Category: Poems

Ray Romine Poems

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Nobody Reads Poetry Anymore Except The People Who Write It –b.t.

If you hear a learned barking, son,
That’ll be my friend, Booth Tarkington
Who, when literary matters slack,
At poets takes a nasty crack.

Whether you hail from a mansion or hovel
You SHOULD immerse in a Tarkington novel;
But should you read VERSE, he’ll hand you a slam and
Tell you to have your head examand.

Since this guy has himself a name,
Us folks can’t risk the awful shame
Of getting caught. So now this is out,
We’ll absorb our verse around about.

Yes, now our friend has let this slip,
We’ll wear our couplets on the hip.
We’ll have to read it on the sly,
Or decent folk will pass us by.

If you’d read a lush rondeau,
Mustn’t let the neighbors know.
What hide you, fair one, in your bonnet–
Rye or gin, or just a sonnet?

Since poetry is still ny cherce,
I hope his “do not” does for verse
(And if it does, then I’ll not bicker)
What PROHIBITION did for LICKER!!

by Ray Romine Sunday, February 6, 1944

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No-man’s Land

My neighbor can’t eat this and that:
He is, the doctors say, too fat.

And I must eat some things I hate:
They tell me I am underweight.

And in between the two extremes
No one exists, except in dreams.

by Ray Romine Friday, August 24, 1951

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No-man Land

He’s too big for blocks, but
He’s too small for biking;
He is too old for crawling, and
Too young for hiking;
He’s not up to baseball,
But years beyond some things
Like pull-toys and peg-boards
And what he calls “dumb things.”
He’s outgrown his cuteness;
He isn’t yet handsome;
His poise is developing
(Still he could stand some);
He sneers at shenanegans
Smaller kids start
While the big ones ignore him.
But don’t come apart–
After all, what’s a boy?
He’s that ultra, that keen age:
Not baby, not man,
But the rare in-between stage!

by Ray Romine Monday, December 3, 1951

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No, Thank You

Regarding this ancient abuse,
Just who does he figure is gainer
When man will steadfastly refuse
To use a refuse container?

(Thanks to TH (Trella Haldeman) for idea)

by Ray Romine Friday, September 14, 1951

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No Vacancy

No How to Make It book will face
One problem living has inspired:
The way the need for storage space
Stays just ahead of what’s acquired!

by Ray Romine Friday, January 12, 1951

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No Surplus

Don’t tell me, when we’re dressing, dear,
To take my time, for heaven’s sake!
With what you’re using up, I fear
There Is no time left for me to take.

by Ray Romine Monday, October 1, 1951

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No Stiches In Riches

I personally resent Wilburforce Moss-Dragon, Who, lousy with
lucre and able to droop on the poop of his sloop,
Is always going around looking like a two-thirds decimated
Boy-Scout troop;

Who has more dough in various banks
Than Russia can count tanks,

But who still wears a continually harrassed frown
(Perhaps because his corporation can’t put one more dimestore
in one more town),

Or maybe he goes around looking worried
Because his racing stable isn’ t properly curried,

Or it could be he’s pondering over a bad end,
Which in his case would be conking out and leaving all that
stuff for someone else to spend.
But whatever is hurting him, it seems a shame,
What with all that publicity, that spot-light he’s in, and
all that fame,

He can’t occasionally manage a very small smile
So that we inferior folk would be stimulated to work like
Wilburforce so we, too, could accumulate a pile.

For it only makes sense to me, that if stacks of coin
Won’t make me happy as all-get-out, then the woim should
toin,

And, instead of pitching in and slaving to be unhappily
rich,
Why I’ll relax, take it easy, and be unhappily poor–if it
makes no difference which!

by Ray Romine Wednesday, August 28, 1946