free verse poems some fiction, some nonfiction
Usually petite
often sweet
exotic
smart
delightful
but don’t mistake them
as submissive
like some foolish
and/or controlling
men do
treat them as equals
feel grateful
and blessed
if you are with one
as if the Asian goddess
Quan Yin has blessed
your union
of course like
other races of women
not all Asian women fit
this idealistic mold
but I chose to believe
most do.
Bob Boyd
At least there’d be no hell breaking
loose.
But where would God put the millions of
future residents?
Hells bells! I just got a solution!
There’s a lot of vacant real estate in the
infinity of the cosmos,
an estimated 100 billion planets in each of
the trillions of galaxies.
Surely, as was done with Australia long ago,
God could offload the millions of the
eternally dammed in any, or many, of those
vacant planets.
And surely God could repurpose them with
all the torturous amenities of hell.
Problem solved.
Bob Boyd
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
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
He said he’d been a crow in a former life, but
I thought he was putting me on.
However, he did look a bit birdlike, only in an
acceptable, handsome way.
By chance, some cawing crows, about twenty,
landed in a nearby tree.
To humor Marcus’s nonsense, I said, “What are
those crows in the tree talking about?”
He said, “They are talking about the gold buttons on
your brown jacket and want to steal one.”
I laughed at his nonsense and heard the crows
cawing frantically in the tree.
Then they flew over my head as if they were going
to attack me.
While I was fearfully distracted, a sneaky crow snatched
one of my gold buttons off my jacket and flew away
with the other crows following him, and I wondered if
if Marcus really understood them —
or if their theft of the gold button was just an
extraordinary coincidence.
Bob Boyd
I thought they’d
stay in touch
after I retired
none of
them did
but come to
think of it
I didn’t stay
in touch
either
so I guess
we work
friends
weren’t
really
friends
after all
and in a
way I like
it better
this way
and I like
not hearing
anything
about the
work life
I left
behind
Bob Boyd
Imagine if a flower didn’t just wilt and die.
Imagine if, like humans who believe there’s
a better world we die into, if flowers had the
same after-death future blooming in some
floral paradise, maybe one where humans
went too.
I know this could be perceived as foolish,
but I’d like a celestial world for dead flowers
like that. And maybe where they’d even bloom more
radiantly and beautifully.
I’d also be fine with the idea that flowers
eventually reincarnate into higher life forms
until they reach the human level – eventually
getting off the wheel or rebirths into an
eternal bliss consciousness. And I wonder if you
feel that way too.
Bob Boyd
A couple of years ago
a nice cookie store
opened in the same
strip store plaza that
I buy my groceries at.
It offered a good selection
of nicely baked cookies,
presentable, and tasty-
looking.
It seemed always busy
people in and out of it.
But tonight when I drove
by it, the cookie store
was gone.
What looked like a great
business died.
Though I only bought a
cookie there once, it
saddened me to see
it forever gone.
RIP cookie store.
Bob Boyd
He received a package in the mail
from the Bizarre Toys Company.
Perplexed, he didn’t know why he
received a package from a toy company.
He unwrapped the package and saw
a blue box inside it.
He opened the box and found a red
Jack in the Box toy in it.
It brought back fond memories of the
Jack in the Box he played with as a child.
And he wondered who would have known
about his Jack in the Box he had in his childhood.
He gleefully began to crank up the box, excited
to see if the Jack would be like the one he had.
Upon the final crank when the jack popped up,
it had the disturbing face of his sinister ex-wife,
the last image he saw in this world as the
Jack in the Box exploded and blew him to bits.
Bob Boyd
Some people think, one a Harvard Researcher, aliens
are living among us.
I get this. I’ve known some excessively strange people that
I wouldn’t be surprised if they were aliens.
I’ve seen many people act inhumanly, maybe
they were aliens too.
And I wouldn’t be surprised if all those people who eat bugs,
one a hot actress, could be aliens as well.
And if you’re reading this, maybe you’re an alien too –
possibly a human-like Nordic.
Bob Boyd
Chickens growing big as hogs
growling instead of clucking.
Cows bigger than bulls and
green in color.
Frightened dogs and cats running
away.
Cornstalks twice as tall;
corn three times as big.
Translucent orbs appearing
at night.
Poltergeist activity in
the farm house.
Farmer, wife, and children,
dreams of aliens.
New man hired as farm hand –
alien in a human body.
Bob Boyd
I remember seeing him as a child when
he seemed like one of God’s angels.
Everyone said he was a sweet and
good kid.
He stayed good all through school,
honors and a perfect student.
Not surprisingly, he became a priest,
made his Catholic family proud.
Three years later, he got arrested
for sexually abusing children
in his parish, and nobody who knew
him could believe it until
all the witnesses came forth and
gave irrefutable testimonies that
got him defrocked and sent to prison
for many years.
And remembering how innocent and
good he was as a child, I couldn’t
figure out how he grew up to be a
serial sexual predator.
Bob Boyd
Female teachers in the news nearly every week
for sexually abusing students, sometimes preteens.
Teachers who usually have boyfriends, fiances, or
husbands; some have kids.
Teachers sent to jail, losing their teaching credentials,
put on sex offender lists, usually losing their
boyfriends, fiances, or husbands, sometimes children,
along with their reputations and social standing.
On crime shows women getting arrested all the time
for drunk driving, unlike in the past, and sad to see
them cuffed, put in squad cars, taken to police stations,
and booked for drunk driving.
What’s happening with these women? And thank God
for all the women who aren’t doing these things.
Bob Boyd
Doctor Vonniker, an alleged scientist, was believed to be catching stray dogs and experimenting on them in his laboratory at the remote top of a hill.
Our town, once a refuge for stray dogs, had barely any of them left since Vonniker moved into our secluded, small town in Hancock County, Ohio.
A teenager then, my friend Tim and I often spied on Doctor Vonniker’s laboratory at night, looking through binoculars, trying to see what he was up to with those stray dogs.
We got a terrifying payday on the last day of Doctor Vonniker’s life. We heard an explosion, and two beasts with bodybuilder bodies and dog heads broke out of the laboratory; we hid right before they sped past us,
growling. We called the police, and the next day, the news reported that Doctor Vonniker had been savaged to death by dogs. But nothing was reported about the dogmen Tim and I saw escaping the lab. I
t made Tim and me wonder if the strange doctor was working for the government, creating super dogman soldiers.
But aside from some sightings of the doctor’s dogmen, nobody ever found out what the doctor was up to in his experiment, which had gone deadly awry.
Bob Boyd
The foolish stranger is starting to walk into Forbidden Forest,
a known werewolf haunt that nobody goes into at night.
And he couldn’t have picked a worse night to enter Forbidden Forest
with a full moon blazing.
I warned him about the werewolf, but he acted like my warning was a
joke. Then he foolishly said, “I can take care of myself.”
I said, “No you can’t, not against that werewolf,” but he didn’t realize
the danger.
I wondered if he was mentally ill, unable to understand the horror.
I tried and tired to talk him out of going into the forest,
to save his life, but he wouldn’t listen to me.
Then he nonchalantly strolled into it the forest while whistling,
oblivious to the werewolf lurking under the full moon in there.
Moments later, I heard the howls and expected to see the stranger
running out of the forest. But it was too late when I heard the
werewolf growling nearby and what sounded like bones cracking
and the stranger screaming like a cat being skinned.
And I knew the foolish stranger was getting slaughtered until
he came out of the forest with a dead and bloody werewolf
slung over his shoulder.
He threw it down in front of me and said, “Have a souvenir,”
and he strolled away whistling.
Who was that guy, I wondered, and I never saw him again.
Bob Boyd
Joan and Michael felt fate had
brought them together
Their dual destinies converged
And they went 50/50 on the
purchase of a luxurious
Tudor Revival Home
for an exorbitant cost
But their relationship
fell apart because
of conflicting political beliefs
He was far right
She was hard left
Their hate for each other
increased insanely
till they both went a little crazy
and plotted killing each other
over their exorbitant house
No wrangling no court case
One dead the other gets the house
Secretly she hired a hitman
Secretly he did the same
Both hitmen were undercover cops
Joan and Michael got arrested
And now fate has ripped them apart
and put them in boxes with bars
Bob Boyd
In the highlands, in the country places,
Where the old plain men have rosy faces,
And the young fair maidens
Quiet eyes;
Where essential silence cheers and blesses
And forever in the hill-recesses
Her more lovely music
Broods and dies,
O to mount again where erst I haunted;
Where the old red hills are bird-enchanted,
And the low green meadows
Bright with sward;
And when even dies, the million tinted,
And the night has come, and planets glinted,
Lo, the valley hollow
Lamp-bestarred!
O to dream, O to awake and wander
There, and with delight to take and render,
Through the trance of silence,
Quiet breath;
Lo! for there, among the flowers, and grasses,
Only the mightier movement sounds and passes;
Only winds and rivers,
Life and death.
Raise the Cromlech high!
Mac Moghcorb is slain,
And other men’s renown
Has leave to live again.
Cold at last he lies
’Neath the burial stone.
All the blood he shed
Could not save his own.
Stately, strong he went,
Through his nobles all,
When we paced together
Up the banquet-hall.
Dazzling white as lime,
Was his body fair,
Cherry-red his cheeks,
Raven-black his hair.
Razor-sharp his spear,
And the shield he bore,
High as champion’s head—
His arm was like an oar.
Never aught but truth
Spake my noble king;
Valour all his trust
In all his warfaring.
As the forkèd pole
Holds the roof-tree’s weight,
So my hero’s arm
Held the battle straight.
Terror went before him,
Death behind his back,
Well the wolves of Erinn
Knew his chariot’s track.
Seven bloody battles
He broke upon his foes,
In each a hundred heroes
Fell beneath his blows.
Once he fought at Fossud,
Thrice at Ath-finn-fail.
’Twas my king that conquered
At bloody Ath-an-Scaìl.
At the Boundary Stream
Fought the Royal Hound,
And for Bernas battle
Stands his name renowned.
Here he fought with Leinster—
Last of all his frays—
On the Hill of Cucorb’s Fate
High his Cromlech raise.
In well-devised battle array,
Ahead of their fair chieftain
They march amidst blue spears,
White curly-headed bands.
They scatter the battalions of the foe,
They ravage every land I have attacked,
Splendidly they march to combat
An impetuous, distinguished, avenging host!
No wonder though their strength be great:
Sons of kings and queens are one and all.
On all their heads are
Beautiful golden-yellow manes:
With smooth, comely bodies,
With bright blue-starred eyes,
With pure crystal teeth,
With thin red lips:
Good they are at man-slaying.
Tell us some of the charms of the stars:
Close and well set were her ivory teeth;
White as the canna upon the moor
Was her bosom the tartan bright beneath.
Her well-rounded forehead shone
Soft and fair as the mountain-snow;
Her two breasts were heaving full;
To them did the hearts of heroes flow.
Her lips were ruddier than the rose;
Tender and tunefully sweet her tongue;
White as the foam adown her side
Her delicate fingers extended hung.
Smooth as the dusky down of the elk
Appeared her shady eyebrows to me;
Lovely her cheeks were, like berries red;
From every guile she was wholly free.
Her countenance looked like the gentle buds
Unfolding their beauty in early spring;
Her yellow locks like the gold-browed hills;
And her eyes like the radiance the sunbeams bring.
“The Faedh Fiada”; or, “The Cry of the Deer.”
At Tara to-day in this fateful hour
I place all Heaven with its power,
And the sun with its brightness,
And the snow with its whiteness,
And fire with all the strength it hath,
And lightning with its rapid wrath,
And the winds with their swiftness along their path,
And the sea with its deepness,
And the rocks with their steepness,
And the earth with its starkness:
All these I place,
By God’s almighty help and grace,
Between myself and the powers of darkness.
Sweet is the voice in the land of gold,
And sweeter the music of birds that soar,
When the cry of the heron is heard on the wold,
And the waves break softly on Bundatrore.
Down floats on the murmuring of the breeze
The call of the cuckoo from Cossahun,
The blackbird is warbling among the trees,
And soft is the kiss of the warming sun.
The cry of the eagle of Assaroe
O’er the court of Mac Morne to me is sweet,
And sweet is the cry of the bird below
Where the wave and the wind and the tall cliff meet.
Finn mac Cool is the father of me,
Whom seven battalions of Fenians fear:
When he launches his hounds on the open lea
Grand is their cry as they rouse the deer.
Merlin! Merlin! where art thou going
So early in the day, with thy black dog?
Oi! oi! oi! oi! oi! oi! oi! oi! oi! oi!
Oi! oi! oi! ioi! oi!
I have come here to search the way,
To find the red egg;
The red egg of the marine serpent,
By the sea-side in the hollow of the stone.
I am going to seek in the valley
The green water-cress, and the golden grass,
And the top branch of the oak,
In the wood by the side of the fountain.
Merlin! Merlin! retrace your steps;
Leave the branch on the oak,
And the green water-cress in the valley,
As well as the golden grass;
And leave the red egg of the marine serpent,
In the foam by the hollow of the stone.
Merlin! Merlin! retrace thy steps,
There is no diviner but God.
Why does this sudden passion smite me?
I stretch my hands all blind to see:
I need the lamp of the world to light me,
Lead me and set me free.
Something a moment seemed to stoop from
The night with cool cool breath on my face:
Or did the hair of the twilight droop from
Its silent wandering ways?
About me in the thick wood netted
The wizard glow looks human-wise;
And over the tree-tops barred and fretted
Ponders with strange old eyes.
The tremulous lips of air blow by me
And hymn their time-old melody:
Its secret strain comes nigh and nigh me:
“Ah, brother, come with me;
“For here the ancient mother lingers
To dip her hands in the diamond dew,
And lave thine ache with cloud-cool fingers
Till sorrow die from you.”