Month: January 2024

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

Pat Curran

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 soared
I felt first love bloom; she did too, in our tender surrender in 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 claimed 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 so unlike anything I ever knew, so heavenly
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
She dropped a bomb on me that blew up my heart, demolished 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 a dead ship; I didn’t want to live
My dreams obliterated, 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

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

On My Back a Soft Tap

I turned around and saw cute you
I was eight I think you were too
I remember your red hair
So pretty in the summer air

You smiled at me and ran away
But I never forgot that day
In over seventy long years
Through happy times and times of tears

If only I had talked to you
Under that summer sky so blue
It could have led to something new
And maybe true love as we grew

But alas the moment went by
I write that with a forlorn sigh
Maybe in the life beyond this
Older, true love we will not miss.

Bob Boyd

Ruth

I remember when I learned you died
A lone obit on the net

You died too soon
I think it was the smoking

Though we hadn’t been
for many years
I felt pangs for you

I wish it never happened
I wish you could have
had a longer life
and maybe kids
and a good husband

I hope you have something better
wherever you are

Though our love
was beyond retrievable
my heart mourns
for you
having such
an early demise.

Bob Boyd

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