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 see the rioting and the looting
in France
I see the destruction of heritage
sites as well
supposedly 800,000 rioters today
October 26, 2026
It saddens me to see the France
I knew damaged like this
the beautiful Paris, France I visited
in 1967 will never be the same
Bob Boyd
The Priest, The Murderer
To parish members
no doubt he was considered saintly
a good priest
but beneath his cover of being a priest
he was a rapist and a murderer
in 1969 he raped and murdered a 25-year-old woman
a devout member of the Catholic church
he escaped justice for over 50 years
until he left the priesthood
and was arrested for the crime in 2016
and sent to prison for life
and died behind bars
Bob Boyd
Unfortunately, unlike many of my poems, this one isn’t fictional
I hear the birds singing
in trees outside my apartment
they sound like natural virtuosos
born with exceptional talent
I wonder what their range is
and if they just use their singing skills
for attracting a mate
not that that wouldn’t be enough
yet it would be great if they had
many more songs to sing
and I like to think
maybe they do
like singing uplifting songs
when they are happy
or whey they found the
right mate
and with further thought
I have read they have
different chirps/songs? for when
danger is near
like a predatory bird
maybe a song translated
into human speak
like this
run run hide hide
that big bad hawk
is here is here is here
run run hide hide
if you don’t want to die
die die … bye bye bye
I’m hiding now too
Bob Boyd
76 is supposedly the average lifespan
here in the U S of A
even if 100 were
it’s still just a blip in eternity
and at some point
some age
you realize it passes
swiftly by
and no matter how important
some people think they are
they’re just a blip in eternity too
Bob Boyd
Imagine if death were like deep sleep
would you be bothered by that
I imagine you probably would
but worry not
you wouldn’t be if you were dead
oblivious to your passing
there’d be no you to worry
no you to care
no worries about maybe going to hell
no fears about maybe not going to heaven
you’d have no concerns about either
no you bothered by anything anymore
Bob Boyd
Hippos are cute in cartoons
but not so in real life
they kill about 500 people per year
some think as high as 3,000
they’re not exactly dear
how is it cute becomes deadly
are they just perennially pissed off
or natural born animal psychopaths
I don’t know what the answer is
I’m not an expert in hippo psychology
and thank God I’ll never have to meet one
Bob Boyd
I remember as a kid I was told if you prayed
to God you would get things
maybe I misunderstood what I was told
but I think I prayed for a pony I never got
and I think I prayed for a few other things
at different times
and, not surprisingly, my prayers were
never answered
I still don’t believe you can get things
by praying for them
but I do feel prayer is a good way to
connect to the God in the heavens
Bob Boyd
Today I learned my first love
died of cancer at age 71
she left me after two summers
when I was seventeen
and though I didn’t pine over her
when it’s over I’m over it
I was sad to learn she died of
cancer at age 71
at least she was married and
had a family
and probably a good life and
71 is a reasonably long life
Bob Boyd
Break up letters from girlfriends who couldn’t
wait for their GI boyfriends to come home
flew into GI’s mail boxes like
rockets fired by enemy soldiers
but instead of blowing the GI’s up
they shattered their lonely hearts
they had put their trust in girls back home
who proved unworthy of trust
some GI’s might have died purposely in battle
after their hearts had been wounded
some might have considered killing themselves
their girlfriends no longer waiting for them
some no doubt soldiered on hiding their tears
on the inside
I never got one of those letters because when
I was in the service, I was nobody’s Dear John
Bob Boyd
Sometimes I look at the obituaries
it grounds me in my mortality
so many people die daily in them
most unknown to the wider world
like a woman who had been a secretary
then became a stay-at-home mother
a woman of strength, kindness and compassion
who often put the needs of others before her own
now she’s gone forever from this world and
no doubt many tears have fallen for her
It saddens me when by their deaths I see how
they were temporary in this impermanent life
and I often wonder where we go when we leave
this world aside from the claims and beliefs
I look forward to finding out firsthand one day
to see if my belief about it is true
if there really is a life after this fleeting one
that is if dead is more than just dead with no
awareness that you have died or ever lived
Bob Boyd
So Much Talk About Aliens
On YouTube I’ve listened to so much
talk about aliens
and a growing taxonomy of them
that I have to wonder why
we are not seeing more of them
instead of them seeming invisible
to most people on this planet with
many of those who allege they
have seen or interacted with them
after they’ve been hypnotized
reptilians
greys
nordics
ebans
et al
where are you?
Bob Boyd
that I hadn’t had contact with in
years because of politics
in the dream he was not normal
more like a semi dead person
his once vibrant personality had
gone so flat
I wondered if he was in the
spirit world
when I woke up I looked online
for his obit
saw none
so maybe he is still alive
and the dream was just a dream
Bob Boyd
They drove their cars like cowboys in Dallas.
Yee-Haw Giddyup! Ride ‘em cowboy!
It took me a while to get used to driving there.
It was like my first rodeo, but soon I got used to it.
And rode ‘em cowboy like I’d become a cowboy
until I had to say happy trails to Dallas and
had a long and boring ride to a less exciting city.
Bob Boyd
I’m always meeting people in dreams.
What the hell? Who are these people
inserting themselves into my dreams?
Are they real or are they imaginary?
Are our dreams somehow intersecting?
Some say when you dream you are
traveling in the astral plane. I don’t
believe that, but it makes me wonder.
If there’s any truth to it, one day I’d
like to meet a soulmate there and
dream with her every night, but I’m
probably just being foolish, and most
likely dreams are only illusionary.
Bob Boyd
Mountains rise because of something
called plate tectonics
that collide and push mountains
to the sky
After millions of years they fall
from time and erosion
reducing them to hills and
ridges
I always felt mountains were
like invincible
standing tall forever and
never falling down
but now I see like the saying
nothing lasts forever
so it is with mountains high
Bob Boyd
Cinder became mesmerized with the dark arts
She liked the idea of having the power
She studied how to make thought-beings
with meditation and precise visualization
Cinder wanted one to torment an ex-boyfriend
who had left her for another woman
After months of her constant conjuring
she succeeded with an evil thought-being
When she unleashed it upon her ex-boyfriend
it circled around her and fed on the evil in her
until she screamed and her life faded away
as the thought-form demon took to hell
Bob Boyd
She sits in her small apartment
she can barely afford on Social Security.
Her looks are gone, her male admirers too.
She reflects back on her flowering years
when many men eyed her and wanted her.
She regrets always picking the wrong ones,
and rejecting those that were the right ones.
Now that she is drearily alone and unloved
sometimes she buys herself the roses
men used to buy for her, thanking that maybe
beautiful flowers will make her feel better.
But when they wilt and begin to die,
they remind her of her beauty that has wilted,
and that she has become a fading flower.
She has sunk into an abyss of depression
with disturbing thoughts of killing herself.
But instead of killing herself, she prays
to God every day to rescue her from
her gloomy life and take her to heaven.
Each day she wakes up, her prayers
unanswered, but today her phone rings,
an ex-love has called, and when he says
he loves her, she begins to rise out of the abyss.
Bob Boyd
Maybe I’ve been watching too much news,
but I’m getting weary of the human race.
Wars. Riots. Bad Governments. Murders.
Rapes. Serial Killers. Psychopaths.
Pedophiles. Evil people. Heartless people.
Jerks. Backstabbers. Arrogant people. Et cetera.
And I hope. And I pray. There is a better human race
in the afterlife. But, if dead is just dead and
there is no afterlife, that would, at least, permanently
remove my weariness with the human race.
Bob Boyd
She is beautiful and dangerous.
She’ll reel you in with her beauty,
her charms, and her lies.
She’ll tell you things like she needs
to escape from her current boyfriend
because she fears he will harm her.
And if you’re dumb like I was, you’ll
see this as an incentive to be with her
and save her from the evil boyfriend.
After you’re with her for a while, she’ll
tell some other guy the same thing
about you and will probably steal from you.
And I seriously believe she’d be
capable of killing you or having you
killed if you have something like
a house, considerable money, or
a substantial insurance policy
she would financially benefit from.
Bob Boyd
When a flea dies is it
just lights out,
or, absurd as it may seem,
is there a flea afterlife?
Sure it’s easy to think a
flea is just an insignificant
blood sucking pest
devoid of another
existence, but nobody
knows for sure
if a flea, or even if we,
have an afterlife.
When I die, I hope to
know the answers
to even seemingly trivial
questions like this.
That is if there is truly
an afterlife for me.
Bob Boyd
