Category: Poems

Ray Romine Poems

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Is This a Quiz, Kid?

Annoyed at the questions of kids, it appears it
Is largely a matter of brain convolutions .
To put it another way, maybe, which clears it:
Puzzles are fun–if one knows the solutions!

by Ray Romine Tuesday, March 8, 1949

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Is It A Case Of Which?

I am a fiend, a brute, a cad–
I like the “better things” in life;
For a bug upon a lily-pad,
I sacrifice my child and wife.

A poem here–there, Florence’s eyes;
Here, Sandra’s curls–there, vividly,
A water-color, quite a prize.
(They all seem quite alike–to me.)

by Ray Romine Monday, October 16, 1944

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Irrelevant

I go to sleep that I may dream
Of items well-assorted:
The tricky way your dimples beam,
Or that new dress you’ve sported;
One night it’s just the way you walk;
Again, I hear you laughing;
Another time, your lively talk
Your love is telegraphing.
Could be my dream portrays your smile
With sweetness underlying,
Or your dew-fresh uncopied style
That keeps my owm heart sighing.
But there was one I have to rate
(I shuddered every minute)
The dullest dream of all to date–
You see, you weren’t in it!

by Ray Romine Tuesday, September 3, 1946

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Inventory

The assets that I have accrued
Are, I think, too often viewed
As insignificant. I count
One friend as worth a large amount;
A Home, one’s family, cannot
Find their worth measured. And the pot
Of wealth we lump as “Nature” yields
Interest in all the fields
Of daisies, wheat, or roadside weeds,
Collecting sunshine. What are deeds,
And dross possessions, trite and cold,
Beside, to me, my own fool’s gold?

by Ray Romine Monday, January 8, 1951

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Inventory

As a youth, I thought age
Might make me a sage
Like Solomon, Nash, or Saint Stephen;
But my I . Q. net
Is less what I forget–
So I ‘m lucky, perhaps, to break even!

by Ray Romine Sunday, December 24, 1950

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Inventory

These things from Nature I love best:
A thrush’s creamed and spotted breast;
A Killdeer’s note against the sky;
The quick wing of a butterfly;
The wind across a field of grain;
The sunshine, coming after rain;
A flower blooming all unhailed;
The stars, when other lights have failed;
The zest of fall; the smell of spring;
Soft summer days when hearts shall sing;
The feel of rest in springy sod; —
I love these best, for these are–God.

by Ray Romine Monday, May 21, 1945

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Introspection (untitled)

If I each day do every task I find
Along the way to do, and if I keep my mind
My own and God’s;
If too, my heart be tuned to humankind,
I have a pact with God, Who says the trust will bind,
Whate’er the odds.

But, should I shun my bounden duty here
And let environment with my conscience interfere,
Which eaase to guide,
And if my heart be aught except sincere,
And true to man, and his Creator–death is near,
At least inside.

We ignore the sin that chokes from life its breath:
Yet fear and dread and fight a mortal death!

by Ray Romine Sunday, July 25, 1943