Category: Poems

Ray Romine Poems

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Consolation

I’ve analyzed your love for me–
Perhaps a bit too late:
Some element of knowing me
Has turned your love to hate.

Yet even loathing has its points,
And this will have to do me:
Although you’ve touched the two extremes,
You’re not indifferent to me!

by Ray Romine Wednesday, October 2, 1946

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Consider A Few Illustrations

To understand the word OPAQUE,
Dip water from a well-stirred laque.

And if you’d maybe study TROUGH
Just watch the water running ough.

Or if you’d wrestle say with WRATH–
That’s what a wrighteous husband hath.

We must include the word PNEUMATIC-
Pnon-solid, airy, miasmatic.

Another one I like’s OBLIQUE:
(Giving truth the hide-and-seeque).

And now our lessons finished, through.
I’ve learned an awful lot; have yough?

by Ray Romine Wednesday, September 6, 1950

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Conservative Sex

He greets each item his wife wears
With criticism and with censure;
Her chic, her verve, her daring scares
Who lacks, himself, the nerve to venture!

by Ray Romine Thursday, September 4, 1952

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Conscience Doth Make Soldiers Of Us All!

For what purpose the WAC?
Oh, they’re neat, and they’re trim,
And they make cuter soldiers than could any him;
But where is the lack
Justifying the WAC?

I know each takes her place
In a male soldier’s chair,
So he’ll, maybe, be able to go over there:
This may do, on the face,
But it’s not the whole case.

For, alas and alack–
A civilian, I,
I can meet any service-man’s gaze, if I try–
But I’m taken aback:
I can’t out-stare a WAC!

My conscience within
Can’t withstand the attack
As I take in her cap and her purse-haversack;
And I think “What a sin–
I am OUT, and she’s IN!”

I pause; I go back:
“Couldst direct me, 0 Damsel in neat khaki suiting,
To the very nearest station that does the recruiting?”
That’s what purpose the WAC!
For we 1ve an army of practically eight million men,
And the WAC has accounted for six out of ten!*
Pardon me, while I pack…

*Selective Service has made its influence felt here, too.

by Ray Romine Sunday, September 19, 1943

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Conformist

Arising early, 5 a .m.
Sees me on the town’s main stem
Starting out ahead of others–
Surrounded by my driving brothers
Whose brilliant notion seems to be
Dodging traffic; namely, me.
This, at least, though, I can say:
Everything does go my way!

by Ray Romine Wednesday, July 18, 1951

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Confission

Threatened daily by earthquake, tornado and fire,
Auto, flood, taxes and forebodings dire,
Plus a horde of diseases to which I am host,
It’s still the wee atom that frightens me most!

by Ray Romine Sunday, July 30, 1950