dedicated to babs with babs knows what and babs knows why — Don Marquis

as i was crawling

through the holes in

a swiss cheese

the other

day it occurred to

me to wonder

what a swiss cheese

would think if

a swiss cheese

could think and after

cogitating for some

time i said to myself

if a swiss cheese

could think

it would think that

a swiss cheese

was the most important

thing in the world

just as everything that

can think at all

does think about itself

well boss

mehitabel the cat

has reappeared in her old

haunts with a

flock of kittens

archy she said to me

yesterday

the life of a female

artist is continually

hampered what in hell

have i done to deserve

all these kittens

i look back on my life

and it seems to me to be

just one damned kitten

after another

i am a dancer archy

and my only prayer

is to be allowed

to give my best to my art

but just as i feel

that i am succeeding

in my life work

along comes another batch

of these damned kittens

it is not archy

that i am shy on mother love

god knows i care for

the sweet little things

curse them

but am i never to be allowed

to live my own life

i have purposely avoided

matrimony in the interests

of the higher life

but i might just

as well have been a domestic

slave for all the freedom

i have gained

i hope none of them

gets run over by

an automobile

my heart would bleed

if anything happened

to them and i found it out

but it isn t fair archy

it isn t fair

these damned tom cats have all

the fun and freedom

if i was like some of these

green eyed feline vamps i know

i would simply walk out on the

bunch of them and

let them shift for themselves

but i am not that kind

archy i am full of mother love

my kindness has always

been my curse

a tender heart is the cross i bear

self sacrifice always and forever

is my motto damn them

i will make a home

for the sweet innocent

little things

unless of course providence

in his wisdom should remove

them they are living

just now in an abandoned

garbage can just behind

a made over stable in greenwich

village and if it rained

into the can before i could

get back and rescue them

i am afraid the little

dears might drown

it makes me shudder just

to think of it

of course if i were a family cat

they would probably

be drowned anyhow

sometimes i think

the kinder thing would be

for me to carry the

sweet little things

over to the river

and drop them in myself

but a mother s love archy

is so unreasonable

something always prevents me

these terrible

conflicts are always

presenting themselves

to the artist

the eternal struggle

between art and life archy

is something fierce

yes something fierce

my what a dramatic

life i have lived

one moment up the next

moment down again

but always gay archy always gay

and always the lady too

in spite of hell

well boss it will

be interesting to note

just how mehitabel

works out her present problem

a dark mystery still broods

over the manner

in which the former

family of three kittens

disappeared

one day she was talking to me

of the kittens

and the next day when i asked

her about them

she said innocently

what kittens

interrogation point

and that was all

i could ever get out

of her on the subject

we had a heavy rain

right after she spoke to me

but probably that garbage can

leaks so the kittens

have not yet

been drowned

i

have often noticed that

ancestors never boast

the descendants who boast

of ancestors i would

rather start a family than

one blood will tell but often

it tells too much