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Sing Me A Song Of Now

Go back, if you like, to the “Good old days”
With horses hitched to the plow–
The tractor is better in many ways:
Sing me a song of now.

You drool of the gals as they used to be;
The guys then were fooled, for they
Bought a pig in a poke, it seems to me;
You see what you get, today.

You may chortle of grandfather’s place on the farm
If you want to, but I’ll be mean,
And ask you just how you could see any charm
By the light of his kerosene!

And down at the end of the old board walk
Leaned a sort of cut-off dormer
Where folks collected to sit and talk;
But I can sit where it’s warmer.

The Gramophone, maybe, appealed to you
As it tinned out “Nellie Gray”.
I’ll take the radio, hot or blue,
(And I think it is here to stay).

Though Dobbin may have been fast enough
In the gone-by days of yore,
He can hardly be said to have the stuff
For Nineteen-forty-four!

by Ray Romine Sunday, November 26, 1944

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Similar

(If you resent cynicism, skip this one)
The wind is impatience tonight;
The clouds are a woe-begone blight
That hide and then show
The moon as they blow
In headlong, undignified flight.

My spirit is weary tonight;
My thoughts are a pestilent blight
That hide, then reveal
My soul as they steal
To the depths of monotonous fright.

So the wind and my spirit are one,
And the clouds and my thoughts, having done,
Let the moon and my soul
Shine with radiance whole
Til the grief of the morrow’s begun.

by Ray Romine Monday, September 3, 1945

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Silver Lining

While summer sun means perspiration,
And dampness, sinus irritation;
And rain, quite often, pure vexation,
New snow is somehow inspiration.

by Ray Romine Saturday, December 13, 1952

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Silent, Partner

My heart unbends to canine friends,
The hairless and the shaggy.
I’m very strong for short or long,
For tails bobbed or waggy

I like them fair, or fat or spare,
Or marked with streaks or blotches;
But far above them all I love
A watchdog that just watches.

by Ray Romine Wednesday, August 31, 1949

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Silent Partner

A barking dog won’t bite, they say,
And while that’s all right through the day,
I greatly favor, after dark,
A biting dog that doesn’t bark!

by Ray Romine Monday, October 14, 1946

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Silence Is Golden

Awful how our dear old country
Thwarts our innermost desires?
Cuts our coffee and our sugar,
Limits gasoline and tires;

Takes away our cheese and butter,
Beef and pork, and then our shoes:
We weren’t too cooperative,
Howled to Heaven, sang the blues.

How we’ve missed our sock supporters
And our pants suspenders, too–
We can let the socks go dangle,
But for pants, that wouldn’t do!

Said “Goodbye”, because it’s busy,
To one other thing town:
Since it’s gone to war, I’m gonna
Hang a star upon my ‘PHONE!

Looks as though I’ll shoot no gossip
Back and forth across the nation.
Well, I guess they’ve got me silenced:
Mum’s the word for the duration.

And I think it very fitting:
(If you’ll pardon me my laughter)
This is one war-effort wherein
To cooperate we HAUGHTER!

by Ray Romine Tuesday, July 20, 1943