Month: January 2024

Cloven Hoofed

People are dying all around me
At work, in my neighborhood, and in the news
Old, middle-aged, young, and babies too.
It’s like the Reaper has been loosened
In my semi-immediate vicinity
Killing people with a dogged impunity.
Worries me about my own mortality
If I’m next on Grim’s hit list
Or in some invisible warzone
With unseeable stealth bombs
Leaving no booms or residues
Quietly taken hordes of people out.
Maybe it’s just the usual suspect
Beelzebub up to his usual MO
Doing his cloven hoofed Devil’s work.

Bob Boyd

An Illuminating 27th Summer

Heard an old song about a guy born in a summer when he was 27.
I get that song; it was kind of about me, though not directly.
At age 27, sitting in meditation transcending like many other times
Unexpectedly White Light lit up my head like the sun,
An OMG mindblowing moment unexpected and unprepared for.
Knew I was about to merge with the cosmos
And leave everything near and dear behind
Including my girlfriend Ruth, whom I loved dearly.
Frightened, almost shocked, pulled out of meditation shaking
Three green lights flashed above my head bizarrely.
Days later, outside of meditation Kundalini energy
Flowing from the base of my spine to the top of my head
All through the waking state, an upward pristine flow
Incomparable spiritual energy streaming nonstop
Instinctively knew what went up was never coming down
Thought I was entering Cosmic Consciousness prematurely
A chilling thought, strapped in a psychiatric ward implications
Cosmic Consciousness never happened, but could handle it now.
Over 50 years later, Light born spiritual energy still flows upward
From that OMG mindblowing awakening in an illuminating summer,
A new and better 27-year-old spiritually remade reborn man.

Bob Boyd

The Aliens of 2032

It all happened so suddenly and so undetectably that
no one knew what to do with the Aliens who
landed all over America in 2032.

A buzzing sound dominated the skies, and suddenly they were
in every village, town, and city.
Detecting no Imminent danger because the aliens looked
like cute and cuddly teddy bears and seemed affable,
the government held a meeting to decide what to do.

Before the meeting was over, the teddy bear aliens turned evil,
or always were, and shut down everything, the military and defense systems too with that buzzing sound.

Then fast as a second on a watch’s second hand, they captured humans everywhere,
Even the ones in the meeting
Even ones in airplanes
Even ones in submarines
Even ones in coal mines and
Even ones called preppers.
No one was safe. No one escaped.

At first, they cherry-picked the populace maybe for taste tests,
possibly for snacks.
Then with a round of unearthly howls, scarier than wolves, their
voracious appetites took over, and as if in an all-you-can-eat buffet,
they devoured a Guinness Book Record of 341,044, 641 humans in 30 seconds.

At 341,044,642, the total US population, they were too full to eat me.
The aliens, their appetites appeased, buzzed back to wherever
they came from and left me unmolested, unabducted, unprobed,
and uneaten – to my ever-grateful surprise.

Despite my luck, I was lonely until the population count was actually 341,044/643, a bureaucratic error, and another person survived.

By chance or a fortuitous fate, the other survivor was a woman.
I met her in my small town in Idaho, a 30s-something
hot woman named Mandy.
And we became a couple with everything in America ours for free.

Bob Boyd

Fear Not Death

No need for fear when Death arrives
To take us to the eternity of Love and Light
Relocation to a higher, brighter world
Freed from the uncertainties of this impermanence
Passing illusion, clung to as if our lives go on here forever
Except for occasional reminders of our mortality
Death of loved ones, killer diseases, and more
World on edge with ever-present threats of nuclear holocaust
Murders, wars, atrocities, and injustice across the planet
Tenuous existence, we are like flickering candle flames
Soon to burn out as numberless ones before us
But mercifully saved by Death,
Usher To the eternity of Love and Light.

Bob Boyd

My Heart Needs An Exorcism

Though you’re an old woman
Or should I say mature,
Your ever-new magnetic charms
Have put such a spell on me
That my heart is possessed
My mind is obsessed
With 24/7 love for you.

Not wanting to risk the agony of
A heartbreaking misadventure
Went on a two-week bender
Mindlessly drunk day and night
Hungover with thoughts of you.

To expunge the love from my
Captive, possessed heart
Ingested a cocktail of drugs
Went crazy, nearly died
Called 911 incoherently
Woke up in the ICU
Mumbling and thinking of you.

Bob Boyd

Prophecy of a Soy Plant

Because I don’t talk or show my feelings
And I’m nonviolent maybe to a fault –
Too highly evolved for violence
Lesser evolved barbaric humans
Heartlessly feel they have the right
To butcher and eat me.
As if my lack of complaining
And Gandhian nonviolent nature
Were a green light for their
Slaughter and wanton consumption
Of my species all over the world.
This is analogous to the
Colonizers who take over
Countries often with bloodshed
Except colonizers don’t cook and eat
Those colonized as humans do gentle us.
But know this, and know it well!
As is written, and as I clearly
See with my unerring, prophetic sight
the meek will inherit the earth
And the last shall be first. That’s us.
When the loathsome human barbarians
Are nuked and cooked by their bombs
When they perish to the last soy eater
We will eat them and we will persist.
Freedom! Glorious freedom! At last!
Will ring out in our hidden hearts
All over the newborn soy world!

Bob Boyd

Weary Old Soul

My old soul is weary
I’ve been alive too long
Friends of old all dead
Lives buried in insignificance
Stories lost in inexorable time
My old soul is weary
Years have become a fading blur
My demise approaching fast
Gladly I go, gladly I surrender
Hopes and dreams exhausted
My old soul is weary
A fading fossil of myself
The past reduced to dust
A present with little value
All the mountains climbed
My old soul is weary.

Bob Boyd

I Saved A Ladybug’s Life Today

I saved a ladybug’s life today
It fell in my fish tank or maybe
It wanted to end it all. It thrashed
in the water desperately. Had my
Hearing been better, I probably
Would have heard ladybug
Cries for help.

I could have looked the
Other way and let the ladybug
Drown and become waterlogged
Fish food. But a nobler cause
Guided my actions. I couldn’t
Bear to let that little ladybug
Suffer a moment longer and die.

So with a piece of paper
Like a life raft for drowning
Souls at sea, I eased the
Gasping ladybug onto
the paper. When I got the
ladybug to shore aka a
ledge on a table, I swear
inside my head
I heard a tiny ladybug
thank you.

Bob Boyd

Bear Whisperer

I used to be a Bear Whisperer, one of the best
I charmed bears from coast to coast
Just a well-timed whisper or two
And like lions lying down with lambs
Ferocious Bears became teddy bears.
My fame reached almost everywhere;
On radio and TV shows a regular guest.

Became a traveling international celeb
Even tamed exotic Scandinavian bears
In Siberia whispered to Russian ones.
Some said the fame spread to my head
And I became too bigheaded for my own good.

A Ursus americanus in the Rocky Mountains
Growled, charged, and like a wrestling pro
Clotheslined me to the hard mountain ground
And nearly made me his bear whispering dinner.
A park ranger’s warning shot and he sped.

Wasn’t a rookie near-fatal fault on my part.
The bear was hearing impaired and
I couldn’t whisper sign language.

Bob Boyd

Dreams

Sometimes I see a woman in dreams, real it seems.
I can’t compel my mind to tell if from heaven or hell.
Maybe repressed love manifesting in dreams above.
Or deceptive blood-sucking succubus, a seduction lie.
Perhaps some future love hovering like a waiting dove.
Maybe a soul mate to meet me at the eternal gate.
It’s all a nighttime mystery to me;
What and why impossible to see.

Bob Boyd

A Tabloid’s True And Fascinating News Story

California Couple Charged with Collecting Man’s Retirement
While Keeping His dead body In Their home for Six Years
Read the tabloid headline at the supermarket checkout lane.
The Cali couple didn’t stop because the law caught up with them.
The dead man became so outraged his anger brought his corpse back to life. The corpse that looked scarier than a TV Walking Dead ripped the couple to death in bloodied shreds of flesh and torn and shattered bones.

The irony of this is the corpse kept the couple’s death a secret,
So he could collect their mental health disability checks and
drain their bank accounts of money that was his anyway.
More curious is how the authorities solved this true and ghoulish crime.
Beneath a moonless night in LA, the vengeful corpse drove to the bank
where the couple had done business premortem, and he got caught on
the ATM camera when he withdrew money from the dead couple’s savings account.

No, it wasn’t his zombie-like face that did him in; after all, he was in California.
It was the license plate number of the couple’s 1988 Olds he was driving.
You can read the rest of this fascinating story at the grocery store checkout lane in the tabloid’s next issue.

Bob Boyd

A Quick And Easy Death

All I want is a quick and easy death.

Not a protracted nursing home death
where I’d probably get dementia
before I died years later with
an obliterated mind and wasted body.

Not a lingering painful death
in chronic pain for months or years.

Not a miserable drawn-out death
where I’m supposed to be dead
in months but it drags on for years.

Not an expensive death that
costs me thousands before I die
and creditors come after me
on my deathbed.

Not a brought back to live death
that might bring me back worse
then when I was supposed to
be permanently dead.

Not a dramatic ICU death
with all that noise,
machinery and clamor or
a doctor slamming those
paddles on my chest
merely delaying my death.

I want a death like a massive
dead-in-a-second heart attack,
too quick for pain or fear
too quick for being helpless
and aware of the indignity
of being stuffed
in an ambulance.

Too quick for the painful
realization that my once
healthy body is doomed to
unhealthiness for the remainder
of my waning life ….
under the harsh lights and
frenzied ministrations
in the ER or the ICU.

The Flatwoods Monster

Hey, Flatwoods Monster where are you from
And would you like some sweet bubble gum?
I’m from a planet called Ackernum
And too classy to chew bubble gum.

Really, Sir, did you have to go there
As if a conceited royal’s heir?
You nailed it, a royal heir I am
Soon I’ll be His Majesty King Sam.

So bow down to me you silly knave
Before I make you my earthling slave
And stuff your bubble gun down your throat
And feed you to the crocs in my moat.

Bob Boyd

Reclusive Champ

In Lake Champlain Vermont
lives an elusive sea monster
named Champ first seen
in 1609 and 299 times
after that reputedly.

Like many cryptids Champ
is a champion at hiding;
Many alleged sightings
But no proof.

Wouldn’t it be amazing
if one day Champ made his
debut and wowed the world
as a throwback to
prehistoric times.

And since no mate
has been seen
Champ must be
centuries old with an
anti-aging formula
as yet unknown.

I’d like it if Champ
came out of the lake
and declared his
authenticity to the world.

But somehow I suspect
from watching many
monster movies
that day would be
a bad day For Champ.

So I can understand him
staying out of the media
glare, being reclusive.
Because I’m reclusive too
and wouldn’t want all that
annoying paparazzi attention.

Bob Boyd

I Hated Arthur Koski

My parents always said why can’t you be like Arthur Koski
As if he was some kind of sainted kid above wrongdoing
And I was some kind of ne’er-do-well loser who always screwed up
I hated that ideal Arthur Koski and his supposedly perfect ways
When I dropped out of high school and Koski made the honor roll
My parents threw that in my face and kicked me out of the house
Years later that perfect Arthur Koski became a Catholic priest
I became a grunt working whatever construction jobs I could get
No doubt my parents would have said why couldn’t I have been as pious and as educated as Arthur Koski
I lived a common life with a good woman, made enough money to get by, and never got in trouble
Arthur Koski, on the other hand, was arrested for molesting altar boys
If I were less a man and vengeful, I would have said to my parents why couldn’t Arthur Koski have been like me?

Bob Boyd

Under A Blue Moon

Through fires, smoke, the stench of bombs, the moon was blue
Alone, dazed, shell shocked, grieving, my heart was too.
But that’s understated, my heart was shattered, my life destroyed.

They bombed the hell out of my beautiful city and killed my Anastasia
My sweet angel, my love who had accepted my proposal of marriage
Before the bombs fell and turned the city and our love into rubble
My world in a war without her a godforsaken, war-torn hell.

Crazed with rage I march into battle to avenge my sweet angel
Anastasia.
Nothing left, my life over, like an insane Viking berserker I’ve lost my fears
The enemy troops fear dying, but I don’t, a noble death with
Anastasia.

It’s all I have left. I’m an empty corpse marching through
This dystopian nightmare of dead people and dead dreams.
With the cadence of a thousand determined boots marching
To war under a blue moon that’s disheartened as I am too.
Bombs exploding around me, I fight the battle unconcerned
Like a bulletproof immortal protected by the gods of war.

The battle ends; we win; still alive I collapse on the burnt ground
And cry countless tears for my sweet angel, my love, my wife
Anastasia.

Bob Boyd

My Dog Bo Ain’t Dumb

Clarence said he understood
the language of chirping cicadas
and could read the minds of ants.
He said he knew what birds were thinking
and could predict their futures as they flew.
See that sparrow flying overhead, he said.
in a week it will be in the stomach of a hawk.
I almost believed him, as confident as he was
until he said he knew what my dog Bo was thinking,
could easily read his every dumb dog thought.
Curious and a little offended by his insulting Bo,
I said, what the hell is my dumb dog thinking?
He’s blown away by how well I can read his mind.
You know how dogs can hear things we can’t?
Dogs can know when a psychic reads their minds.
Bo looked at Clarance and let out a howl
as if in agreement with what Clarence said.
Then Bo growled and jumped up curved sideways
suspended in the air like a professional athlete
and with a spectacular airborne twisting move
bit that soothsaying Clarence on the butt.
Bo never did like BS artists.

Mongolian Death Worm King of Worms

Mongolian Death Worm King of Worms
Hidden in the Gopi sands unfindable
Humble and possessing great wisdom
You seek not the fame you could have.

You know it’s a fickle fading light
You know if you made a world debut
Like King Kong, they’d cage and debase you
Like King Kong, they’d exhibit and destroy you
Because you are so different, so wondrous
And so uniquely beautiful.

Hail Mongolian Death Worm
King of Worms!

Bob Boyd

Josh And A Hitchhiking Ghost Girl

My lovelorn friend Josh, adventurous type
said he picked up a Hitchhiking Ghost girl named Lydia
last night on High Point Road in Jamestown, NC
told him her real name was Annie, not Lydia.

knew Josh was joking, embellishing an urban legend
let him continue to see where his fake story would go
said he had a one and only attraction to ghost girl Annie
Hooded dark eyes, and “otherworldly beautiful.”

Annie said the feeling mutual, were soulmates
A kiss goodbye and a promised date
next night on High Point Road in Jamestown at 8 pm.

Saw him before he left, said good luck, bid him goodbye
Secretly followed him in my car to catch him in his charade
The night dark, moonless, and  foreboding.

Not usually superstitious or spooked by things
But had dreadful premonition
Something awful was going to happen.

Seconds later on High Point Road in Jamestown
Josh lost control of his car, skidded off the road
smashed into a gnarly old Oak tree.

Drove up, spied Annie shimmering and ghostly white
Josh shimmering and ghostly white in her arms
a kiss then they vanished I don’t know where to
thinking might have seen shock induced hallucination
rushed to Josh’s car, his body bloodied and smashed up
dead on High Point Road in Jamestown at 8 pm.

Now reader, know this; The ghostly tale story is 100% true
if some night you drive on High Point Road in Jamestown at 8 pm
don’t be surprised if you see Josh and Annie
thumbs out hitchhiking a ride.

Bob Boyd

Bigfoot in Texas

Hiking near the Rio Grande
And had my Clock 20 handy
In case some big unhinged bear
Charged at me out of his liar.

The day was quiet and peaceful
Being in nature felt blissful
Suddenly something was afoot
I turned around and saw Bigfoot.

To my surprise, he said, “What’s up?”
I ran away like a scared pup
In that moment forgot the glock
Too frightened to shoot and in shock.

Smashed into a tree hit my head
Fell on the ground like I was dead
Came to with Bigfoot over me
Saying are you okay, so sweetly.

He lifted me off of the ground
Smiled and asked me to hang around
Said okay since he meant no harm
His manner as soothing as balm.

We talked and he said crazy things
Like there were aliens with wings
Then all of a sudden he sings
And becomes an alien with wings.

And said it’s time for me to go
And down came a big UFO
He got in it and waved goodbye
And disappeared into the sky.

Bob Boyd

Some People Want to Live to be a Hundred

Some people want
to live
to be a hundred
they know nothing
about the dark nights
of living
too long a life.

They know
nothing
of the
myriad illnesses
that plague most
aging
out of existence.

The worst
the mind’s
demise
when you
become
oblivious of
everything
everyone
and your
vanished self.

Despair
when
friends, icons,
and
beloved spouse
pass away
so many gone
the worst
your spouse
a deep abyss
ever surfacing
sadness.

Of course
it’s
not all bad
there’s those
Golden Years
on canes
crutches,
and
in wheelchairs.

Bob Boyd

When My Granny Saw A Doctor

Never go to doctors
They’ll find something wrong with you
Stay away and you won’t get sick or die
For example
My granny was the healthiest granny on the planet
Bench pressing 200 pounds, repeatedly
Squatting 500 pounds, endlessly
Running six day ultra marathons
Kicking the crap out of subway pushers in NYC
All that, until she saw a geriatrics quack
A wacko psycho doctor of death
He diagnosed her with the big C
Placebo screwed her with a BS death knell
Stage 4, three months to live, he claimed sadistically
Three anxiety-driven, brainwashed months later
Six failed ultra marathons
Granny was stone cold expired
Waked and buried at Bellevue Cemetery
Don’t ask me about the costs
In denial about my sweet granny’s passing
Vowed to find a way to bring her back
Prayed to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
And Catholic saints of impossible causes
Because Jesus came back successfully
Thought maybe he’d share
His secret resurrection formula
And give a dead granny some love
Didn’t work
Granny remained unresurrected
Exasperated and driven to near madness
I robbed granny out of her grave
And tried to Frankenstein her
Bound her to a metal table
Rigged a lightning rod to it
A thunderstorm raged and rumbled
Lightning flashed and crackled
Struck her corpse, made it sizzle
Didn’t work
Lightning only barbequed her body
Or cooked it, not sure which
Brainstormed a better idea
Jump started her like a dead car battery
Problem solved, kinda
Granny is up and running
And chasing me around my house
Alive and electrically zombified.

Bob Boyd

Canadian Geese

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

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