Keep away from sharp swords,
Don’t go near a lovely woman.
A sharp sword too close will wound your hand,
Woman’s beauty too close will wound your life.
The danger of the road is not in the distance,
Ten yards is far enough to break a wheel.
The peril of love is not in loving too often,
A single evening can leave its wound in the soul.
Meng Chiao – 751-814 A.D. (Chinese -Tang Dynasty)
My friends are dead Zen and Tang Dynasty poets.
When I read them daily, it is like I am hanging
out with them,
and I think to myself who needs any more friends
than these great poets?
Their words, their philosophies, their wisdom,
provide me with all the socialization I need,
far better and more fulfilling than spending my days
listening to the idle chatter of many my age
still in the peopled world.
Bob Boyd
get my attention with this poem of yours:
Beneath the skin of
The one we fondle today,
There is a skeleton,
Propping up the flesh.
Ikkyu
Why couldn’t you have just written something
less graphic, less disturbing?
You could have written something less drastic, like
the woman you are fondling today will be dead someday.
That, though still disturbing, would have been more palatable,
gone down easier.
Now if I ever fondle a woman again, your buzzkill poem
will at some point pop into my mind
and wreck the illusion that I’ll be holding her forever.
Besides, you were supposed to be a freakin’ monk,
not some playboy writing about fondling women.
Ikkyu, if you hadn’t been a monk, I’d say damn you,
but I can’t afford any more bad karma in this life.
So in regard to your disturbing poem I’ll just say,
Ikkyu, why did you have to?
Bob Boyd
In his misspent, wasted youth
Sitting, profiling, in a pool hall,
Hard eyes, looking tough to fit in.
Often skipped days of school,
Had no time for education
In a small city in Massachusetts.
Inhaling a Lucky Strike cigarette,
Exhaling smoky circles in the air
Unfiltered, only manly way to go,
Greaser haircut, thought he was cool,
Thought he was super tough.
Cue ball breaking a rack to pieces,
Clatter of numbered balls
Speeding all over the pool table
Bouncing off the banks
Thudding sounds erupting
Some high and low balls
Dropping into the table pockets.
Cigarettes thrown in spittoons.
Hissing sounds when hitting the water.
Guys swearing over missed shots,
Losing serious betting money,
Some gangsters in the making.
Like Lucky Hall, 6’6” lean machine
Gangster mean and crazy as hell,
Always dressed in black.
Strolled over to him and
As he was taking a drag
On his unfiltered cigarette,
Lucky stuck a gun in his face.
He sat casually in a chair,
Pool stick in hand, unfazed,
Guns rarely seen back then.
He smiled and reached for the gun,
And said to Lucky, “Is that real?”
Not out of bravely was he unafraid,
Couldn’t believe the gun was real.
His nonchalance didn’t get the result
Lucky was looking for.
Lucky turned away, his black trench coat
Swirling in the smoky air,
Lucky looking gangster cool,
Dangerous, and genuine.
Two years later Lucky’s luck ran out.
Shot to death in faraway Alabama.
Probably put his gun in the wrong guy’s face.
Bob Boyd
I’ve come to believe in ghosts
after hearing of many accounts
that seemed creditable to me.
But, if they are real, why just
hang around the earth plane?
And if they are real and hang
around, say, in an old house,
how do they pass their time?
Do they spend most of their
time in a suspended state,
awakening when someone
enters their domains?
Or do they kind of bilocate
living in a haunt and in other
parts of the afterlife at the
same time?
And as for evil ones, why
aren’t they in some place
where they’d be punished
or rehabilitated at the least?
And, hey, if you’re a ghost reading this
kindly let me know how you
pass your time.
Bob Boyd
Why can’t we remember where we were before
we were born?
And why can’t we know where we will go when
we die?
Why does there have to be a barrier between life
and death?
Of course there are speculations and those who
think they know.
But I don’t believe anyone really knows other than
what they’ve been told or read in books.
And maybe the answer is nowhere, or just from
sperm and eggs and ending in the grave.
Sometimes I’ve thought that I should be able
to see the afterlife in a deep contemplation,
a connection and a glimpse of it. But then
I realize my attempts will only be futile,
and that my brain is not wired for it. So I’ll just
have to wait until I die to see what is
beyond the barrier – if anything.
Bob Boyd
even though I’m a member of it.
The wars, the violence, the murders, the rapes,
the mean people, the jerks, and all the endless turmoil.
I’m hoping the afterlife is free of all the disappointing
behaviors and actions of my species,
but if it isn’t, and dead is just dead, there’ll be no me
to be disappointed with it. And, for me, that would
be good as well. No more of the disappointing noise
and clamor of the human race.
Bob Boyd
I cannot believe it. Mid-November and
a high of 86 degrees. What the hell,
literally. Has hell opened a bit where
I live? Where’s the long-awaited
cold weather? Will we get 86 highs
in the month of December? I was
looking forward to a cooling off of
the summer, but all I get is a heating
up of the fall.
Bob Boyd
He said aliens came through the walls of his bedroom
and carried him back through them to their UFO
somewhere in the high skies and presumably
cloaked to the human world.
He thinks they extracted his semen and maybe
some of his DNA.
He showed me what looked like an implant in
the shin of his right leg.
Maybe he’s legit, but I find it hard to believe
that aliens come through walls and extract semen,
as well as implanting implants in people’s bodies.
Bob Boyd
Every night he lingers there,
the stairway she fell and died on,
hoping to see or hear from her.
He feels her spirit returns to the
stairway at night when all is dark.
He holds a candle in his hand,
and he believes the candle will
summon her there from the dead.
But night after night no signs from
her, and he wonders if his broken
heart and his life will ever mend.
Bob Boyd
He hears her words clearly in his head.
I don’t know if he’s hallucinating or if
he imagines he hears her talking.
He seems like his mental faculties
are intact and that he’s perfectly sane.
So I concluded: whether he really hears
his wife or imagines it, no harm done.
And if it helps him with his grieving,
maybe it’s the perfect therapy for him.
Or maybe his wife really talks to him.
Bob Boyd
He said he was tired of women, sick of their shit.
So he bought a life-sized doll as a substitute.
He called her Maryann, loved her as if real.
He took her with him everywhere, even to
department stores and fast food restaurants.
He got stares and laughs from many people.
He didn’t care and, as said, love is blind.
A year passed, and he broke up with his doll,
tired of her giving him the silent treatment.
Bob Boyd
sits in his mountain cave
reading religious texts
meditating on mantras
unattached to the world
above the chaos below
transcending the self
merging with the cosmos
attaining the Oneness
Bob Boyd
Christmas mornings
with Christmas gifts.
Birthdays with
birthday gifts and
surprises.
Cartoons on TV.
A shiny new bicycle.
A pet, dog, cat, gerbil,
hamster, etc.
Fun children’s TV shows
and movies.
No soul-draining responsibilities.
No bills to pay.
No rent or house payments.
If lucky. If born into the right
family,
Childhood innocence and
a relatively blissful life.
Bob Boyd
Imagine if an insect could eventually
become a human and gain liberation.
I like the equality in that, like equal
rights for all sentient being.
Better, I like the idea of even insentient
thanks, like rocks, get upgrades to
humans too and the ultimate reward:
liberation into eternal bliss consciousness.
But, do I want to come back for another life?
No way. And I’m hoping reincarnation isn’t real.
Not that it matters what I think in the workings
of the cosmos and creation and re-creation.
Bob Boyd
Man, how this world sucks with so many women
getting murdered in it, often while jogging alone.
I saw a case on a crime show today. Nice woman
and a teacher.
She went on the same morning jog she’d done
many times and whoosh! she’s gone.
The worst is they never found her body or
could prove who killed her.
I’ve seen the same scenario many times, a woman
alone jogging, and she vanishes or clearly is murdered.
In some of the vanishing cases the police eventually
find a suspect, that based on some evidence
seems to be the killer, but lacking enough proof
and a body, they cannot arrest him.
How I hate that we live in a world where many
women are murdered every day: an average of
228 women and girls daily worldwide.
Bob Boyd
Some people seem addicted
to deadly risks. Risk takers.
Me, I’ve never been like that.
Why risk your life when it’s
easy enough to die without
taking any risks?
Accidents, fatal diseases,
random attacks, disasters
and murders.
Why increase the odds of
dying or getting disabled
for life?
Maybe deadly risk taking is
baked into some people’s DNA
and not in others.
And just living in this unpredictable
world is risky enough for me.
Bob Boyd
and I don’t mean gay men. I mean regular guys who hang
out with other men in places like bars and pool halls.
I never understood how any man could be like that;
I always preferred the company of a woman to hanging
out with other men.
Now that I’ve had some disappointing relationships with
women, I’m thinking maybe these men were on to something;
no worries about a woman cheating on them or breaking
their hearts; no arguments; no compromising; total freedom.
Woman-less now, I’m thinking maybe I should have been
more like those men immune to the aching need for a woman.
Bob Boyd
She was, petite and adorable, and
the last funny woman I knew.
She made people laugh easily, and
she had the sweetest voice I ever heard.
I would have loved to have been with her;
and she had a crush on me.
But, alas, she was too young for me, and
I was way too old for her.
She’s married now to a man her age,
and she had a baby with him.
I’m happy for her, but oh how I would
have liked to been young enough
to spend a lifetime with her with the
fun and the laughter throughout the years.
Bob Boyd
Your life is great,
and life is beautiful.
It’s all going so well,
no problems, no worries.
But in a millisecond it all
can become a nightmare.
Road rage: a psycho
who cuts you off in
traffic attacks you or
shoots you to death
for shouting at him.
Random shooting: you
are in a restaurant. A
crazed man shoots up
the restaurant, and you
end up wounded or dead.
An unexpected medical
emergency: you are
diagnosed with a life
threatening medical
condition, and you worry
you are going to die.
Random attack, or a
mugging: you banged
up, maybe knocked out,
your valuables gone.
Of course these things
only happen to other
people until you are
one of those people.
Bob Boyd
She was an outstanding tennis player, and she
dreamed of becoming a pro.
Her talent seemed good enough until one day on
the court
she slammed her racket against a tennis ball and
felt searing pain in her right arm
that was the worst pain she ever felt in her life.
She was rushed to the hospital, seen by doctors trying
to figure out the cause of the pain. A specialist
arrived in her room: Bone Cancer, he said.
The dreams-ending result, her right arm amputated,
her tennis pro possibilities cruelly canceled.
Pisses me off that life can be so unfair to many people
through no fault of theirs.
Bob Boyd
There are claims aliens are cloaking their UFO’s
over our skies.
Sure it sounds implausible, absurd, and like a
conspiracy theory.
But imagine if it’s true. And, if it were, what would
they want with us?
I find the theory a stretch, and I’d rather it is. I mean,
we have enough problems in this world without
aliens in the mix.
Bob Boyd
If AI took over the human race,
maybe it could improve it,
rather than destroy it.
After all, humans haven’t run it
as it should be. Wars still happen.
Murders daily across the planet,
prisons full of violent offenders,
corrupt politicians and governments
Maybe AI could invent a tweak
that could be administered at
the birth of a human, and
could make the world universally
peaceful, free of wars, murderers,
corrupt politicians and governments –
forever.
Bob Boyd
