archy and me

Before his soul transmigrated into the body of a cockroach, archy was a vers libre poet. Sometimes this gets him down. As he says,

well boss from time
to time i just simply
get bored with having
to be a cockroach my
soul my real ego if
you get what i mean is
tired of being shut
up in an insects body the
best you can say for it is that it
is unusual and you could
say as much for mumps

Because he is a cockroach he is only able to write by diving headfirst onto each letter of the typewriter in turn. (And of course he is unable to work the shift key at the same time, which explains the absence of capitals.) He has things to say, but oh my, it's slow for him to say them!

Even though I have the use of all my fingers and can insert caPitaLs without a care, I too have been feeling that this job of ours can be very ... very ... slow. And hard on the head. Every word I write seems to have travelled a long way and is worn out before it gets here. I have editing deadlines to meet, so giving it all a miss for a while isn't an option, but there is another character in Don Marquis' world - Mehitabel the cat - and maybe I could learn some things from her. Her motto is it s cheerio my deario that pulls a lady through ...

i wake the world from sleep
as i caper and sing and leap
when i sing my wild free tune
wotthehell wotthehell
under the blear eyed moon
i am pelted with cast off shoon
but wotthehell wotthehell ...

there s a dance in the old dame yet
toujours gai toujours gai

Cheers, Joan. (or perhaps i should say cheerio joan)

P.S. On Monday I'll be blogging about the 26 Treasures project. There was a 2-page spread about it yesterday in The Scotsman newspaper, but if you missed that, we're just about to go live - online and in the real world too. Come by and I'll tell all!