Welcome to Poetically Yours. Poetically Yours highlights poems by northern Illinois poets. This week features works by Katze Roman.
Roman lives on a small farm in New Milford, Illinois with her daughter, Naomi and husband, Jonathan.
Her family describes her as odd because she loves to study mortuary science and everything to do with mourning customs.
Roman has Type 1 diabetes. She says it’s a major inspiration for writing because it teaches her that life is fragile. Her greatest achievement is raising her daughter Naomi. She calls Naomi a little ray of sunshine. Roman is new to writing poetry and says her family inspires her to pick up the pen.
Roman started writing when her husband was sworn into the fire department in New Milford. She wrote him a poem and her mother-in-law noticed her talent. After that, Roman realized that writing helped to express her emotions. She normally kept these poems to herself but has recently started sharing them with more people. She’s working on her first poetry book, “The Melancholy Of My Heart: A Book of Poetry.”
Today she shares two poems — the first is called “Do Not Weep Babe.”
Do not weep babe, for the world is fine
A virus never seen ravished the world like a sight unseen.
Shelter in place don’t flee! It’s not safe outside so darling just Believe.
Do not weep babe, for the world is fine.
Deaths in the thousands, bodies overfilling the morgues, we can’t bury our dead. We can only just mourn.
Why won’t my eyes believe that the world seems to be demised like so many have come to surmise.
Do not weep babe, for the world is fine.
Your lover threw wild hands upon the sky, choked on his breath and just simply died.
But…It’s okay to weep babe, for the world is no longer fine.
This next poem is called “There's a New World Comin'.”
There’s a new world comin’
Where I can give my loved ones a hug and not feel I just gave them a demising bug
There’s a new world comin’,
This one's coming to an end.
A place where my card won’t ever ever be declined for the measly price of a dime.
The new world where the color of our skin doesn’t make others feel I’m of villainous sin
A new world where I won’t be staring down a deranged persons gun while pleading I did absolutely nothing wrong!
There’s a new world comin’
And it’s just over the bend my friend.
- Yvonne Boose is a current corps member for Report for America, an initiative of the GroundTruth Project. It's a national service program that places talented journalists in local newsrooms like WNIJ. You can learn more about Report for America at wnij.org.
