archy interviews a pharaoh -- Don Marquis

(Poem #35)archy interviews a pharaoh boss i went and interviewed the mummy of the egyptian pharaoh in the metropolitan museum as you bade me to do what ho my regal leatherface says i greetings little scatter footed scarab says he kingly has been says i what was your ambition when you had any insignificant and journalistic insect says the royal crackling in my tender prime i was too dignified to have anything as vulgar as ambition the ra ra boys in the seti set were too haughty to be ambitious we used to spend our time feeding the ibises and ordering pyramids sent home to try on but if i had my life to live over again i would give dignity the regal razz and hire myself out to work in a brewery old tan and tarry says i i detect in your speech the overtones of melancholy yes i am sad says the majestic mackerel i am as sad as the song of a soudanese jackal who is wailing for the blood red moon he cannot reach and rip on what are you brooding with such a wistful wishfulness there in the silences confide in me my perial pretzel says i i brood on beer my scampering whiffle snoot on beer says he my sympathies are with your royal dryness says i my little pest says he you must be respectful in the presence of a mighty desolation little archy forty centuries of thirst look down upon you oh by isis and by osiris says the princely raisin and by pish and phthush and phthah by the sacred book perembru and all the gods that rule from the upper cataract of the nile to the delta of the duodenum i am dry i am as dry as the next morning mouth of a dissipated desert as dry as the hoofs of the camels of timbuctoo little fussy face i am as dry as the heart of a sand storm at high noon in hell i have been lying here and there for four thousand years with silicon in my esophagus as gravel in my gizzard thinking thinking thinking of beer divine drouth says i imperial fritter continue to think there is no law against that in this country old salt codfish if you keep quiet about it not yet what country is this asks the poor prune my reverend juicelessness this is a beerless country says i well well said the royal desiccation my political opponents back home always maintained that i would wind up in hell and it seems they had the right dope and with these hopeless words the unfortunate residuum gave a great cough of despair and turned to dust and debris right in my face it being the only time i ever actually saw anybody put the cough into sarcophagus dear boss as i scurry about i hear of a great many tragedies in our midsts personally i yearn for some dear friend to pass over and leave to me a boot legacy yours for the second coming of gambrinus archy -- Don Marquis