Category: Poems

Ray Romine Poems

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Complaint To Certain Journalists

I haven’t cause to hate, I know,
Your helpful articles that show
The dangers in the commonplace
That menace all the human race.

They tell how harmful sun’s rays are;
They’d steer me clear of friendly bar;
They tell me I won’t be here long
Because the shoes I wear are wrong;
I’m warned away fron cigarettes,
Dogs and cats and other pets.
A Christmas tree is but a medley
Of everything considered deadly;
Fumes from ill-stored gasoline
May take me where I haven’t been;
Each extension cord, if frayed,
Is cause for one to be dismayed;
And even dust–it will erode,
Carry microbes, and explode.

Now you have listed thus and so,
Please take your articles and blow;
I’ll run my risks, and so be spared
My living always two-thirds scared!

by Ray Romine Sunday, November 4, 1951

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Competition, Or, You Can’t Win!

The setting’s swell: the time be June;
The fireflies about are strewn–
Hand me pencil: let me write
A serious, solemn verse tonight.
And so the neighbor’s hound begins–
I hope his income tax is twins.

Across the garden, moonlight falls
And spatters patterns on the walls:
I’ll take my fountain pen and start
A poem noble, handsome, smart.
There comes a car around the bend,
And puts the moonlight to an end.

I hear the crickets from the glade
A-hiding in the nook the’ve made;
The whip-poor-will calls from the copse:
I pause, and hope he never stops.
But hear that yodelling factory whistle?
Sign him up, I think the Swiss’ll.

Ah-h, now ’tis quiet, and the mind
Casts about, some peace to find,
Some modest part ot Nature grand
To help man her to understand.
But one more thing I’ve overlooked–
The 10:15–my Muse is cooked!!

It’s 2:00 a.m.–the world’s asleep–
At last my nature-tryst I’ll keep;
I steal from bed, my eyes a-gleam—
And rings out clear my dear wife’s scream:
“Come to bed–put out the light–
Art ill, or what’s afloat tonight?”

A healthy try I made; I swore
To write it serious, but NO MORE!
The dog, the car, the whistle’s pain,
My wife who blares above the train,
They all have shouted Nature down–
WHAT CHANCE A CORNY POET-CL0WN??

by Ray Romine Saturday, June 19, 1943