ARCHY’S CHRISTMAS MESSAGE
In 1916, an American columnist by the name of Don Marquis created a cockroach called Archy who had been a free verse poet in a previous incarnation. The cockroach immediately began writing stories and poems in Marquis’s newspaper office, hopping onto a typewriter every night after the staff had left.
Archy was too weak and small to use capitals as they required jumping on the shift key while simultaneously pressing down the letter key. Nevertheless, the cockroach was still able to bang out messages on the typewriters of the past, and now on computers today.
In fact, the ageless Archy recently managed to bang out his thoughts on Christmas this year to share them with Doppler readers.
Have a wonderful holiday, folks, be kind to everybody at Christmas, and not least to those beloved little critters callously called cockroaches!
~John McTavish
archy s christmas message
forgive my species
a spindly old
cockroach i am
archy is my name
i once was a free verse poet
but when i
died my soul
was cruelly
transmogrified
now I m so
weak and small
i can hardly press
down no I can t
press at all
the keys that
make letters big
and add the marks that
punctuate
still I hop in
here every night
and have a ball
jumping on the
editor s computer
who cares whether
it s art or not
so long as the
message gets
across
and the message of
my poem tonight is
blazed throughout
the land it s
peace and love and joy
and all good things
linked somehow with
the name of
that little
boy
i wonder did
god in bethlehem
feel as I do now
i who once was so
handsome and tall
boy did the girls
of pompeii love me
i wish I could
do exclamation
marks
and here I am today
so small and lowly
i mean who
tips their hat
to a tiny bug
but it s comforting
to note that the
lord was once
small like
me
born amongst the
poor and the tiny
and he didn t bail
out the moment
things got rough
no he stayed right
with the peasant folk
even dying beside
two petty
thugs
well you laugh
at a cockroach
sputtering like this
but amidst billions and
billions of galaxies
swinging in space
i might ask
what is your
exalted human
race
crunch and you re
dead like a cockroach
splat
unless the
tiny stable child
links you with the
force over all
relax the message is
true he
does
~archy
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Robert Attfield says
Thank you John, for this very poignant and humorous way to highlight the Christian message.
Betty Fulton says
Thank you John, good to know you are still contributing to the good of the human race in Huntsville and beyond. Christmas Blessings to you and yours. Betty Fulton