NOTE: I had completely forgotten the date and I had also forgotten to turn off my word processor. The latter was a happy accident, as I found this when I woke up from my nap. I present it verbatim as it was apparently presented to me. —-jsb.

of times long passing

by archy

it is the twenty ninth again the one hundred and fortieth since the birthday of the boss mister don marquis and I imagine he still keeps up so I will leave this here

don let me use his typewriter and his column space for quite a while for those of you who remember the new york sun and the sun dial column he and sometimes I wrote about a hundred years ago a hundred years or a hundred forty is not a long time when you have been reincarnated as often as I have

about reincarnates I knew a cat who said she had been cleopatra I think she was just jealous and I recently talked to a rabbit who said he had been gershwin they never claim to be the guy who made gershwin his sandwich at a diner off broadway but I have been a poet and a cockroach and am a cockroach again so I hop on the keys of this typewriter but could never hold the shift key and letters down at the same time hence the lower case

so here is some verse I wrote for the boss

a birthday poem for don marquis

a man whose bite and then his bark was

never more than need required it

unlike others after listening to whom I feel like I need a big glass of

bicarbonate uh

happy birthday from archy

ps oh I am dumb I just realized this new kind of typewriter you can work the shift key with one finger or by jumping on the keys LIKE THIS if you are a cockroach

archy

NOTE: The missive ended here. Don Marquis’ poems about Archy and Mehitabel were published in several books, including the 1996 “Archyology: the Long Lost Tales of Archy and Mehitabel” a collection of uncollected verse, which are readily available and worth your time.