The Best of Archy and Mehitabel Read Online Free Page B

unprotected young tabby
    where is the little love nest you spoke
    of i asked him
    you go and lie down there i said
    and maybe you can incubate another ear
    because i am going to take one of
    yours right off now
    and with those words i made ribbons
    out of it you are the guy
    i said to him that was going to give
    me an easy life sheltered from all
    the rough ways of the world
    fluffy dear you don t know what the
    rough ways of the world are
    and i am going to show you
    i have got you out here
    in the great open spaces
    where cats are cats
    and im gonna make you understand
    the affections of a lady ain t to be
    trifled with by any slicker like you
    where is that red ribbon with the
    silver bells you promised me
    the next time you betray the trust
    of an innocent female
    reflect on whether she may
    carry a wallop little fiddle strings
    this is just a mild lesson i am giving
    you tonight i said as i took
    the fur off his back and you oughta
    be glad you didn t make me really
    angry my sense of dignity is all that
    saves you a lady little sweetness
    never loses her poise and i thank god
    i am always a lady even if i do
    live my own life and with that i
    picked him up by what was left of
    his neck like a kitten and laid him
    on the doormat slumber gently and
    sweet dreams fluffy dear i said and
    when you get well make it a rule of
    your life never to trifle with another
    girlish confidence i have been
    abducted again and again by a dam
    sight better cats than he ever was
    or will be
    well archy the world is full of ups
    and downs but toujours gai is my motto
    cheerio my deario
    archy

the wail of archy
    damned be this transmigration
    doubledamned be the boob pythagoras
    the gink that went and invented it
    i hope that his soul for a thousand
    turns of the wheel of existence
    bides in the shell of a louse
    dodging a fine toothed comb
    i once was a vers libre poet
    i died and my spirit migrated
    into the flesh of a cockroach
    gods how i yearn to be human
    neither a vers libre poet
    nor yet the inmate of a cockroach
    a six footed scurrying cockroach
    given to bastard hexameters
    longfellowish sprawling hexameters
    rather had i been a starfish
    to shoot a heroic pentameter
    gods i am pent in a cockroach
    i with the soul of a dante
    am mate and companion of fleas
    i with the gift of a homer
    must smile when a mouse calls me pal
    tumble bugs are my familiars
    this is the punishment meted
    because i have written vers libre
    here i abide in the twilight
    neither a man nor an insect
    and ghosts of the damned that await
    a word from the core of the cosmos
    to pop into bodies grotesque
    are all the companions i have
    with intellect more than a bug s
    ghosts of the damned under sentence
    to crawl into maggots and live there
    or work out a stretch as a rat
    cheerful companions to pal with
    i with the brain of a milton
    fell into the mincemeat at christmas
    and was damned near baked in a pie
    i with the touch of a chaucer
    to be chivvied out of a sink
    float through a greasy drain pipe
    into the hell of a sewer
    i with the tastes of a byron
    expected to live upon garbage
    gods what a charnel existence
    curses upon that pythagoras
    i hope that he dwells for a million
    turns of the wheel of life
    deep in an oyster crab s belly
    stewed in the soup of gehenna
    i with the soul of a hamlet
    doomed always to wallow in farce
    yesterday maddened with sorrow
    i leapt from the woolworth tower
    in an effort to dash out my brains
    gods what a wretched pathetic
    and anti climactic attempt

    fell into the mincemeat at christmas
    i fluttered i floated i drifted
    i landed as light as a feather
    on the top of a bald man s head
    whose hat had blown off at the corner
    and all of the hooting hundreds
    laughed at the comic cockroach
    not mine was the suicide s solace
    of a dull thud ending it all
    gods what a terrible tragedy
    not to make good with the tragic
    gods what a heart breaking pathos
    to be always doomed to the comic
    o make me a cockroach entirely
    or make