Category: Poetry

Now people tell me “why don’t you,
Instead of writing verse,
Get int’rested in something that
Will fatten up your purse?”

But I can’t see their point of view–
Why all this work and strife?
The little things we must enjoy
To get the best of life.

There’s music in the robin’s song
At break of every day,
There’s verse in all the posies wee
That nod along the way;

There’s rhythm in the butterfly
That wings his fitful way,
There’s song in every laugh and word
We utter through the day.

Can money buy for us these things?
No–money’s just a tease.
And so, as long as no one cares
I’LL DO AS I DAMN PLEASE!

by Ray Romine Tuesday, May 9, 1933

A shortage of help there may be
In your particular line–
But there isn’t, and how I wish there were
A scarcity in mine.

A few hundred thousand less poets
And I might crash the gate–
But it looks to me from where I sit
Like a heck of a long, long wait.

Now this is just my opinion:
(And I shouldn’t deliver it)
I b’lieve the Army turns poets down
Because we’re not mentally fit!

If I wait’ll the Army thins the ranks
Of the rhymers, I suppose
Instead of taking a poet’s place,
I’LL BE THE ONE WHO GOES?

by Ray Romine Sunday, July 25, 1943

Reams of poetry,
Lots of rhyme,
Fill a book:
It’s taken time,

Time that might’ve
Been better spent
Making wampum–
I’ve not a cent.

Still: I wonder–
When I go,
Which friends will remember:
Me, or dough?

by Ray Romine Saturday, October 30, 1943

Hail to thee, 0 gentle spring
Flowers a-bloom and birds a-wing

Grasses green and everything
Carest thou much if I should sing?

But then I s’pose that would bring
Rain and snow and everything.

But think you song were any worse
Than all this goofy-sounding verse?

by Ray Romine Tuesday, May 2, 1933

Hurrah for Herby–
Herby wasn’t such a hot student;
Herby was a dreamer.
But when the teacher asked,
“Herby, what is poetry?”
Herby said,
“It’s words that ain’t words
No more
When they’re in a pome.”
A little inelegant,
Perhaps.
But Herby had the soul of a poet.
Herby put his finger on it.
Herby, maybe, knew more than some sages,
When he said, albeit in his own way,
“Words lose their identity as such in poetry,
For poetry is a composite picture of every
beautiful living thing upon this earth
or near it.”
Not just words.
And that’s perhaps why I’m no poet
Like Herby was–
Or could have been.

My hat is off to Herby.

(In not over 7 minutes
at breakfast)

by Ray Romine Tuesday, February 1, 1944

A poet sat beneath a tree,
A pad and pencil on his knee,
And nothing, though he pondered long,
Came from his Muse in way of song,

“It has in truth been said sometime–
No matter what great thought sublime–
No new thing is in earth or sky;
The sleeping dogs let lie shall I”.

Ten times ten thousand verses on
The stars, the elm, the well-kept lawn–
The common things about us all–
Can never on our senses pall:

The things we know, we like to heer;
The old tunes still sound good this year.
So poet, wrestle with thy trade–
And say it, though it has been said!

by Ray Romine Thursday, January 1, 1942

“Lines written at Breakfast”, his poems say–
That’s starting each morning the horrible way!

by Ray Romine Friday, June 11, 1943

Dear Sir, which may sound somewhat trite,
But I really can’t address you as “Dear Ogden”, as I don’t
know you that well; nor “Dear Senator”, which you are
not; and “Dear Mr. Nash” doesn’t sound right, quite:
This all started because from Sears & Roebuck we purchased
your “The Face is Familiar”,
And my wife, after her hysterics somewhat subsides, said she wondered if she could get your picture to find out what you looked like–is there anything siliar?
I mean, the idea’s silly of wanting your likeness for mantel or shelf–
Not your picture itself.
But that is only half the story, as I, too, wondered solemnly what looked a man like who down the Editors of the “Post”,
etc. could mow ’em,
Since I’ve tried and tried for years and have never sold ’em
any poem,
Nor an epic nor an ode,
Nor a jingle hot or code.
No, nor any kind of verses;
Not thinking myself such punkins a a versifier, but even
a blind sow is proverbially supposed to uncover a few silk purses;
Or does that go, out of acorns make you can not a sow’s ear?
Not that you are (he added hastily) a sow’s ear, nor anyother part of a hog, even at 85 1/2¢ a lb, but if you should so like one look, like one, too, would I appear;
For, of all things accursed,
Unfulfilled ambition’s the worst.
Ask me: I carry a lot of silly mail to a scad of Marion’s
best people, daily,
And am I happy? NOl– since I was old enough to know better,
I’ve wanted to sound like Dorothy Parker or Berton
Braley;
And of course it’s a lot of fun amusing oneself with such
verse-creation,
But one is inclined to measure one’s worth by the remuneration.
Well, I can still be a fan
Of a far, far better man–
And, since we’ve never run into you socially, as on our
radio or at a lecture,
Ask for your pecture!
Will your forehead be higher, or lower, or flatter?
Your likeness may tell me just what is my matter.
But I fear it’s no question of features, shape, color, expression, beauty, or sect,
But rather a matter of intellect,
Which, in a picture, show doesn’t always–
Still, it may give me some inkling of your key to Fame’s
Hallways.
As for me, all of one bedroom and full half of the garage
is papered with slips of rejection–
Tell me, can you recall when you had similar sordid collection?

If’ you’ll send us & photo, we’ll send you the postage,
Or ship our small daughter to hold as a hostage;
But ship us your likeness. and don’t ~ay you cen’t, sir,
With two of your public awaiting an answer!

(A trifle blearily,)
But most sincearily,
Ray Romine
954 Westwood Drive
Marlon, Ohio

P.S. Here you make sort of living with verses,
And comes a fan-letter filled with feeble attempt at same–
A plethora of curses!!

“Finished” 4-13-43
Minor additions 7-11-43,
And mailed to O. N. !

by Ray Romine Sunday, July 11, 1943

Reading books on How to Write
The Verse they all describe as Light,
I find advice
Not worth the price:
“Keep it alive
If you’d arrive–
Give it pep and vim and zoom;
Make it effervesce and bloom;
Make it dance, and make it tingle;
Give it verve, if you would jingle.”

Mine qualifies, Romine announces
(Anyway, it always bounces!)

by Ray Romine Friday, October 11, 1946

If you hear a learned barking, son,
That’ll be my friend, Booth Tarkington
Who, when literary matters slack,
At poets takes a nasty crack.

Whether you hail from a mansion or hovel
You SHOULD immerse in a Tarkington novel;
But should you read VERSE, he’ll hand you a slam and
Tell you to have your head examand.

Since this guy has himself a name,
Us folks can’t risk the awful shame
Of getting caught. So now this is out,
We’ll absorb our verse around about.

Yes, now our friend has let this slip,
We’ll wear our couplets on the hip.
We’ll have to read it on the sly,
Or decent folk will pass us by.

If you’d read a lush rondeau,
Mustn’t let the neighbors know.
What hide you, fair one, in your bonnet–
Rye or gin, or just a sonnet?

Since poetry is still ny cherce,
I hope his “do not” does for verse
(And if it does, then I’ll not bicker)
What PROHIBITION did for LICKER!!

by Ray Romine Sunday, February 6, 1944