Category: Philosophy

This taut observation, I’m sure I can say,
Is pertinent, and I think prudent:
Experience may be the best teacher okay,
But man doesn’t make the best student.

by Ray Romine Wednesday, December 27, 1950

My friends never fail any ladder to scale
Where Success is attractively rosy;
But I mke the crack, as I crawl and slide back:
It’s lonesome down here , but it’s cozy!

Oh, I wonder, sometimes, as I rest between climbs,
What it’s like there with Jonesy and Smitty–
But I like a view that distence adds to,
And the heights from down here are so pretty!

Though I’m broken and bent, I am (perforce) content
With the dictum that I’ll never make it.
(Of course, if Success ever says to me, “Yes,”
More than likely I’ll break down and take it)

If, though, kind sirs, my philosophy stirs,
In the meantime, your own indignation,
Till the day I “arrive”, please do not deprive
A failure* of his consolation!

*Success or not, don’t let author spoof you: he was paid for this verse (at least) at Uncle Sam’s hourly rate – -every blarsted word of it!

by Ray Romine Saturday, October 12, 1946

Life is a conglomeration of awkward events;
Life is a horror–
Life is a bad dream.
Life is a jelly-fish
Dreading the touch of rough hands.
Life is an endurance contest,
An effort to hold out against Misfortune
Until Death’s welcome kiss
Shall end it.

by Ray Romine Tuesday, July 8, 1947

These modern kids, wisecracks and all,
Can drive me just a little wild
Until I slow up and recall
That I was once a “Modern Child”.
To me, sometimes, it has occurred
That Tolerance is more than word.

by Ray Romine Wednesday, June 20, 1951

The guy I abhor
When I’m sowing wild oats
Is the learned didactic
Quoter of quotes.

My conscience may wallop me
Soundly tomorrow;
But tonight, please, no sermons,
no examples, or sorrow.

So take him and hang him
And bury his notes
With the gravel-voiced quoter
Of quotable quotes.

by Ray Romine Thursday, October 12, 1950

Conceived in a moment of madness
The decision is with me to stay;
Whether sired by goodness or badness,
This is the only way.

Take heart! For the great and the near-great
Have reared themselves from the muck
Not so much by their giving temptation the gate
As by decisions with which they’ve been stuck…

by Ray Romine Monday, July 10, 1950

Just a weed among weeds by the roadside there;
But it nodded and seemed to speak:
“I’m as much a part of this earth as you,
‘Though to you I’m small and weak.

“I’ve no thought of failure; I’ve nothing to gain,
But I, too, have my place in the sun.
I’m holding my head high and doing my best
Till the sands of my course be run.

“God put me here for some reason of His,
And it’s not mine to wonder why–
I’ll fulfill the fate that He has for me,
And the autumn will see me die.

“The autumn will see me die, I say,
But that’s as it ought to be;
I was never intended to be a man,
Or to live as long as a tree.”
….
So be quiet, Ambition, and go your way,
And leave me in peace again:
If a failure am I to the Mind of Man,
And he frown on me now and then,

Let him hark to the weed at the side of the path:
We can’t all be as great as he.
I was never intended for great or rich
To fulfill my destiny!

by Ray Romine Saturday, August 1, 1942

If I from here could see the end of things
As they will some day be, instead of now;
Could know, the why, the when, the where, the how;
Could sense the anguish that the future brings,
Or all the sunlit, fairy fun that rings
From every happy day to which I bow,
Would I still wander through the mud and slough,
Or would I change, and touch the soul that sings

From deep within me? Am I big enough,
Although forearmed with knowledge not my own,
To take myself and polish off the rough,
To counteract the worthless seeds I’ve sown?
However much prepared, I seriously
Do doubt if life would change a lot for me.
2-6-44, almost entirely
in (sh-h-h) Church.

by Ray Romine Sunday, February 6, 1944

If civilization decides to crumble,
There won’t be enough to even rumble.

The male’s taste runs to filthy lucre,
A haze of tobacco smoke and euchre,
Talk unprintable and loud:
“I’m SUPERIOR–am I PROUD?”
But then, the female’s just as bad
(She inherited, from her dad);
Could male be deadlier, more vicious
Than the female of the spicious?
I’ve said before: I’ll say agin:
Our civilization’s pretty thin.

The auto-horns we tolerate;
Detroit and all that racial hate;
Congress with its loud debate
That “fixes” everything–too late;
Bureaus, questionnaires, red tape;
The jobs we loathe, but can’t escape–
I only lately realized
We aren’t exactly civilized.

That desk with cigarette-burns marred;
The garbage dumped in our front yard;
The goop-head we call “quite-a-card”;
The crime that should be locked and barred;
Poets unfeathered and untarred,
All go to show that you can bet:
We aren’t civilized, as yet!

A broken bottle in the street;
The stuff the butchers sell for meat;
The things we preach, the while we cheat,
All prove, I’ve said, and I’ll repeat:
Our civilization’s not complete.

We drain our purse and spend the dregs
To see the famous Grable legs;
Picture post-cards show the trend
Toward which the Movies once more bend–
And though we treat it matter-of-factly,
We aren’t civilized, exactly.

A man(?) with no more on the ball
Than John L. Lewis stops us all;
(We oughtta give this ape a Jail
With bars and windows, but no BAIL)–
We follow him, although our sons
May die for want of planes and guns.
No, we’re not civilized, you see–
At least, it sounds that way to me!

Now, when we’ve won this little war,
We wanta bite us off some more–
Share our manners, meat, and syrup
With those thankless folk in Europe;
Seek out the Asiatic Chap,
And toss our learning in his lap;
Teach ’em tomorrow how we today
Live the Good Ol’ Yankee Way!
But African, on far horizon,
What’s meat to us may be his p’izon.
Did “Culture” of White Man and his wife
Improve the American Indian’s life?
Turn your eyes to Tokyo–
We “civilized” the EAST, you know!
I’d gladly civilization proffer,
If I thought we’d spare to offer!
In this idea I’m immersed:
Let’s CIVILIZE AMERICA FIRST!

Whole-heartedly you don’t agree?
You may be civilized more than me!

by Ray Romine Wednesday, June 30, 1943

He has a prosaic life, it seems.
Alas! No pocketful of dreams.

by Ray Romine Sunday, January 6, 1952