Category: Self-Analysis

I can’t buy clothes – -would it be cuter
To change my sex to fem. or neuter?
For, though the girls in sunshine bask,
I can’t run nude –I am a masc.

by Ray Romine Monday, January 28, 1946

Not a few spend their lifetimes wishing for gold,
Security, fame, or to never grow old;
Some crave, with a hunger unsatisfied, pleasure,
While others would peddle their birthrights for leisure.
But I shall indulge in no wishing for, see–
I’ve learned that I’ll get just what’s coming to me!

by Ray Romine Wednesday, February 21, 1951

I must confess my dear Aunt Emma
Initiated my dilemma
By shouting my complex inferior
Down with “Nephew, be superior!”

And two years later my Aunt Kate
Did just as scathingly berate
And call annoying and immense
My boyish overconfidence.

And so my Aunts both shout today,
“He’s so complex, is Nephew Rayl”

by Ray Romine Sunday, September 24, 1950

Whenever I’m in doubt about
A thing I “know I know,”
That’s when I’m apt to shout it out
To hand a foe a blow.

Beware you, though, my pure allure
When I don’t pound around;
For when I am demure, be sure
That’s when I’m sound of ground.

MORAL

When you hear a loud barrage
Of words, look out for camouflage.

by Ray Romine Wednesday, March 15, 1944

To someone living in my hut
I may seem glum and moody, but
To friends, who’re still guite distant, say,
I’m happy, debonair and gay.
So Fate presents this ugly mess:
As you know me better, you like me less!

by Ray Romine Thursday, February 14, 1952

It’s said this holds–I can’t see how
(But nice to contemplate upon):
That gossips who besmirch me now
May praise me highly once I’m gone.

Of course it’s plain vindictiveness
(It’s I, admitted, at my worst)
For me to change the whole process
If some of my kind friends go first!

by Ray Romine Wednesday, February 6, 1952

Although it make me little loved,
I do not care for being shoved.
Don’t push me into things I fear,
Especially not from the rear.
Don’t force, insist, demand. Instead,
See to it from the front I’m led
With promise, insincere and hollow:
The rear, I’ve found, will always follow.

by Ray Romine Tuesday, November 6, 1951

He analyzes well today
My own mistakes of yesterday:
“I’d not have done it quite that way-
A little more or lees, I’d say,
Would Just have seen that problem through.”
(I know this chap, and so do you.)
Small credit ought to go to him
Who tells with fresh and eager vim,
When things are written off and done,
About the battle he’d have won.
And he’ll be watched more closely than
His self-effacing fellow-man,
To see if he shall stand or fall
When his turn oomes to lug the ball.
He’ll make mistakes, as any man
Will make who does the best he can.
Don’t be too quick to criticize
That effort of the other guy’s,
For when our back’s against the wall
Things may look different, after all.

by Ray Romine Wednesday, July 18, 1945

“Where there’s smoke there’s fire”
I can hardly term a joke,
For in my lazy carcass
You won’t find smoke!

by Ray Romine Sunday, April 5, 1953

I am regarded as odd
Because I don’t think like other people,
Quite.
“He’s a little queer”,
Or, “His sense of values is twisted”,
Because I’d rather have a poem,
Or a bed of Iris,
Or watch a sunset or the stars
Than to shoot pool,
Or kill rabbits,
Or run wild with loose women,
Or other he-man things like that.
Why–I don’t even smoke or drink
Or swear much! Isn’t it awful?
But why, after all, should I make me over to be like you,
Even if you DO represent the majority?
Once, a majority of people voted for the 18th Amendment:
I’m pretty sure YOU think that majority was wrong?

So don’t try to change me over to your way
Of thinking.
I have no intention of changing you over to mine,
Except that I do believe
You might Just change enough to tolerate me
Since I have to put up with youl
Life is the state of being individual;
Without that quality, ARE we alive?

The dead have a long time to get used to each other.
The dead all think alike.

by Ray Romine Wednesday, June 27, 1945