Now, all we gotta do is figure out
how to live to be 600, and hope our
postage holds out!
by Ray Romine Sunday, September 19, 1943
Category: Poems
Ray Romine Poems
Persistence
A quality much in itself worth admiring,
But which in one’s friends can become downright tiring.
by Ray Romine Saturday, September 27, 1952
Permit Me…
It takes one for hunting; it takes one to fish;
It takes one for selling the elegant dish;
Another for boating, and several to drive;
And one for just helping your dog to survive.
Pedalling takes one, and paddling does too;
Caught necking without one, it’s jail-house for
It’s carried so far that today, on my soul,
Unless you have got one, you can’t dig a hole.
“A hobby’s what you need,” the Docs say, “Pursue it!”0
But if you’ve no license, you’d better not do it.
by Ray Romine Tuesday, February 3, 1953
Permanent Wave
New paths which through wild jungles start,
In a year may not be tellable;
But a trail emblazoned on a heart
May prove to be indelible.
by Ray Romine Thursday, September 27, 1951
Perfection
Among the fancy high-priced foods,
All textured smooth as silk,
There’s none for all our bodies’ needs
That serves as well as milk.
by Ray Romine Wednesday, September 11, 1946
Perfect Pet
Instead of a dog or a cat for a pet,
A seal is what I would like to get.
His needs are simple as one could wish:
A tub of water and maybe a fish.
And when I told stories, or funny jokes,
He’d clap his flippers and make loud croaks.
He’d teach me to swim, and best of all,
A seal is so smart he can even play ball!
by Ray Romine Saturday, February 6, 1954
Perfect Day
Although the world outside was gray,
Indoors has been such fun today!
The music box was tinkly-gay;
Birds came to our feeder-tray;
We made snowmen from modeling clay;
We played cowboy and railway,
And circus-tent and castaway.
And mom said, “As a change from play,
How ’bout some doughnuts, if I may?”
But now our toys are put away.
I fold my Dolly’s hands. We pray:
Thank you, God, for such a day.
by Ray Romine Saturday, February 13, 1954
Perennial
“The Cause for which we fight is just;
But let another guide the plow;
I’ve done my share,” said he, “Let him
With brighter zeal take over now.”
. . . . . . . . . . . .
For years and years a Maple tree
Made shelter, shade and fun for me .
And, later, down and sawed and split,
Provided warmth. The stump of it
Today supports a flower-box
Alive with coleus and phlox
. . . . . . . . . . . .
The man who quits his task, diminished,
May see it lie for years unfinished,
Nature’s purpose never swerves;
Even after death she serves.
by Ray Romine Sunday, January 16, 1949
Pep Talk To Self While Figuring, On Paper
Strain,
Brain?
by Ray Romine Tuesday, October 16, 1951
Penny, Penny, ‘mid The Roses, Tell Us How Your Garden Groses.
I think a garden is perhaps all right if you just want to
rear a lettuce or a radish,
But folks who carry such things to extremes can be a very sad dish.
You, for instance cannot go within fourteen rods of Mrs.
Penelope Powerses’
Without she will take your hand and haul you out to see her
trellises and bowerses.
She wants you to enthuse over her iris and the.pink-quilled peony;
And if you were to tell her you couldn’t enthuse by just
getting in edgewise one or two words in an evening,
you’d be an unmitigated meony.
At super-cultivetion and soil undeniably friable
She points with perhaps pride justifiable.
That her Poet’s Narcissi are beautiful,
I agree, feeling that, since I came originally of my own
free will, I should be dutiful;
But with such words as Syringa vulgaris, Myosotis scorpioides, Pentstemon barbatus, and H. peruvianum, or Common Heliotrope,
Reliogrope.
She goes into delirious tremblings, rapt in her Belladonna Improved Delphinium,
But I can’t seem to wrap myselphinium;
Interminable lectures on the respective merits of Siberian
And Japanese iris,
Do naught but tiris.
Very interesting, no doubt, this floriculture,
But, for me, with but a minimum of delving, I could find a more fascinating sorticulture;
I’d trade her choicest Darwinian tulips
For an easy-chair, a detective story, and two large mint
Juleps
Propagation, fertilization, germination; pollination (both
self and cross), and irrigation, are quite complex when you come right down to ’em:
And I always thought you planted seeds in the dirt, and
grew ’em;
But no–your blooms will wilt and rust; they’ll blight and
rack and ruin,
Unless you spray, and dust, and mulch and cultivate, and pruin.
As I ponder all this and her lily-white hands, her gardener she off-handedly mentions,
And then I realize all her actual gardening is done by
intent ions.
Donning a terrific hat, a gorgeous basket, gloves, and a
pair of shears,
She meanders forth to garden, and it of surplus blossoms clears.
Which, I think is the sort of gardening which would to me appeal–
Enthusiasm, intentions, and no work that’s real.
Still, thank you, here among daffodil and jonquil
Life would be a little TOO tronquil.
Yes, she can have her trifoliates, her composites, and her
Hybrida grandiflora;
I’m personally getting really hungry, tired and to the
point where I couldn’ t stand a whole lot mora.
So, please, I must be leaving now, it’s getting late, Mrs.
Powers–
She never even hears me and she can ( and does} go on like that for howers.ยท
I, however, think we should’ be grateful to gardening, and to it thanks send up–
For if all the Mrs. Powers’ in the world turned all this
enfevered passion into something detrimental to society,
where would we all end up?
What? I’m sorry, Mrs. P.
Rude I didn’t mean to be;
Really, now, I beg your pardon– .
Enthralled was I by your lovely garden!
by Ray Romine Sunday, May 9, 1943