You looked so beautiful in your photo after
you died and came back to life –
after you saw paradise and spent some
time there.
It was as if you brought some paradise
back with you in your eyes
and in you smile – after you died and
came back to life.
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
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
some before birth
some at birth
some in childhood
some in young adulthood
some in adulthood
some in middle age
abortions
miscarriages
diseases
accidents
murders
my query is
WHY
why in this world
do so many people
never get to live
full
sometimes
abundant
lives
Bob Boyd
She was so incredibly beautiful
that the first time
men saw her on a movie
screen
some gasped.
I didn’t gasp, but my mind
was blown by her
unparalleled beauty,
and, oh God, how I
wished I could have
been with her.
Sadly, her beauty
didn’t make her
lucky in love.
Six marriages, all
ending in divorce,
and when an old
woman,
she died lonely
never having had
lasting love.
Bob Boyd
First stuffed animals
were suggested
for the elderly with dementia
and they were
beneficial to them
almost like
a real pet.
Now stuffed animals
are said to be
beneficial
to all adults:
stress reduction
less loneliness
mental health improvement
improved sleep
trauma treatment
good memories
a real pet substitute
Taking into consideration
the above
I can see why more
solo adults
are sleeping with
teddy bears
and I can see how
a stuffed dog
or a stuffed cat
would be a viable
no maintenance
option
for many
adults.
Maybe I’ll
get one.
Bob Boyd
The kaleidoscope of this world
is such a confusing mix.
Evil, violence, suffering, virtue,
peace, happiness, all in many
shades, textures and colors.
Different people, different views,
good and bad news every day.
People being born, people dying.
It’s such a complex and confusing
mix with too much evil, too much
violence, too many wars. At least
moments of peace and happiness
for many but not all. And at any
moment your life in pieces, maybe
for all of what’s left of your life.
And death the only way out of it,
this kaleidoscope of existence.
Bob Boyd
It seems to be thought that animals
don’t go anywhere when they die,
except for just dying and no more.
It’s my hope when animals die
they die into something like an
animal heaven, or even like some
believe, reincarnating into higher
lifeforms until they become humans
and eventually get off the wheel
of the perpetual rebirths into
the eternal bliss consciousness.
Bob Boyd
Literally, I sure have mine, but not dreams
in the world anymore. Dreams at night.
Crazy dreams and dreams about women.
Nighttime reveries like nighttime ramblings
of a finished old man with lost ambitions.
A has been of a younger man who had
plenty of real world dreams and a future.
Now no future, except for Death’s arrival.
Bob Boyd