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

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

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

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.

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

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

The Assaults of Aging

Body wearing down arthritis setting in, joint and muscle straining
Balance out of whack, muscles weakening, wrinkling
Skin screwed, wrinkles and ugly aging spots everywhere
If you’re lucky, you’ll still have your hair and your teeth
Senior discounts only serve to validate what may not be clear to you
Sleep, waking in the night, risks of falls if meandering to the bathroom
Blood tests show many problems, a godawful cancer might be one of them
Examined and poked by gerontologists like a nonentity lab specimen
More doctors than ever, appointment after appointment after appointment
The memory firing only on 5 cylinders, days of senior moments, maybe dementia
The voice sounds weak or hoarse unless you’re lucky or genetically blessed
Once youthful looks, often pretty, now lost, new roles as nondescript grannies
Once handsome young men, now like paradise lost, looks gone forever
Friends and generational icons dying, depressing reminders nothing lasts
You wonder when you’ll be next, your immorality forsaken, your mortality waning
If unbearably sick, or in unbearable pain, or dying in a nursing home ….
You might pray you are next.

Bob Boyd

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