Category: Poems

Ray Romine Poems

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Prayer, In Some Irony

Grant me, God, a little boon:
Let me sing a different tune.

Don’t let me laud the lowly rose:
Instead, some posy no-one knows.

Steer me clear of Mays and Junes
And lead me not to corny moons.

Keep me off of gardens; grass–
I’ll write of anvils, thread, or brass.

Take me out of fields of clover–
Let occult and weird take over.

Children, dogs, and all that hooey?
Sic me onto something screwy;

Something rattle-brained, obscure–
And nothing simple, nothing pure.

Yea, let me skip that stuff of home ,
And so construct a different pome;

Say of my verse , if man has banned it–
Only God can understand it!

by Ray Romine Wednesday, July 14, 1948

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Prayer To Toymakers

I thank you, manufacturers,
(So should the dogs and sparrows)
For your putting rubber suction cups
Upon the ends of arrows.

But too, most fathers in the morgue
Could be out on the fairways
If you could make your roller-skates
Remove themselves from stairways.

by Ray Romine Friday, September 20, 1946

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Praise (untitled)

If you have any good to say of me,
Impart it now while I am still around;
For praise is common when we cease to be,
And unbelieved, where compliments abound.

by Ray Romine Friday, December 1, 1944

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Practice Session?

I know just how the government
Ought to be run, and who
Is qualified for president
And School-board Member, too.

I know which laws are ripe for change;
Which policies, unfair;
I know whose taxes they should raise,
And whose they ought to pare.

The Major Issues are my meat;
But, though it causes stares,
I take five minutes once a week
And right my own affairs.

by Ray Romine Monday, August 13, 1951