in a shameful past when nearly
every woman was suspect, and
many were burned at the stake.

Now we have real witches abounding,
and the torturers and the burners are
dead and gone. Thank God!

But, don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean
the imaginary evil witches of
that shameful past.

I mean for the most part white witches
harming no one, embracing nature,
and no longer harassed or hunted.

I say hurrah for that. And shame on
those hellish persecutors of the past.

Bob Boyd

Why a replicant, you might ask?
Totally human, skin, body, words,
minus mood swings, drama, and
the ever present possibility of
a cheating partner or a broken
heart. I’d dispense with those
negatives and have a lover
as real and as human as a
flesh and blood female
without those deal breakers.
You may be thinking I’d want
her submissive. You’re wrong.
I’d want her to be an equal but
not in constant conflict with me.
I’d want her to be wiser than me
as well, like an awesome guide
that would help me stay on the
best path for me, our lives and
our romantic relationship. But,
alas, I’ll be dead before a perfect
replicant is invented. C’est la vie.

Bob Boyd

You hear of ghosts everywhere
in houses, churches, lighthouses,
and even in haunted dolls.

Why can’t these dead people just
stay dead instead of being
so mischievous, so scary?

Or, if there’s an afterlife, why
can’t the dead move on?

Why stick around in musty
old haunts when you could
go to the Light and have
a better afterlife than what
has to be a boring one?

But, no, they’d rather stagnant
in those musty old haunts and
occasionally get buzzed by
having a scare or two.

I don’t know why, do you?

Bob Boyd

Acted up in classes,
made an ass of myself.

Got sent to the principle’s office,
occasionally got kicked out of
high school.

Oh, how I regret the fool that I was,
and if only I could have been

a behaved and good student
instead of wasting those years.

But at least later in life I reformed myself
or maybe life reformed me.

But oh how I wish I could have a redo
and do high school the right way.

Bob Boyd

I think to some degree
the saying

when you go looking
for the paranormal
it comes looking for you

is true

with that in mind
and things like

hitchhiker ghosts
that follow you home

and maybe possess you

scare the hell out of me

but maybe having the
hell scared out of me

is not a bad thing

Bob Boyd

when he first met her
it was glorious

she was hot, fun, enchanting

but three months in
he got used to her looks
she wasn’t as hot

she wasn’t fun anymore
and her enchantment
had lost its allure

and he felt she was
eating away his life
like a cancer

interfering with
his solitary pleasures
making demands on him
nagging him

but unknown to him
she was tired of him too

and felt the same way
about him

Bob Boyd

until I become more awake and realize
that thank God

it wasn’t real

I had a dream last night where I was
married to a woman who had misplaced

another woman’s children and
both women were in a panic

and though the children got located
I worried the woman was going to sue

my wife and me
more so because I’m just on Social Security

I woke up still thinking I was going to get
sued because of a mistake my wife
had made

guilty by association like an accessory
but minutes later I realized

that I was a free man

of the lawsuit and of a wife

Bob Boyd

It’s way too embedded in my DNA
this need for a woman

I fight it when it emerges
every so often and
I live on the memories

of some women I’ve been with

but then I think of the downsides
of being with a woman
especially as an old man

not having the freedom I have
being alone

not having to worry about
dying on her and leaving
her with endless grief

not having to compromise or
do things I don’t want to do
that I do for love

the love of her

and I remember the lyric of a
song that is applicable

the things you do for love

but in retrospect it’s worth it
when things are good

don’t ask me about when
things are bad

like that woman who
stole money from me

maybe someday a good woman
will walk into my life

but I’ll never go looking for one again

Bob Boyd

Correction

sometimes Linux sucks
for a non-techy like me

but who can usually figure things
out

even as a relic of an old man
who’s never been technical

and never will be

who has to admit
it’s not Linux that sometimes

sucks

it’s my not being technical enough
but despite that

I’ll solve this Linux problem
I’m having now

hopefully today

Bob Boyd

Despite all the predators
lurking everywhere
frightening them
stalking them
killing them
ending their lives
the songbirds still sing

Bob Boyd

Love enters
their lives
periodically
stays for a while
then departs
as if Love is
a fickle goddess
that blesses some
curses others
and many
never find
the one

Bob Boyd

Once vibrant people
with vibrant lives
now only skeletons
under tombstones

where are they now

hopefully somewhere
beyond the earth
and the tombstones

pity lives reduced to
death and only that

buried underground
bones under stone
hopefully there’s more

Bob Boyd

She got into the dark arts
when her boyfriend of

several years left her
for another woman.

She studied the books
and the websites,

practiced the darkest
of the dark arts.

Her primary purpose
to psychically kill

her ex-boyfriend’s new
girlfriend.

After six months of
knowledge and practice,

she attained her goal,
her ex-boyfriend’s

girlfriend died in a
horrible car accident.

But, unexpectedly, the
dark arts owned her

after that and chose
to engulf her

smother her
and suck the life

out of her lungs
and her heart.

Be wary of messing
with the dark arts.

Bob Boyd

Many are dead
some are still
clinging to life.

Many have
unexpected medical
problems.

Some are on
walkers.

Some are in
assisted living.

Some are in
nursing homes.

Sooner or later
like me,

they’ll all be dead.

Bob Boyd

The warm weather was
stubborn this year

it was reluctant to
surrender

to the
cold fall weather

it clung to the
70s

rarely dipping to
tops of the 60s

it seemed instead
of a chilly fall

we were going
to have

a prolonged
mild summer

but alas one
night the cold

arrived suddenly
unexpectedly

and the plunge
in the temperature

gave my body the
cold shakes

a sweat shirt
and a blanket.

Bob Boyd

Sitting Bull Seer of Seers had a vision/dream before Bighorn,
Saw the three tribes won against proud Custer’s 7th Cavalry.
Custer, like a fool, didn’t heed the warnings to his historical peril.
A great victory for the oppressed and denigrated resistance,
Who used to be called savages, redskins, and Indians.
In later, biased movies and TV shows, cowboys always the good guys.
Back then, nobody did movies and TV shows about the real bad guys.
Like revisionist history where the victors don’t write the real scripts,
Invaders robbing indigenous people of their culture and their lands,
Broken treaties, Trail of Tears, Wounded Knee and other atrocities.
And those days ended so heartbreakingly for the real good guys,
Chief Joseph, great soul, great leader said, “I will fight no more forever.”
And the legendary warrior Crazy Horse was shot to death.
Decade after decade of living on reservations, almost like prisoners;
Lands shamefully stolen by greedy, heartless, ignoble invaders.
Great feathered defenders of their lands living dismal, empty lives
With tiny pieces of the pie called America, not much of it left for them.
Despite the wrongs, forgiving Native Americans proudly fly American flags
At their magnificent powwows, spectacular events to visit and see,
That keep their cultures and their histories alive, a history that should
Never be forgotten and taught in schools all over America.

Bob Boyd

In my mind I travel back through the years
to when I was in high school.

And I remember when this girl had a crush on me,
but I wasn’t interested in her

until I changed my mind and she vengefully
rejected me for rejecting her when she wanted me.

I found it kind of amusing how she changed her mind
so brutally, but I deserved her rejection

and should have gratefully asked her out when she
had her crush on me.

But, alas, in the greater scheme of things it probably
made no difference

except if I went out with her and she became my never
found soulmate and my wife for life.

Bob Boyd

I’ve never understood why birds eat birds
and fish eat fish

To me it is kind of like cannibalism

Imagine if many humans starting eating humans
like birds eat birds and fish eat fish

The outcry and the outrage would reverberate
all over the planet

The cannibals would be locked away in prisons

But it is just nature’s way for birds to eat birds
and fish to eat fish

They are progammed by nature to do it

However I stand by my statement that it is kind of
like cannibalism

Bob Boyd

I’ve always been a bit bothered by the fact that birds eat birds and fish eat fish. I know it’s just nature’s way, but like I wrote to me it’s kind of like cannibalism. And I hate that many beautiful song birds with their sweet songs are often cannibalized by bigger birds. It’s no wonder they are so skittish all the time, the necessary paranoia of prey.

She took a familiar shortcut through a park
but in the dark

Unknown to her a serial killer was lurking
in the park waiting for someone like her

Halfway through the park, she sensed
the danger

But too late

The serial killer pounced on her

Bad move by him

The moon was full

and she morphed into her
werewolf woman horror

She tore the serial killer apart and did her
city a great public service

and saved all the women who would
have been his future victims

Bob Boyd

Woe to all the women in this world who have been tortured and murdered by serial killers. And all the women who will be. And I wounder how a God of Love, if there is one, allows such horrors to happen. I cannot imagine the horrors of a being captured, tortured, and murdered by one. It is my hope that when these women die, they go to a place of indescribable bliss and peace, and that it won’t matter how they went out of this world, won’t even be a memory to them.

In a pet store, languished a sad, old Betta fish Jailed in a tiny plastic cup with a tight lid on it.

Depressed, he wondered how have I come to only this, a
plastic cup-bound captive unhappy and imprisoned, probably for the rest of my life?

When he was a younger fish, he had grand, opulent dreams of living the high life in an upscale, ritzy fish tank with soothing bubbling water and aquarium lid lights like soft moonbeams glowing upon the bubbling water.

After years trapped in that cup, his hopes shattered, his life, his dreams broken, he had resigned himself to a gulag-like ever after life.

Then a renowned Fish Whisper named Bob Boyd marched into the pet store and saw the anguishing Betta.

He listened to the Betta’s sad tale, and he deduced he didn’t have to be a Freudian psychologist to see the Betta was suffering and suicidal in his soul-crushing, plastic prison.

Having no money or credit cards on him, he’d forgotten to bring his wallet, he needed a plan pronto as the Betta began to hold his breath to self-smother himself to death.

Bob said to himself, “Screw my ethics, grabbed the plastic cup the Betta was in, stuffed it under his surplus navy pea coat and with the excited Betta gasping the word freedom! under Bob’s coat, and to create a distraction, Bob knocked over a cricket bin with the crickets chirping and scrambling all over the pet store floor, and he stealthily snuck out of the store.

And the Betta was freed from that plastic prison forever.

Bob Boyd