So THOSE are once more back in style?
We’ll have to buy one afterwhile.
We have one, yes, but it is static,
By which we mean it’s in our attic.
by Ray Romine Saturday, August 19, 1950
Author: Ray Romine
Bunny
I like my rabbit’s twitchy nose;
I like his funny ears;
I like his snappy sit-up pose
At everything he hears.
I like my rabbit’s cushion white
He sits on when he stops;
But best of all, I’m sure I like
The way my rabbit hops.
by Ray Romine Sunday, January 13, 1952
Bum Steer?
Zeb’s cow, so the anecdote goes,
Had a two-headed calf, and side-shows
Came around. Zeb elated?
Not he, for he stated,
“Will he eat twice as much, do you s’pose?”
by Ray Romine Thursday, April 1, 1954
Bulwark
Democrat and GOP alike,
Needing someone to bolster the dike,
Turn, as one man to
The soldier who can do:
The competent General Ike.
by Ray Romine Friday, January 12, 1951
Bully-boy
A Bluejay at the feeder-tray
Chases other birds away;
And yet he is so very gay,
I think I like him anyway!
by Ray Romine Monday, September 8, 1952
Bullseve
Time winged away and left this man behind,
A “Lesser Poet” to the most of us.
Why, my Lit. Teacher, normally inclined
To sympathy, got rid of him without a fuss .
I had forgotten him, and what he wrote
Til, browsing in an old bookstore one day,
I came across “To Mary”, and it smote
Me right across the soul–how else to say
It, when one little verse bored deep inside
Me, healed or put old musty fears to rout,
Touched depths unplumbed, and from their settings pried
A host of troubles and a cloud of doubt?
Call this poet Minor; snub, or reprimand–
His Love for Mary is a thing I understand….
Ray Romine
by Ray Romine Saturday, November 12, 1949
Builder
“It seems like a lot of fuss and trouble,
All those nails and shingles and boards and bricks
and mortar–
Just to build a house.
Don’t you sometimes wonder it it isn’t a little futile–
All that effort, all that labor?”
He looked at me quizzically, a little sadly,
“Buddy,” he said, “Somebody might appreciate it.”
And went back to work,
Short answer, but I read into it a whole lot more.
I believe he was building a home, not a house,
He was seeing Dad by the fireplace, with a magazine;
And Mom in the kitchen, humming over a new recipe;
And Junior’s trying to shave tor the first time;
And Daughter, about to be married….
He saw them love that house, all of them.
Only they never said “house”–
They said “Home,”
It was something substantial–
A bulwark against wind and cold and rain,
A sanctuary in time ot need.
I got his name and address.
When the time comes, I’d like him to drive some nails
And some of his spirit
ln my Home, too.
by Ray Romine Monday, September 8, 1947
Buggy Whipped
Oh soon it will be Summer time,
The breeze is telling me.
With sunny days and moony nights,
How dandy that’ll be.
But think you I’ll be golfing then
Or fishing futilely?
Oh–no–that only goes to show
You don’t know little me.
The jig-saw failed to get my goat:
Technocracy the same.
Compared with this thing wrong with me
Those things are very tame.
For l’ll be out there in the woods
Or romping o’er the lea,
And in hand there’ll be a net–
Insane? Oh–I’ll agree.
Yes, I’ll be chasing butterflies
Or dueling with a bee
For I’ve gone buggy over bugs
And that’s what’s wrong with me!
And yet I’m scared lest some poor soul
Should see me running free
have the bug-house keeper come
With HIS net after ME!
by Ray Romine Friday, March 17, 1933
Bugaboo
Every man has his personal bogey:
One factor he faces with dread.
My own?–If I AM an Old Fogey*
Don’t say it–just think it instead.
*especially the “Old” variety
by Ray Romine Friday, September 20, 1946
Bubble, Bubble, Soil And Trouble
There once lived a cantankerous but persistent person named–of all
things –Dewey Dubbledum
Who resented his name exceedingly because it rhymed with Bubblegum,
Which product , let us hasten to explain,
Was to Dewey a great obnoxiousness,or, in words of one syllable, a pain.
He cried aloud, that, for youth’s sake,
No mfgr. should be allowed to cause an innocent child to go about with
distended jaws, resembling a Walrus with tooth’s ache.
And when some kid would splatter a huge bubble over his lips, face,
and costume (his dressiest),
Dewey would as like as not inform him My God kid, of all the brats I
ever saw you are the messiest.
And he’d been known to exclaim to a little 6-year old girl, when
sufficiently goaded ,
Sister you look like you came out of a lighter-than- air-craft freshly
exploded.
Not just the sight, mind you, but the sound too
Was most distracting, since Round One was the out-loud mastication of
the gum, but the popping of the bubble was Round Two .
And, as if all this weren’t enough,
If he didn’t watch himself or rather his step he’d walk in the
discarded stuff.
Finally it all got so bad Dewey’s nerves hadn’t a chance , sir,
For he couldn’t take a Bubble-bath, look at a Champagne ad, or even
watch a Bubble-dancer.
Then, one day, he met a little ragamuffin all gobbed up and chewey,
Which was the last straw, for Dewey,
Who leaned over in desperation, that’s all there was to it,
And asked the boy Why-O- Why do you blow hideous bubbles with that
awful stuff, and was stopped dead still in his tracks with Can you
do it?
Whereupon Dewey took his nickel, intended for street-car fare,
Bought a package of B.G., and walked home, since he needed the air.
Now he may not be blowing perfect bubbles with his gum there in his
new room at the Institution, number nyan-six-nyan,
But he ‘s working on his 93rd package of the stuff, so he’s still in
there tryin.
by Ray Romine Tuesday, September 23, 1947