I have read a Modern Novel;
I have seen a Modern Play;
I’ve obeserved the Modern Version
Of the Great American Way;
I have listened to the Broadcasts:
I have gazed at Modern Art;
I have sat on Modern Sofas
(And they didn’t touch my heart);
I have seen the latest Movie;
Know the very latest Gyp;
Heard the Bobby-soxers’ Lingo;
Seen the neatest Stripper Strip:
This will sound, I’m sure, Old Fashioned,
But I’ll say it, once begun:
We have gone too far from Nature
For our artificial fun,
For the simple wants have vanished,
And the simple pleasures, too;
And we must have Complication
In the things we say and do.
Why, the Poet’s “Book of Verses”
With his “Jug of Wine and Thou”
Are extinct as Dodo Feathers,
Yet we wonder–Holy Cow!–
What’s the cause of our Neuroses;–
What’s the matter with our minds?–
What brings on our discontentment; —
How to find the Tie that Binds?
Our solution to the puzzle
Is the nuts, as you’ll have guessed:
We just pay some Doc to tell us
That our nerve-cells need a rest!
by Ray Romine Tuesday, February 5, 1946