dear readers do not be alarmed
but since i became a giant cock roach
i ve found it easier to type write in lower case
i have a hard time moving the shift key
i used to dictate my column to nurse pin head
but I can no longer speak because slime
drools from my mandibles and garbles my words
so i have under taken the type writing my self
pardon the choppy vers libre
but my hairy fore legs are more apt
to miss than hit the keys
there fore i must be succinct
to day i scared my my grand daughter
violet carstairs zweibel and her society friends
by dropping from the ceiling onto her lap
you never heard so much shrieking in your life
before any one could catch me
i skittered up the wall and into a small hole
in the plaster i had chewed
i love being a cock roach
but that angered my grand daughter so much
she demanded my will be rewritten
since i was now a lowly insect
what rights did i have she reasoned
my turn coat sons and shyster solicitor beavers agreed
so they are going to court to have my will nullified
the rat bastards
i suppose i should not be surprised
last week beavers tried to poison me
with a stickum compound intended to slay vermin
standish yanked away the stuff before I could finish it
the idiot beavers could not tell his own boss apart
from a regular house hold pest
any way the stuff did not affect me
my cock roach physique has blessed me with strength
i feel like i could with stand any thing
fire plague even devastating global war
the apocalypse it self
and i savored my status as the world s only insect columnist
until recently that is
now i get the news that my writings are not unique
standish says that
a cock roach named archy had found
considerable success writing a vers libre column
for the new york sun some years back
god damn it
some body always beats you to the punch
T. Herman Zweibel, the great grandson of Onion founder Friedrich Siegfried Zweibel, was born in 1868, became editor of The Onion at age 20, and persisted in various editorial posts until his launching into space in 2001. Zweibel’s name became synonymous with American business success in the 20th century. Many consider him the “Father Of American Journalism,” also the title of his well-known 1943 biography, written by Norman Rombauer.
