Category: Poetry

I’ve chewed my pencil;
I’ve cudgeled my brain
For a well-written couplet
Or witty quatrain,
And though it’s not nearly
So clever as most,
I’ll settle for this
If it gets in the Post.

(It didn’t)

by Ray Romine Wednesday, April 9, 1952

Why do they call it “free verse”, when it invariably costs a headache for author,
And anyone foolish enough to read it leaves himself wide
open to pain of one kind. or anauthor??

Then there’s the story of the Scot who dawdled into the
corner bookstore, and asked for a free verse volume;
The clerk kindly assured him only the Carnegie Library
carried that kind of verse, all serious-like and solume.

Surely enough, Just like any good story should turn out,
he found it in the Library,
Which should teach all good students of literature to be wary.
Especially of free verse.
In all the universe, no worse curse than free verse.

It’s poetry that failed to jell;
Or prose that’s mangled, hard to read, and sounds like a
word that with jell rhymes well.

Perverse, reverse verse!
Of all the dithery types of verse,
I hate free verse the merse.
It, I can scarce excuse:
I turn on it abuse.
I even curse
Free verse ……

by Ray Romine Tuesday, April 13, 1943

A lot of wild and stupid dreams,
To other men, are Great Men’s schemes–
But mine are wilder, far, than most:
I dream of selling to the POST!
It’s possible, at least. You see,
It has been done, but not by me!

by Ray Romine Tuesday, May 1, 1945

Oh give me a pencil and paper;
Surround me with books I adore;
Give me the mood and the leisure;
And a study with carpeted floor.
And then, can I WRITE? Don’t be funny:
I sit and I muse and I mope.
Then, at lunch the next day I compose me
A gem on an old envelope!

Oh give me i clean sheet of Bristol,
Some India ink and a brush;
Six kinds of pens. an eraser,
A desk chair upholstered with plush.
And then can I DRAW? Quite the oh no?
I chew and I rant, I go mad–
And later, I doodle a doozy
On a piece of a telephone pad.

So…

From perfect conditions please spare me;
I thrive on the hardships, perhaps–
For the richer and softer I find it,
The nearer my “art” to collapse!

9-11-44 Written at lunch,
on the back of en envelope

by Ray Romine Tuesday, September 12, 1944

“It may be corny, or sloppy, sonny,
But can the serious, and write it funny;
Call it slapstick or call it hammy–
That’s just the way it appeals to mammy!

We cry at the foul deals life can hand us,
We sob at the snob while the rich command us;
We rain tears at parting, and cloud up at meeting;
Our hearts break down under work’s dull beating.

So write it, dear fellow, and keep it amusing:
We’ve enough of these tears and emotion-abusing.
Worthless trash, they’ll call it, but if it IS truckle,
Who can measure. the worth of a smile or a chuckle?”

by Ray Romine Sunday, May 16, 1943

My stuff , the Editors tell me, SMELLS–
The first small verse YOU send out SELLS.

Should I get religion, and pray?
Or drop verse and adopt croquet?
Or interest myself in Ballet?
Or take up the making of hay
(In an alcoholic way?)

If you sell once more, I’ll end my life
With a duller-than-dull old pocket-knife.
The best way out I can see for me,
Is to purchase your blank-blank recipe!

by Ray Romine Friday, September 27, 1946

“Daddy, I’m gonna be a Writer”–
Daughter, your supervision should’ve been tighter!

Turn around,now, and be a cook or a seamstress,
Or, say, a weldress or even a teamstress;

But if you must write (and all the world knows this)–
Cut out the verses, and stick to the prose, sis.

For no matter how fluently you may tell it,
If you say it in verse, I DARE YOU TO SELL IT!!

by Ray Romine Wednesday, April 19, 1944

Although the theme is worn and trite,
I trust you will excuse it,
For now I’ve started out to write,
It’s my turn to use it!

by Ray Romine Monday, October 11, 1948

My friend’s committed suicide–
He died in pure dejection;
He took a bit of cyanide
At his 90th rejection.

Yes, he’d been writing lyrics for
Songs cute and connivey
Which wouldn’t sell; but still, senior,
They BOUGHT “Li’l Lamsy Divey”!

by Ray Romine Tuesday, February 22, 1944

For years I’ve penned this stuff, and hoped,
Since enterprise was free,
I’d someday see a juicy check–
I mean from you to me.

You could have told me long ago
(The humane thing to do)
That all the checks I can expect
I’LL WRITE, from me to you!

Yes, poetry has many things
That make the world indict it–
But this should wash it up for good:
To HAVE TO PAY to WRITE IT!!

by Ray Romine Tuesday, August 1, 1944