The man who waves while in his car
Is strong for games and quizzes;
For, through his shiny windshield’s glare,
I must guess whose his phyz is.
by Ray Romine Tuesday, October 19, 1943
Category: Poems
Ray Romine Poems
I Contemplate The Nudist
He has a prosaic life, it seems.
Alas! No pocketful of dreams.
by Ray Romine Sunday, January 6, 1952
I Consider How My Time is Spent
Some gain calluses through toil;
Others burn the midnight oil
Bringing research to a boil
All worthwhile, and no recoil.
But who’s the one who wastes his time
Making with the pointless rhyme
Worth less than a Tinker’s dime?
Right the first guess, pardner–I’m!
by Ray Romine Monday, September 4, 1950
I Cannot Read
I cannot read the books I own, somehow,
That tempt me from their places. Still, I vow
That I will take the time–that is, some day–
To cut a bookish swath my own sweet way…
Some day, that is, if time will just allow.
Today, there’s too much work through which to plow,
And friends to visit, and the constant mow
Of radio’s intruders’ rant and bray–
I cannot read.
Some day, though, all this rush and tear and row
Will end for me, and Fate will shake the bough
I’m on, and I shall go; my books will stay
Unread, and chuckling. And there where I lay
My head shall be some words; which then, as now I CANNOT READ!
by Ray Romine Saturday, January 15, 1944
I Can Take It
Tell me a tale I’m delighted to hear,
Of how I’m no older than I was last year,
No balder, no grayer, but little more goutish,
As agile, as clean-cut, as stylishly stoutish.
Tell me, O tell me, and when you are through,
It will be my turn to lie about you.
by Ray Romine Saturday, January 31, 1953
I Can Dream, Can’t I?
Let someone cook up a hay-ride,
Hitch old Dobbin to the Shay;
We will have, when nights are frosty,
Fun the good ol’ Marion way.
We’ll end up at someone’s kitchen,
Yours or mine as like as not,
Where the cheer’ll be just as welcome
As the Chili in the pot.
Maybe, too, we’ll go a-carolling
If it should be Christmas Week,
And the glow from our companions
Gives us all the thrill we seek.
Let me at a Skating Party
Up at Crystal Lake once more;
Let me lead a lively lassie
Here and yon about the floor;
Let us wheel, and stroke the corners,
Let us fall and break our ….date,
Just so long as there’s breath in me,
That’s how long, friend, I would skate.
Take me on another picnic
Out where trees are trees, I beg.
I will eat potato salad,
I will even munch an egg.
I’ll say naught about mosquitos,
Or the midges or the flies;
After all, back in Ohio
They don’t grow to Army size!
I won’t gripe about cold coffee,
I won’t squawk about the beets–
I’ll inhale it all, a-shouting,
“Rowdy-dow, CIVILIAN eats!”
I could use a bit of ping-pong
In a basement I could name,
With a half-a-dozen fellows
Who are scattered–what a shame;
I could guzzle pop and pretzels,
(Bud might bring his grape-Juice, too)
Though we never beat his playing,
We could see what we can do!
Yes, I’d love to take a Bike-Hike
With the kids back home I know,
Past the woods and through the meadow
Where the rain-washed daisies grow:
Feel the wind upon our faces,
And the sun upon our backs,
Hear the yelling and discussions,
Interspersed with crazy cracks;
And we’d shout and toss a joke back
To the one who lags behind.
Even though we’re all exhausted,
No one really seems to mind.
We might even stop at Isaly’s
For a soda or a ‘shake;
I’m Just dreaming: please, saliva,
Can the drool, for heaven’s sake!
Then again around the camp-fire,
When the moon is rising slow,
And the League, both girls and fellows,
Sings a song we love and know,
I would like to breathe a prayer
With them, as they’re standing bowed,
Just to thank Him we’re together
One time more, the Salem crowd.
No, no word about my family
Have I said, at least to date,
Still–between the lines they’re with me
All the time, at any rate.
Ever wonder what a Soldier
Dreams about when he’s -away?
It’s these things he’ll do on furlough–
COME YOU QUICKLY, HAPPY DAY!
by Ray Romine Wednesday, July 14, 1943
I Can Bantuh Santa, Canta?
Here’s December, Christmas season:
I don’t like it–if that’s treason,
Then I oughta hang, it’s true;
Hear me out before you judge me,
Then if you can blot and smudge me,
I don’t give a dang, do you?
Scrooge, we figure, was a poet;
‘Though the record doesn’t show it,
That it’s true we’re pretty sure;
Only in the month December,ยท
If our Dickens we remember,
Did he veer from simon-pure!
I for one can hardly blame him;
Would-be poets rarely shame him,
Struggling vainly, writing verse.
Have you tried for bread and butter
Rhyming shutter, gutter, flutter?
(Would there nothing any worse!)
For what the heck’ll rhyme with Christmas,
Save the that corny, oft-used “isthmus”?
There’s one even worse, because
Find me one that goes with “Santa”–
Oh, of course there’s still “Atlanta”,
Perhaps the place for Santa Claus!
And again, consider “reindeer”–
What’ll go with that but “pain, dear”?
See why poets and their kin
Hate the sight and sound of Christmas?
Hold ‘er right there, sonny, this must
Be the place where I came in!
Scrooge and I don’t hate Christmas the way people think–
It’s just the @!?**l rhyming that causes the stink!
If you’d like to see both of us happy (though queer)
Skip the presents and wish us a HAPPY NEW YEAR!
by Ray Romine Wednesday, October 14, 1942
I Buy Mine At The News-stand
You may talk if you like about living fast,
But the prize fast liver I’ve found, at last:
The evaporation of gasoline
Is slow to the life of a… magazine!
The Publisher rushes to beat a date,
Pushing his help at a horrible rate;
Then it’s rushed with all possible dispatch and speed
To the train where hurry is guaranteed;
And the train chugs quickly to local scene
Where the Postoffice takes over our magazine.
“One side, correspondence that we’ve wet-nursed:
The Department wants this should go through first!”
So, the clerks rush it through to the carrier-men,
Who take it out in the air again.
On the mailman’s back, up and down the streets,
Until it up with its owner meets,
Who hurries to read it before his wife
Sells it to the junk-man–such is life!
But here’s the moral we’d like to preach:
That “it” is only a figure of speech.
“It” in the school-house (town or rural)
May have been singular–here it’s plural.
By “it” we mean “Colliers”, “Scouting”, and “Life”,
“Jack & Jill”, and “The Farmer’s Wife”;
“Better Homes & Gardens”, and “American Home”,
(Household helps from here to Nome);
“Ladies’ Home Journal”, and “Comics True”,
“Christian Herald”, and “Column Review”;
“Woman’s Home Companion”, and, oh yes, “Red Book”,
“Readers’ Digest”, and “Elks”, and “Look”;
“Popular Mechanics”, and “Flower Grower”,
“Country Gentleman”, and many, many more.;
The “Poet”, and “Vogue”, and “Harper’s Bazaar”,
And others, if I c’d remember what they are.
“Liberty”, “Eagles”, “Hobbies”, and “Time”–
Still others, but group ’em so they rhyme.
Armfuls and armfuls of magazines–
And the race is on ere the wife house-cleans.
The futility of it’s what I decry:
The August issue the first of July–
This fuss to get ’em to us a month ahead,
When we haven’t got last month’s magazines read!
by Ray Romine Wednesday, July 7, 1943
I Bake Your Pardon
Once there was a Baker with a show-window full of cakes and
pies and other goods,
Who, contrary to the Fairy-story-type Baker, did not live in a woods.
While it may be nothing about which to brag,
This Baker was named Albemarle and lived on the main drag.
He was a successful Baker, but he developed a one – track point of view
When he became obsessed with the idea he was going to figure out how to eat his cake and have it too.
He tried everything–all sorts of distractions,
Like devouring part of a cake and leaving behind just fractions.
The harder he tried the more disgusted he became,
For whatever method he’d use the result was much the same.
“This,” he was wont to shout, “Calls for Herculean measures,
as Edison or Eli Whitney might say.”
And with maybe just a little more than undue hesitation, he
started rising at 3 instead of 4 and increased his quota
to 2 glasses of buttermilk a day.
If this were merely a success story, our Baker would have been
rewarded for his pains, but with alases and alacks,
We must herein concern ourselves only with facks,
Vlhich is so very hard on young folk starting out in life,
sodden with ideals–
But off the sermon and back to the man who added pies and sticky
desserts onto the ends of meals.
After several years of trying, his nerves were beginning to wobble,
For the cake he had left always seemed to disappear in direct
ratio to the amount he would gobble.
But finally his little girl, who had been working hard at it for better than 7 years,
Decided she’d grow up to be eight rather than stagnate and remain in arrears.
So for the party momma threw for the little 8-year-old elf,
Poppa baked the largest Birthday Cake he’d ever dreamed up,
quite outdoing even himself.
The masterpiece was finished all but decorating,
And he was standing with the Alemite gun {or with whatever they use to decorate cakes in his climate) in his hand, speculating,
When the Big Idea claimed him, and taking up quantities of lickydab
and goo,
He put the proper numeral on the aforesaid gem and so Eighted his cake and had it too.
by Ray Romine Tuesday, September 9, 1947
I Am Properly Impressed by Kansas
Hide my razor, call me Harry:
There’s an oil-well on the prairie!
Mile on mile, and still a nary
House or barn upon the prairie.
Trees, I find, are indeed very
Sparse upon the Kansas prairie.
If you want a girl to marry,
TRY and find her on the prairie.
A cow, a sort of half-formed dairy,
May be found upon the prairie.
One oould duel on the prairie–
Room to cut and thrust and parry.
If I lived here, they could bury
Me at once beneath such prairie.
No, I do not wish to tarry
On the God-forsaken prairie.
Hurry, car, I beg you, carry
Me away beyond the prairie.
And if I’m wise and if I’m wary,
I won’t be back to see you, prairie.
by Ray Romine Sunday, July 10, 1949