Author: Ray Romine

Posted on by

Wrong Answer

If this is trite
How say it better?
One has to write
To get a letter.

So uncomplex!
But here’s what kills:
I send out checks
And get back bills.

by Ray Romine Friday, April 28, 1950

Posted on by

Wrong Address

Dogs have their place, I will concede,
But what I cannot pardon
Is that each kind and type and breed
Thinks that place is my garden.

by Ray Romine Wednesday, November 1, 1950

Posted on by

Written, We Freely Admit, In Some Bitterness

Sing the soldiers’ praise today
With fervor misbegotten;
For they’re aware (and so are we)
Tomorrow–they’re forgotten.

It’s “G.I. Joes” , and “those Heroes”
Folks call the boys in brown,
For they keep the fighting from us,
And our unemployment down.

Munitions-kings should sing their praise:
They’re adding to your riches.
My own small voice will not be heard,
If I call you ______ !

How to thank each muddy Yank
Who gave, and gave so well?
Who crawled, for a thanks he’ll never get
Into the teeth of Hell?

We will buy a bond or two,
To show appreciation,
And cash it when the ink is dry
To clinch our consecration.

Shop-workers, for more money strike–
If that is what you will;
The boys can wait; or negotiate
With that machine-gun on the hill.

We can beat the rationing
On meats and gasoline;
Who doesn’t is a “sucker”,
And his like is seldom seen.

The boys are sure it’s all worthwhile,
For when the truce is written
Fast asleep, our statesmen will
Lose what they’ve gained, to BRITAIN!
…
These are more than patriots,
And these are more than friends;
For they know they’ll be forgotten ‘
When the shocking shambles ends.

by Ray Romine Sunday, December 31, 1944

Posted on by

Writers Cramp Me

Breathes there a gal so untrue to her sex
Who, right till the story’s completed,
Doesn’t drive this point home all the way thru the tome:
Every male she has met is conceited?

And show me the hero who isn’t convinced
That (maybe excepting his mother)
All females are dopes, and he earnestly hopes
He never meets up with another.

So we come to the reason why fiction is read:
The reader hangs on to see whether
The writer can mass, with this super-impasse,
Two such extremists together!

by Ray Romine Monday, February 4, 1952

Posted on by

Wow

Put on your glasses (some call ’em cheateors)–
We’re all going out a-chasing meteors.
Some like stars
And some like planets;
Some hunt comets,
A few hunt Gannets;
But we go in for something fleeteor:
I refer to the all-elusive meteor.

Wear your woolens; bring the heateor–
For the weather is cooler than any meteor.
Meteors are
Just chunks of matter
That hit our atmos-
Phere and splatter.
Drag along your choicest competeors,
For we go out to count us meteors.

Be sure there’s gas in the old two-seateor,
To get to the field where we meet the meteor;
And why should I
Who versify
Forsake economy
To learn Astronomy?
Because, at Dem Gates, dat old Saint Peteor
Might turn me down because my verse lacks meteor!

by Ray Romine Wednesday, October 9, 1946

Posted on by

Worthy Movement

She wigges with Oh-such-a-wallop
As to slightly resemble a trollop.
Though male heads that turn
Make the poor girl’s ears burn–
It’ s a motion she simply can’t hollop!

by Ray Romine Thursday, January 8, 1948

Posted on by

Worth the Trouble

Sometimes there is little on which to go
When the candle of love is flickering low;
But it is a flame that is easily fed:
A look, or a touch, or the right word said,
And up it leaps with a cheerful flare
To full new life, from the smallest care,
Undernourished and half alive–
Breathed upon tenderly, love will thrive.

by Ray Romine Friday, September 2, 1949