Tuesday Poem - 'a dog's life here'

i can see it s a dog s life here

they come in and make themselves

comfortable eat til their bellies

are bongos get their drumskin scratched

and all for a chocolate look of their eyes

i have nice eyes why only last nite a lady

cornered me near that open packet of noodles

and thanks for that but next time

can you open that little packet of spices too

noodles without the orient msg are pretty bland

fare for the likes of a cosmopolitan cockroach

used to dining with the crème de la crème

as mehitabel would say if she wasn t off

transmigrating to another body a soul like that

might move on to anything but where was i

oh yes that lady approached me and suggested

that my eyes were like little spilt drops of gravy

and she offered to rub my segments but boss

i have to stay pure for poetry oh how i suffer

and what do i get for it that s what i want to kno

With apologies to Don Marquis! Ages ago I was asked to read at The Word Tree when Marian Spires was the able cultivator of poetry at that venue. At that time she would set a theme for the reading, which was given to the featured reader as well. My theme was 'insects'. I puzzled over this for a long time. But then I remembered loving Don Marquis and the Archy and Mehitabel poems when I was younger. I decided to bring Archy, that irascible roach, into the twenty-first century. 

I had enormous fun writing a small sequence of these poems - but I do recommend you read the originals. They are delightful!

Scuttle on over to the Tuesday Poem Blog hub and read other poems from there.  Melbourne-based poet, Jen Compton, is this week's editor and has posted a wonderful prose poem by Ross Donlon.