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beetles mice alley cats
    turtles snails tadpoles
    etcetera
    and while they were waiting
    they were as cross as all get out
    i remember talking to one of them
    who had just worked his way
    upward again he had been in the
    body of a flea and he was going
    into a cat fish
    you would think he might be
    grateful for the promotion
    but not he
    i do not call this much of an advance
    he said why could i not
    be a humming bird or something
    kid i told him it will
    take you a million years to work your
    way up to a humming bird
    when i remember he said
    that i used to be a hat check boy
    in a hotel i could
    spend a million years weeping
    to think that i should come to this
    we have all seen better days i said
    we have all come down in the world
    you have not come down as far
    as some of us
    if i ever get to be a hat check boy
    again he said i will sting
    somebody for what i have had to suffer
    that remark will probably cost you
    another million years among
    the lower creatures i told him
    transmigration is a great thing
    if you do not weaken
    personally my ambition is to get
    my time as a cockroach shortened for
    good behavior and be promoted
    to a revenue officer
    it is not much of a step up but
    i am humble
    i never ran across any of this
    ectoplasm that sir arthur
    conan doyle tells of but it sounds
    as if it might be wonderful
    stuff to mend broken furniture with
    archy

unjust
    poets are always asking
    where do the little roses go
    underneath the snow
    but no one ever thinks to say
    where do the little insects stay
    this is because
    as a general rule
    roses are more handsome
    than insects
    beauty gets the best of it
    in this world
    i have heard people
    say how wicked it was
    to kill our feathered
    friends
    in order to get
    their plumage and pinions
    for the hats of women
    and all the while
    these same people
    might be eating duck
    as they talked
    the chances are
    that it is just as discouraging
    to a duck to have
    her head amputated
    in order to become
    a stuffed roast fowl
    and decorate a dining table
    as it is for a bird
    of gayer plumage
    to be bumped
    off the running board of existence
    to furnish plumage
    for a lady s hat
    but the duck
    does not get the sympathy
    because the duck
    is not beautiful
    the only insect
    that succeeds in getting
    mourned is a moth
    or butterfly
    whereas every man s
    heel is raised against
    the spider
    and it is getting harder
    and harder for spiders
    to make an honest living
    at that since
    human beings have invented
    so many ways
    of killing flies
    humanity will shed poems
    full of tears
    over the demise of
    a bounding doe
    or a young gazelle
    but the departure of a trusty
    camel leaves the
    vast majorities
    stonily indifferent
    perhaps the theory is
    that god would not have made
    the camel so ugly
    if the camel were not wicked
    alas exclamation point
    the pathos of ugliness
    is only perceived
    by us cockroaches of the world
    and personally
    i am having to stand for a lot
    i am getting it double
    as you might say
    before my soul
    migrated into the body
    of a cockroach
    it inhabited the carcase
    of a vers libre poet
    some vers libre poets are beautiful
    but i was not
    i had a little blond mustache
    that every one thought was a mistake
    and yet since i have died
    i have thought of that
    with regret
    it hung over a mouth
    that i found it difficult to keep closed
    because of adenoidal trouble
    but it would have been better
    if i could have kept it closed
    because the teeth within
    were out of alignment
    and were of odd sizes
    this destroyed my acoustics
    as you might say
    my chin was nothing much
    and knew it
    and timidly shrank
    into itself
    receding from the battle of life
    my eyes were all right
    but my eyebrows
    were scarcely noticeable
    i suppose though that if
    i had had noticeable eyebrows
    they would have been wrong
    somehow
    well well not to pursue
    this painful subject
    to the uttermost and ultimate
    wart and freckle
    i was not handsome and it hampered
    me when i was a human
    it militated