Category: Self-Analysis

I for one would not trade places
With former times nor other races.

The climate where I spent my youth
Was, in winter-time, uncouth;
Now I’m older I solve that
By turning up the thermostat.

And I prefer the modern way
To working fourteen hours a day.

And as for other countries, why
They wouldn’t do at all, for I
Could not survive the messy mayhem,
Since when I’ve things to say, I say ’em.

When all things are considered, I’m
Well-satisfied in space and time.

by Ray Romine Friday, September 22, 1950

He raked the leaves into a tumbled heap,
And stood with rake in hand to watch them burn;
And he was thinking just how hard it was
That he must soon unclasp his hold on life
And tumble back to earth like any leaf,
When one came whirling from its branch above
To fall upon his fire and be consumed.
He shivered, though the fire and day were warm,
And put his rake away and went inside
To take down from its shelf the Holy Writ
And, blowing off the dust, he opened it.

by Ray Romine Monday, October 14, 1946

No flowers, please , darling, and no one to pray.
A queer sort of funeral? If I have my way
You’ll skip the soft music, the sadness, and say:
“It’ s a lot better world we live in today!”

by Ray Romine Thursday, September 6, 1945

Here in the light of a dying sun,
Aware of encroaching cold,
I sit with a myriad of things undone
In dissolution and mold.

My mind, too shortly now to be
One with the barren clod,
Shrinks at being undoubtedly
The last human link with God.

I curse, then I settle, for things have gone
Exactly according to plan:
A bug and a lichen to carry on,
For man, after all, was a man.

by Ray Romine Wednesday, March 18, 1953

My lips are ever wrongly pursed;
My stance is poor, right from the first;
My diction stinks; I’m not well-versed;
My grammar is a thing accursed.
But though my critics do their worst,
At least I’m fresh. I’m unrehearsed!

by Ray Romine Friday, October 12, 1951

I am a fiend, a brute, a cad–
I like the “better things” in life;
For a bug upon a lily-pad,
I sacrifice my child and wife.

A poem here–there, Florence’s eyes;
Here, Sandra’s curls–there, vividly,
A water-color, quite a prize.
(They all seem quite alike–to me.)

by Ray Romine Monday, October 16, 1944

As a youth, I thought age
Might make me a sage
Like Solomon, Nash, or Saint Stephen;
But my I . Q. net
Is less what I forget–
So I ‘m lucky, perhaps, to break even!

by Ray Romine Sunday, December 24, 1950

If I each day do every task I find
Along the way to do, and if I keep my mind
My own and God’s;
If too, my heart be tuned to humankind,
I have a pact with God, Who says the trust will bind,
Whate’er the odds.

But, should I shun my bounden duty here
And let environment with my conscience interfere,
Which eaase to guide,
And if my heart be aught except sincere,
And true to man, and his Creator–death is near,
At least inside.

We ignore the sin that chokes from life its breath:
Yet fear and dread and fight a mortal death!

by Ray Romine Sunday, July 25, 1943

Here I stand
At age 37 -Halfway
from Birth
To Hell or Heaven,*

Leaning on a post
Staring at the moon,
Wondering if success
Is curse or boon?

A worthy thought ,
But a shame to waste it;
To test success
You have to taste it!

* Is there doubt which??

by Ray Romine Saturday, September 20, 1947

Angry at yourself; where grew
But one mistake, there are now two.

by Ray Romine Thursday, September 14, 1950