because I looked at one YouTube video about a woman
who thought she was hiring a hitman to kill her husband

and had hired an undercover cop instead.

Now seeing all the female murderers on my YouTube
Homepage, I’m beginning to wonder if more women

are killing people now. I did a search and, supposedly,
the number of women killing people is declining.

However, women kill approximately 1,900 people
every year. I find that number close to shocking;

I thought the yearly toll would be less than 500. I thought
the fairer, gentler sex would fare better than 1,900 murders.

And I think to myself were I with a woman now, could
I be 1901? But, to be serious, I remember an ex girlfriend

who stole money out of my ATM, and, I believe, could have
been capable of murdering me –

as dishonest and conniving as she was.

Bob Boyd

at least that’s I how I often felt, despite aging stealthily
creeping in, so stealthily it took years for me to see its
subtle erosions.

Years more for me to feel them. Now, an old man, the
yesteryear denials eradicated, the youth long ago gone,

the body wrinkled and weakened. And aging not satisfied
with just aging me, has called in the Reaper to finish me.

Bob Boyd

It’s been warm during the days this October,
sometimes as high as 80.

Nights that temperatures have dropped
as low as the 40s,

and I cannot understand why it gets that
hot during the day and that cold

during the night. Maybe it’s always been
this way, maybe I’m getting too old to remember

the weather in the past Octobers; but
whatever the case,

I don’t like this hot during the day and this cold
during the night.

Bob Boyd

When he was told he
had cancer and heart failure
he wasn’t alarmed
he wasn’t afraid

even though the Reaper
was coming for him
he had no fear of his scythe
like an “Is that so?”

all this surprised him
he never expected
unexpected Zen

Bob Boyd

A good Muslim woman
everyday she covers her body completely
with her burka.
She knows she’s following the right religion.
She’s fine with being oppressed
in her fashion and in her life.
And has no envy of woman living
without her restraints.
She’s living the godly life,
expecting a big payoff in the afterlife.
And logistics determined her fate.
Had she been born in Tibet, she’d
be a Buddhist spinning a prayer wheel.
Had she been born in India, she’d be
chanting mantras to a Hindu god,
like Krishna or Shiva,
logistics choosing her religion for her.

Bob Boyd

People I was friends with.
People I was enemies with
People I liked.
People I didn’t like.
People I passed by
through my travels
and in my life seeing
but never knowing.
Now Dead. Gone from
this world. In graves.
The friends I miss.
The enemies no longer
enemies. And our
squabbles insignificant
now. Which probably
meant nothing after all.
It’s as if all of them,
and insignificant me,
are just bit players in
a cosmic production,
playing different parts
until the final curtain
when our lives end,
and all of the dramas,
all of the good times,
become like a dream.

Bob Boyd

When I die

I will be as lifeless
as a dead bird

my corpse as empry
as meaningless

as unimportant as

as dead as

Bob Boyd

I got tired of reading poems about getting drunk
and bedding women

in the poetry books I was reading

(of course many poetry books are about
more than that)

so I’ve decided to go back to just reading
Tang Dynasty and Zen poetry books

and, yes, I know wine was a thing
among some Tang Dynasty poets

but it wasn’t as pronounced and as
sloppy as in some of the poems I read
by modern poets

and I cannot recall a Tang Dynasty poem
that approximated porn

or boasted about bedding many women

besides the spiritual facets of the Tang Dynasty
and Zen poems

resonate more with me

Bob Boyd

I’ve killed a lot of bugs.
Thank God I’m not a Jain ascetic.
Were I, my ahimsa would be lacking.
And maybe I’d go to a Jain Hell called Naraka,
tormented eternally by all the bugs I’ve killed,
perhaps for billions of years.
Of course, I’m just kidding, and mostly I
killed all those bugs in self defense.
But, imagine if what I wrote were true.

Bob Boyd

Each golden statue, so realistic.
And there are 500 of them on a
path to the top of the
Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery.

And though it’s called a monastery,
there are no real monks there, only
fake ones begging for your money.
A sacrilege for sure.

And if bad karma is real,
they get a ton of it times
ten thousand buddhas and 500
golden arhat statues
and probably some time in
a Buddhist hell when they die.

But, at least Buddhist hells
are not forever.

And in Buddhism, there’s redemption
eventually for all.

I like the thought of that.

Bob Boyd

His parents gave him everything.
He never lacked for anything.
He traveled all over the world.
At age 20 he lived 3 lives in 1.

But when he ran out of adventures,
when the excitement died down,
and all the money and stuff wasn’t
enough, he got bored and depressed.

He then turned to drugs for escapes
from the boredom and the depression
until he became chronically depressed
and hooked on the need for higher highs.

Eventually he fell into a black hole of
depression too deep for him to climb out of,
and he intentionally overdosed on drugs to
end his unceasing misery.

Sometimes having more can be worse than
having less.

Bob Boyd

What to do. What to do. How did they get through?
Good golly, how did they get through my once
impenetrable bot defenses? How can this be?

What to do. What to do. Go see my Oracle Google AI.
Mayday! Mayday! Bot invasion! What to do? Help! Help!

Google AI: Try Blackhole for Bad Bots. That should
fortify your blog’s defenses.

Me: Thank you. Thank you. Off to stop the invading bots
with my shield wall: Blackhole for Bad Bots!

Hurrah! Hurrah! Victory! Victory!

Bob Boyd

which made him laugh, and
she laughed too. His laughter
diffused her anger thanks to
the word dickhead. Amazing
how a silly sounding insult
can sometimes be funny, can
sometimes turn a quarral into
a laugh and end it. And I have
to admint the word dickhead
does sound amusing, unless
you find it vulgar and crude.
Me, I just find it funny and novel
and a silly sounding insult.

Bob Boyd

Tired of American women, sick of dating apps,
he flew 8,000 miles to the Philippines to find a wife.
He had a friend happily married to a sweet and
easy to get along with Filipina for ten years,
which motivated him to find a wife there as well.
In the Philippines he felt like a rock star, pretty
women everywhere saw him as handsome.
He never felt so appreciated by women in American;
he was on top of the world.
He found himself an incredibly beautiful Filipina and
got married to her after a year.
He bought a nice house in a city called Cebu in the
Central Visayas region of the Philippines, had a good life.
For two years he was still in nuptial bliss until
his wife went on a shopping trip alone one day.
And three assailants broke into his house and shot him
dead, one of them his wife’s boyfriend. The plan to
inherent the house and the insurance money. Though
many men have found good wives in the Philippines,
sometimes the dream turns into a nightmare –
some men are scammed, and rarely, some men are murdered.

Bob Boyd

like a third world
overrun by ingrates

from other countries
other cultures

that care not for
Royaume de France

this may be
just the beginning

of what is to come
the France you knew

the Paris you loved
gone forever

Bob Boyd

She said he
was low rent trash

because he lived
in a trailer park

and worked in
a factory

despite the fact
he was a

good man
respectful of others

kind to everyone
with a sense of humor

that cheered others up

and in my opinion
she was high rent trash

compared to him

Bob Boyd

There is Science
that makes a good
case that
when you die
you are dead
nothing more

no white light
no life review
no heaven
no hell
no unconditional love
no god

just the you
that you
identify with
gone
finished
never more

those encouraging
near death experiences
just the brain
shutting down
nothing more

it is natural
to wish for more
the you that
you identify with
alive evermore

and that is the
scenario I
believe in

but if dead
is just dead
I’m fine with
that too
how about you

Bob Boyd

Pentecostal music filling his ears,
he’s feeling the Holy Spirit,
as he takes up a serpent.
Anointed by God, he knows
the venomous rattler can’t kill him.
It bites him.The bite is painful, but
he’s not concerned. He’s feeling
the Holy Spirit. He’s too high to die.
In step with the beats of the music,
he keeps dancing holding the rattler.
The rattler bites him again. His
vision gets blurry. He gets a rubbery
taste in his mouth. He throws up,
drops the snake, falls to the floor.
He lies there, muscles twitching,
body shivering. The Holy Spirit
fails him. He whispers God why
have you forsaken me? And he dies.

Bob Boyd

but he thought he could make it work;
he gave in, gave in, and gave in,

yet things just kept getting worse no
matter how hard he tried to please her,

no matter how much he gave in. In the
end she left him anyway

but, lesson learned, he was never a fool
for a woman again

and when she wanted to get back with him,
he said no for his final escape, free from her –

forever.

Bob Boyd

Jesus Christ,
why couldn’t I
have been a monk

free from the curse,
the acursed curse, of
needing a woman

free from the hells
of my own making

free from the follies
of my reckless heart

Jesus Christ,

why couldn’t I
have been a monk

Bob Boyd