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 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
After spiritual energy awakened in me from the base of my spine to the crown of my head, I could feel the spiritual energy emanating out of highly evolved or enlightened beings in their photos, their videos, their written and spoken words.
This wasn’t a psychic power. I couldn’t do anything with it except perceive the energy like a receiver.
Once I was reading a book by a powerful spiritual master who was a Sanskrit scholar and an MD and whose path primarily consisted of a practice called Nada Yoga where you would meditate on the sounds in your head seeking enlightenment via the sound currents.
I was feeling his potent energy emanating out of the book, and all of a sudden a ringing in my ears accompanied the flow of energy, like an unexpected initiation into the spiritual master’s path.
I found the ringing disturbing, and it was unrelenting. I contacted the spiritual master for help with it.
He told me to come see him in upstate New York. I arrived at his ashram a day later and felt the pervasive abundance of spiritual energy that flowed from his powerful presence.
This spiritual energy was so powerful and pervasive that practically anyone would feel it, as is the case with enlightened spiritual masters or highly evolved adepts. They are like powerhouses of radiant, spiritual energy.
The spiritual master initiated me with a fire ceremony. I was amazed at how high staring at the fire made me. I’d read of yogis meditating on candles, but I never thought staring at fire could have such a potent effect.
After the fire ceremony, the spiritual master pulled a small stick out of his robe and tapped me on the head with it. And WOW! my consciousness was amped up a hundred fold and I was spiritually higher than ever in my life.
The supercharged state was the result of a shaktipat where a guru by the touch of his hand transmits some of his energy reservoir into your consciousness like a small tuning fork being supercharged by a bigger tuning fork’s more powerful vibration.
I remained in the elevated state of consciousness on my drive home and throughout the night. It lasted for about eight hours.
The next day the ringing was gone.
Bob Boyd
Old time radio show horror upon horrors.
The Hermit, macabre narrator, evil funny laughter
made the episodes more fun, decently written,
great scary music and awesome sound effects.
Actors never failed to deliver great horrors
with chilling horror shows, 1930s to 1940s.
Sad it ended then, good enough for a longer run.
Hats off to the great entertainment the
quirky narrator, the actors, and the writers provided.
Bob Boyd
Events and notable times whizz by.
In retrospect, ten years like ten minutes.
looking back at things like a popular pop song,
I can’t believe it was popular over ten years ago.
The worst part of the days racing by is
that they’re full throttle speeding to the finish line
that most people dread to face: expiration date.
Bob Boyd
How I love fun and funny people.
The world needs more of them.
They can brighten up dark days,
their humor can be quite healing.
Alas, I never met enough of them
in my eighty and one years,
but at least I knew enough of them
to make my long life lighter and
give me much laughter and fun.
Hail to fun and funny people!
Bob Boyd
I have read of scientific theories
that no God was involved in
the creation of the cosmos,
and that there is no God.
The scientists make excellent arguments,
but I do not find their arguments
airtight.
On the other hand, I don’t believe
the various religious views are airtight
about a God either, the differing
views of what that God is; for example
Jesus being or not being God.
But, I do believe, essentially, the
religious views are right about one thing:
That there is a God, and that God
was at the center of creation.
I believe in a way indiscernible
by Science, no matter their theories
denying the existence of God.
Bob Boyd
A devious woman allegedly blackmailed
thousands of monks
in Thailand with sexual videos of them
in July of 2025.
Six senior monks were defrocked and
two went missing.
When I was far younger, I used to think
the religious would have Divine protections.
But based on “falls from grace” across
the world, apparently it’s just not so.
And it seems even the enlightened have
to be circumspect in their behavior.
This leads me to think that despite how
devout people are, or try to be,
when it comes to their behavior no
Divine protections exist.
In brief, that the religious are on their own,
unshielded by the Divine.
Bob Boyd
