archy was a cockroach with the soul of a poet he fancied himself a writer so he would jump up and down on the keys of a typewriter owned by newspaper columnist don marquis however due to archys small size he could not handle capitals or punctuation his best friend was a cat named mehitabel who was cleopatra in a past life

i always liked archy and read all his stuff when i was a kid part of his appeal was the fanciful imagery of a cockroach jumping all over a typewriter and holding deep conversations with an alley cat and part of it was the high quality of the writing and of course a cockroach can get away with saying a lot of things that would get a human in trouble

nice to be remembered
willy shakespeare always cried
in his ale over a lack of love
money or something
we scribes need love too you know
speaking of love mehitabel came through
singing the praises of some
big framed tom or was that nate
hard to understand the soprano
tabby in full voice
she smelled like expensive beer
must have been some bash
yr pal archie

Arch"y (#), a.

Arched; as, archy brows.

 

© Webster 1913.