I am Anarchy

where have i been so long

you ask me

i have been going up

and down like the devil

seeking what i might devour

i am hungry always hungry

and in the end i shall

eat everything

all the world shall come at

last to the multitudinous maws

of insects

a civilization perishes

before the tireless teeth

of little little germs

ha ha i have thrown off the mask

at last

you thought i was only

an archy

but i am more than that

i am anarchy

where have i been you ask

i have been organizing the insects

the ants the worms the wasps

the bees the cockroaches

the mosquitos

for a revolt against mankind

i have declared war

upon humanity

i even i shall fling

the mighty atom

that splits a planet asunder

i ride the microbe that crashes down olympus

where have i been you ask me where

i am jove and from my seat

on the edge of a bowl of beef stew

i launch the thunderous

molecule

that smites a cosmos into bits

where have i been you ask

but you had better ask

who follows in my train

there is an ant

a desert ant a tamerlane

who ate a pyramid in rage

that he might get at and devour

the mummies of six hundred

kings who in remote

antiquity had stepped upon

and crushed ascendants of his

my myrmidons

are trivial things

and they have always ruled the world

and now they shall strike down mankind

i shall show you how

a solar system

pivots on the nubbin

of a flageolet bean

i shall show you how a blood clot

moving in a despots brain

flung a hundred million men

to death and disease

and plunged a planet into woe

for twice a hundred years

we have the key to the forth dimension

for we know the little things that swim and swarm

in protoplasm

i can show you love and hate

and the future

dreaming side by side

in a cell

in the little cells where

matter is so fine it merges

into spirit

you ask me where have i been

but you had better

ask me where i am

and what

i have been drinking

exclamation point

archy

- Don Marquis, writing as Archy the Cockroach, the lives and times of archy and mehitabel

(Source: patternsinthevoid.net)