Amy Kitchener's Angels Without Wings Foundation
Presents the 2008 New Jersey Senior Poet Laureate

Raymond Reininger

RAYMOND REININGER, 63, Sayreville, New Jersey, a disabled veteran with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, has written 600 poems. Others read his poems at a Poets Cafe in East Brunswick. He says if poetry were a woman, “then poetry is my wife.” Divorced, he has two daughters. His sign is Scorpio.

A Room With No View


How did I get here and what did I do
To be shuttered in here, and not have a view?
Was it something l said and taken to offend?
I'm in a jam and I can't see no end.

There are no lights in here and very little room,
Occasionally I hear a voice, my capture I presume.
If there's a way out I must find it quick,
I'll try almost anything, I'll scream and I'll kick.

If I get out of here I'll make no allegations,
All I want to do is go on vacation.
It seems like a dream, it doesn't seem real,
I wonder if there are others going through this same ordeal.

The food has been great and the temperature just right,
And no one bothers you, you can sleep through the night.
They seem to trust me, there's no bed check,
But from the way I've been sleeping I got a kink in my neck.

It seems like many months have slowly gone by,
Tomorrow's my birthday so I'll give it one more try.
Someone is shoving. I don't have much room.
I think I saw Dad faint while I was leaving my womb.


Raymond Reininger
Sayerville, New Jersey