Category: Poems

Ray Romine Poems

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Deja Vu (untitled)

Like a thunder-shower considered over.
Charging back from the horizon
To shatter our small complacencies
Into smaller bits about our feet,
So has Love,
Long since passed over.
Rolled thundering overhead again
To plague my mind’s peace
And shake my very soul.

And like a somnambulist
Who does something he could not possibly have foreseen,
Nor understand after,
I, enthralled, entranced, do re-embark
Upon a course
I seem but vaguely
To remember
Having travelled once before.

(Experiment with similes, sans
rhyme, rhythm, or maybe sense)

by Ray Romine Monday, November 15, 1943

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Definite Attachment

To make a kangaroo’s life worse,
She serves her youngsters as a purse.
What more could Baby Kangy want
Than a fur-lined seat right down in front?
But when, I ask, nor mean to scoff,
Do kangaroos’ offspring spring off??

by Ray Romine Saturday, November 25, 1950

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Deeper Than Santa Claus

The winter stars are winking timidly
To shine, this Christmas, on a peaceful world:
A globe adjusting to a harmony
That dates to Christ, when “Peace On Earth” was hurled
Too soon to heedless Man, who must see tried
Solutions of his own for all his ills,
Which blots his copy-book, but saves his pride
The while it sharpens all his baser skills.

Yet when his gains shall go, and friends shall turn
The haughty cheek, in high disdain away,
There is a Refuge, when we humbly learn
The price the Prince of Peace would have us pay:
A selfless attitude, a turn to Faith–
That makes of Christmas more than just a wraith.

by Ray Romine Thursday, November 22, 1945

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Declined With Thanks

I hear the Bob-white’s bell-clear call
That bounces off the tansy- top;
A Mourning-dove’s half-muted drawl
Invites me where the rapids drop.

A Vesper Sparrow, singing, asks
“Why do you, man, forever work?
We birds, too, have our daily tasks,
But find some time to play and shirk.”

But, obligations I must meet;
Bread is my boss, and I’m her tool.
Yet–who must work like this to eat
Is less than slave–he is a fool.

by Ray Romine Thursday, July 19, 1945

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December Pedestrian

As gingerly I thread my way
Past icy slicks and spots
Of packed-down snow, I watch the play
Of careless running tots,
And know regret that with our strife
We all somehow outrun
Youth, that fleeting time of life
When ice and snow meant fun.

by Ray Romine Saturday, December 9, 1950

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Death-watch

Every wild thing understands,
As winter starts to sicken:
Black willows raise expressive hands
And gesture horror-stricken.

The wind heeds some deep grief-born urge,
His banshee forces massing,
And renders one last tuneless dirge
For tyrant winter’s passing.

But the robin’s looking down his nose
Is not from this disaster.
I think he hopes the winter goes,
If anything, much faster!

by Ray Romine Wednesday, February 10, 1954