where do the dead go when they are dead?
Is the afterlife so vast that it can accommodate
an unending number of daily dead residents?
Or, as some allege, are the newly dead in the
afterlife temporarily before being recycled
back on planet earth? Or does Science have
it right, and dead is just dead, nothing more.

Bob Boyd

they know their end is coming
with the fall and winter

killing seasons emerging
deadly days arising

slowly, tortuously, ending
their full bloom lives

but maybe there is hope
maybe they will be reborn

again in the Spring

Bob Boyd

All the time on true crime shows
I see young women murdered
all over the world.

It’s as if it’s open season on these
women every day, and I wonder why
this has to happen in this world.

Why, if there’s a compassionate God
of Love, do all these innocent young
women have to be slaughtered.

I can only hope they go to a better
place where how they horrifically
left this world won’t matter.

Bob Boyd

sitting here
thinking about
my life that’s past
remembering women
I’ve been with
too many to recall
them all
none lasted
beyond seven years
few stand out
none I’d want
to be with again
sometimes I think
if only I could
have a redo
and maybe find
lasting love
at other times
I think
gain the nonattachment
of a Buddhist monk
and forget about
women and
lasting love

Bob Boyd

Once beautiful, young and sprightly
Seemed like they’d be young forever,
like silver screen immortals.

No longer beautiful, young and sprightly,
old and only silver screen images now,
breaking hips from falls, many dead.

If only they could have been immortals,
beautiful, young and sprightly forever.

Bob Boyd

Supposedly people can create thought
form entities, tulpas, usually in human
form with one’s mind through concentration
and visualization.

Tibetan monks are said to have created
tulpas to rid them of attachments
impeding their spiritual progress, seemingly
kind of like a temporary helper that was
disposed of when the attachment was
dispelled.

Long ago, I read of a black magic magician
creating familiars in the same way, for what
I do not know. I suspect for nefarious
purposes, if real thought form entities can
be created with one’s mind.

Now there are people creating tulpas for
companionship. There’s even a website with
a forum about creating tulpas and other
facets of having one as a friend.

I don’t know if tulpas are real or imaginary,
but people who create them believe they
are sentient.

Maybe they are right. Maybe one can create
a tulpa with the power of one’s mind. I don’t
believe it’s possible, but I could be wrong.

Bob Boyd

The rush. The joy. The heaven.
Of a new love.
Incomparable. Joyous. Ecstatic.
Pity like life
It’s impermanent.
Though love remains.
It never reaches those
Rapturous heights of
The newness again.

Bob Boyd

I don’t care about her wrinkles
She is still beautiful to me
Her inner beauty is forever
My love for her is too.

Bob Boyd

Sometimes I wonder how Pat Curran is doing now
I wonder if she is still alive or gone to the Great Unknown
She was my sweetheart when we were both sweet sixteen
Blonde and beautiful, she caught my attention at a YMCA Teen Dance
With a single close dance, magical things happened, my heart in flight
I felt romantic love bloom; she did too, in our tender sweet innocence
But, woe, she was from Montclair, New Jersey and I was from Woburn, Mass
At least we had romantically amazing summers together; she stayed with a relative then
A song You Belong To Me was our song; our hearts chimed to it, we lived it
But, oh God, those falls, winters and springs were so unbearably cold without her
Summers were never as warm and exciting and as euphoric for me
Her hugs and her kisses launched my heart into a heaven like place
The sight of her so amazingly beautiful, so perfect in all ways
Made me feel like I’d won the biggest romantic lottery ever
And, guess what? We had vowed to marry when we grew older
A fairy tale happy ever after teenage dream I always had
Finding the right girl in high school and being with her forever
But, woe, then came the final summer when the weather cooled off
And she dropped a bomb on me that blew up my heart and ended our love
She told me she was sorry she was seeing a freshman at Rutgers U.
I bawled my brains out, my heart sank like the Titanic; I didn’t want to live
My dreams dead, my fairy tale romantic notions shattered, nothing mattered
But, hey, who hasn’t lost a love and who, like me, didn’t get over it
Still sometimes I wonder how Pat Curran is doing now.

Bob Boyd

At
first
couldn’t
get
enough
of
each
other.

That lasted
a loving
six months
until the
ardor began
to wane.

Little things I
did bothered you
and versa vice
for me too.

Because we acted like
adults we’re still together
through the hard times
through the lasting times.

Bob Boyd

confused by conflicting thoughts
and fears, her mind iffy stood him up,
didn’t answer his calls

rejected nice guy perfect man for her
countless things in common

two months later her mind and
emotions unconflicted, fears gone
realized she made a mistake,
lost a good, kind man
called him to apologize and
accept a date with him.

too late, chances gone, good guy lost
he found the right unconfused
woman and had no time for her
after her rejections
and confused nonsense.
It seems I’ve heard this story before.

Bob Boyd

Transcendence

Beyond self consciousness
Higher consciousness
Beyond transitory world
Ecstasy and serenity
Beyond conception
Hail Transcendence!
Doorway to Eternity.

Bob Boyd

Proud honkers, wings flapping,
Beaks bobbing, surround us
Delicious crumbs of bread
I decorate the ground with
Ravenous bird mob vying for manna
Chorus of wings beating above me
Air vibrating magically
More regal Canadian Geese
Landing on makeshift air strip
Bread crumbed ground
Like San Fran International
Suddenly something surprising
Never happened before
An urgent avian beak
Tugging at my pant leg
Saying me, me, me
My turn for some bread.

Bob Boyd

in a shameful past when nearly
every woman was suspect, and
many were burned at the stake.

Now we have real witches abounding,
and the torturers and the burners are
dead and gone. Thank God!

But, don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean
the imaginary evil witches of
that shameful past.

I mean for the most part white witches
harming no one, embracing nature,
and no longer harassed or hunted.

I say hurrah for that. And shame on
those hellish persecutors of the past.

Bob Boyd

Why a replicant, you might ask?
Totally human, skin, body, words,
minus mood swings, drama, and
the ever present possibility of
a cheating partner or a broken
heart. I’d dispense with those
negatives and have a lover
as real and as human as a
flesh and blood female
without those deal breakers.
You may be thinking I’d want
her submissive. You’re wrong.
I’d want her to be an equal but
not in constant conflict with me.
I’d want her to be wiser than me
as well, like an awesome guide
that would help me stay on the
best path for me, our lives and
our romantic relationship. But,
alas, I’ll be dead before a perfect
replicant is invented. C’est la vie.

Bob Boyd

You hear of ghosts everywhere
in houses, churches, lighthouses,
and even in haunted dolls.

Why can’t these dead people just
stay dead instead of being
so mischievous, so scary?

Or, if there’s an afterlife, why
can’t the dead move on?

Why stick around in musty
old haunts when you could
go to the Light and have
a better afterlife than what
has to be a boring one?

But, no, they’d rather stagnant
in those musty old haunts and
occasionally get buzzed by
having a scare or two.

I don’t know why, do you?

Bob Boyd

Acted up in classes,
made an ass of myself.

Got sent to the principle’s office,
occasionally got kicked out of
high school.

Oh, how I regret the fool that I was,
and if only I could have been

a behaved and good student
instead of wasting those years.

But at least later in life I reformed myself
or maybe life reformed me.

But oh how I wish I could have a redo
and do high school the right way.

Bob Boyd

I think to some degree
the saying

when you go looking
for the paranormal
it comes looking for you

is true

with that in mind
and things like

hitchhiker ghosts
that follow you home

and maybe possess you

scare the hell out of me

but maybe having the
hell scared out of me

is not a bad thing

Bob Boyd

when he first met her
it was glorious

she was hot, fun, enchanting

but three months in
he got used to her looks
she wasn’t as hot

she wasn’t fun anymore
and her enchantment
had lost its allure

and he felt she was
eating away his life
like a cancer

interfering with
his solitary pleasures
making demands on him
nagging him

but unknown to him
she was tired of him too

and felt the same way
about him

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