long i ve got to the place now where i can t write anything else but this cheap stuff i m ashamed to look an honest young sonneteer in the face i live a hell of a life i do the manager hands me some mouldy old manuscript and says bill here s a plot for you this is the third of the month by the tenth i want a good script out this that we can start rehearsals on not too big a cast and not too much of your damned poetry either you know your old familiar line of hokum they eat up that falstaff stuff of yours ring him in again and give them a good ghost or two and remember we gotta have something dick burbage can get his teeth into and be sure and stick in a speech somewhere the queen will take for a personal compliment and if you get in a line or two somewhere about the honest english yeoman it s always good stuff and it s a pretty good stunt bill to have the heavy villain a moor or a dago or a jew or something like that and say i want another comic welshman in this but i don t need to tell you bill you know this game just some of your ordinary hokum and maybe you could kill a little kid or two a prince or something they like a little pathos along with the dirt now you better see burbage tonight and see what he wants in that part oh says bill to think i am debasing my talents with junk like that oh god what i wanted was to be a poet and write sonnet serials like a gentleman should well says i pete bill s plays are highly esteemed to this day is that so says pete poor mutt little he would care what poor bill wanted was to be a poet archy Absolutely delightful stuff (and a demonstration of how libre vers libre can be). But don’t stop there. Read more of Don’s wonderful invention at his site, http://donmarquis.com/ . Be a part of this great American’s continuing fame. Word count: 1,588 |
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