Category: Poems

Ray Romine Poems

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He Tried

Past definite discouragements,
Thwarted here and baffled there–
Over ridicule and the rubble of poverty,
Still he scrambled.
To have given up
Would have been much easier,
But he couldn’t do that.
He used to say
If you kept butting your head
Against a wall,
Sooner or later
Something would give.
I don’t like to think about his being locked
In that kind of institution.
Still, he was right.

But I can’t help wondering:
If his head had held out
Maybe just a little longer
Would folk today be calling him
A Big Success
Instead of Just Obstinate?

by Ray Romine Thursday, July 5, 1945

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He May Try It, Though–I Hope

“Shortages don’t worry me”,
He said, a trifle flippantly.
“Cigarettes?–Why, that’s a joke-)
fellow doesn’t have to smoke!”

(Too bad his theme won’t bear repeating–
I’ll bet he sticks at quitting eating!)

by Ray Romine Monday, April 23, 1945

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He May Be Pure Who Is Only Afraid

Who wants to live, and yet who doesn’t dare
Enjoy the hidden pleasures of the night;
Who keeps his mind immaculately white,
His eyes averted, safe from every pair
Of nyloned legs; whose one and only care
Pursues a course he vaguely knows as “right”,
May wait too long before he sees the light.
Who can be fair who to himself’s unfair?

Then, after time has passed, he starts to chide
His friends and neighbors on the way they grew
Into their evil ways ignoring this:
He may be but a jelly-fish beside
The honest man who, on some slender clue,
Parts with his soul for just one deadly kiss!

by Ray Romine Friday, August 16, 1946

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He Jests At Scars That Never Felt A Wound — Shakespeare

If you’re one of those people who LOVE winter time,
And you gnaw on your nails, cold awaiting,
And you sit in your warm house and growl at the clime,
‘Cause it’s mild, and you want to go skating;

If an icicle’s just the most BEAUTIFUL thing,
And the snow’s too poetic to mention,
And you shout about pleasures that zero will bring,
Let me have, for a bit, your attention:

Get you out there–LIVE in it , and see if it’s fun–
No, not a mere walk before beddy–
Or, think when your period of playing is done,
“Could I love this for eight hours steady?”

If you work out-of-doors all twelve months of the year,
In the snow, on the ice, when it’s zero ,
With your lips turning blue, maybe losing an ear–
You still like it? O.K. , BE a hero!

If your winter experience to play is confined,
Or if just from the window you’ve spied it,
I shall say you’re not competent judge–do you mind?
You ‘ re talking to someone who’s tried it!

(OR–Neither’m I–let’s find someone whose tried it!)

by Ray Romine Sunday, January 4, 1942

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He Can Wish, Can’t He?

While man prefers his buildings tall,
His speeches short, or not at all,
His tea and coffee always hot,
His milkshakes and martinis not,
His horses fast, his sleep hours slow,
His night-life high, his paid-outs low,
His music soft, his heroes hard,
His Christmas white, his traitors tarred–
He knows, no matter how he frets,
There’s what he likes–and what he gets!

by Ray Romine Thursday, November 23, 1950

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Has Anybody A Raincoat?

An umbrella is a tricky thing–
I think you will concede it–
It’s in the way until the day
It’s raining and you need it.

And after it’s been found, it’s best
To wait up–never praise it:
You’ll feel a yen for swearing when
You try in vain to raise it.

Suppose it’s found, and raised: you play
That sturdy little Hollander
Who plugged the dike, but who would like
To try that with a colander?

by Ray Romine Thursday, May 3, 1945

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Harvest

She tapped at the raw edge of Greatness;
She paused where the tides ebb and flow;
She touched where Intelligence founders,
In the bone-weary Portals of Know.
She sold humankind down the river;
She told friends and kin where to go
For one little pot-bellied puppet,
For one tiny section of dough.

But the puppet is shrunken in stature,
A fate it has shared with the dough;
And her world, returning from Glamor,
Is an error-strewn mockery show.
In a garden full warty and weary,
She planted the seed sure to grow–
And now that the Bitter has flowered,
Regret is a hard-to-kill foe…

by Ray Romine Tuesday, September 23, 1952

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Harvest

Some days are full of happiness,
While other days are bleak;
Some hours are worth the candle;
Some aren’t, so to speak.

Some minutes give us pleasure,
Some pain us in the necks;
But seconds are the final straws
That make us total wrecks.

For man, these days of living fast,
Of taxing cell and brain,
Was not, when seconds change his life,
Built to stand the strain.

So I’ll watch seconds swapping ends
As long as I can stand it,
Nor curse my gods nor swear at fate–
For it was man who planned it.

by Ray Romine Thursday, January 4, 1951

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Harvest

Faith is his who plants a seed.
He could reap corn–or nought–or weed;
But he who moves with faith unfurled
May see his seed reshape a world.

by Ray Romine Monday, July 7, 1947