Category: Self-Analysis

You peer into eternity:
Tell me, tell me what you see,
Are there riches waiting there?
Am I famous, fat and fair?

Or does the world regard with dread
My loud, unpleasant tyrant’s tread?
Is the pity in friends’ eyes
Meant for one I shall despise?

Perhaps no mind could stand the blow–
Perhaps it’s better not to know,
So peer on in serenity:
See your sights, but don’t tell me.

by Ray Romine Thursday, July 26, 1945

I think that I shall never be
A poet who raves about a tree.
“Until, of course,” his critics chorused,
“He’s rich enough to own the forest.”

by Ray Romine Monday, April 9, 1951

I LIKE myself the way I am:
There’s something nice about me.
It hurts my ego, though, to scram
And leave a world without me!

by Ray Romine Friday, September 20, 1946

The Past is gone, its ashes old
Are scattered throughout time .
Its noble deeds, however bold,
Are under silt and slime.

A tombstone cold upon a hill,
A memory in some heart–
My Future, plotted grim and chill,
No comfort does impart.

Perennially, the Present keeps-
A flower Man understands;
And here am I, between two sleeps,
To hold it in my hands.

by Ray Romine Wednesday, January 15, 1947

When summer hits its greenest, highest tide,
A leaf upon the grass, defeated, dried,
Is very out of place, and brings to mind
Round hole, square peg; and humankind–
And city, job, adjustment Who is “free”?
A leaf is more at home upon a tree.

by Ray Romine Tuesday, June 16, 1953

The theory isn’t a wonder.
If you will, toss it insult and stone,
But I must admit
I am partial to it- –
Why not, when the darn thing’s my own?

by Ray Romine Saturday, December 23, 1950

I heard him blame his conscience,
But his conscience didn’t err:
He just failed to watch the roadsigns
That take a man Somewhere!

by Ray Romine Thursday, October 17, 1946

I’ve noticed folks do not agree
On what they say regarding me:

“A generous, good-hearted fool”;
“A miserly tight-fisted ghoul.”

“A terribly hot-headed crumb”;
“As even-tempered as they come.”

“The upright sort–all purity;”
“No morals showing I can see !”

“The flap-eared brainless dodo type , “
“Intellectually quite ripe.”

“Low,” NO, “High !”; “Stopped”… “Just started”–
“Cowardly”…. and, “Lion-hearted!”

So, I will choose the names I like,
Sifted from the many;
My own opinion of myself
Is just as good as any!

by Ray Romine Tuesday, September 23, 1947

Who likes to write, and yet who doesn’t dare
Describe the horrors in his own life’s night:
The gray and ghastly shapes, the livid white
Of searing conscience; or the horrid pair
Of blood-rimmed eyes sunk into every care,
Must feel some lack of words that serves him right:
To bring the horror in one heart to light
Might drive the reading world insane for fair!

And so he sugar-coats his dreams, to hide
The spot where cold and quaking drama grew,
And writes a lot of tripe–about like this.
(So any lover, with his one beside
Him, leaves realities for this fresh clue,
And too far gone for words, can only kiss!)

by Ray Romine Wednesday, August 21, 1946

I know, sometimes, that I expect too much
Of life. No man can quite escape the toil
He calls his heritage: those hours that spoil
The best of all his days, and leave their touch
On what is left him. No, the avid clutch
Of dark fatigue the worker best will foil
Who can himself wholeheartedly embroil
In some small blessing quite disguised as such.
So long as I, then, feel a pulse’s beat
At sight of autumn-tinted leaf, or thrill
Completely to a thrasher’s song, or meet
Some poet’s lofty thought, my soul is still
My own; and I shall call life worth the while
For just that inch of joy in every mile.

by Ray Romine Sunday, October 15, 1944