Month: March 2024

White Light

We’re all just people trying to make out way through this world
Some of us don’t get too far, dead before we barely start
Some of us meet terrible fates, wounded, murdered, debilitated
Some of us have twisted terrible lives, harder challenges
I was one of those people with a twisted terrible life
Undeservedly, a stroke of grace, a powerful spiritual experience
Lit the way for me to find a better way through this world
Now that my life is almost done, I’m looking forward to
Making my way through the higher, greater life
That white light spiritual experience remade me for.

Bob Boyd

Sound of It

In a tranquil field
Flowers and weeds
Locked in mortal combat
On the serengeti plans
Lions
Hunting prey
In the cosmos
Black holes
Devouring stars
In a junkyard
In Kentucky
A mechanic
Dismembering cars
Sitting at my computer
In Greensboro, NC
I don’t know what
This poem means
I just like the
Sound of it

Bob Boyd

I’ve Got to Stop Listening to 30s Music

30s music romantic lyrics, so good, so sublime
Sometimes they start to get to me like
When a crooner sings about meeting
His love of a lifetime under a blue moon
Or another sings it had to be you
When he finally meets his dream lady
Then another sings about saying good night
To his sweetheart and how they’ll meet tomorrow.
And some women with a sweet enchanting voice
Sings she’s got a feeling she’s falling in love with me
And I start remembering what it feels like to fall in love
When I get elated, romantic feelings I’ve just about forgotten
And that woman becomes the most beautiful woman in the world
Making all over women lackluster by comparison
Making my emotions enlivened with unending love for her
Longing for her incomparable company every single day
Thinking about her incessantly, remembering things she said.
And I start feeling like bringing an imaginary woman dozens of roses
And writing incredibly romantic love poems to her
And forgetting I’m kind of a don’t need no woman monk,
But oh how I love those 30s music lyrics, so good, so sublime.
And I love that music and those lyrics so much
That I’ll never stop listening to 30s romantic music.
I’ll just have to stay strong and forget about women …
Forget about women … forget about women ….

Bob Boyd

Stink Bug on My Computer

A stink bug just flew on my computer screen.
Though they’re grotesque looking, I like them.
But I must admit the first time I saw one
It looked so bizarre it startled me,
Wondering if it was harmful and would sting or bite.
Rarely had I seen a weirder looking bug.
It had kind of a threatening don’t touch me look.
We don’t have them where I’m originally from
Just outside of Boston, MA in the suburbs.
Despite not knowing if it was harmful,
I couldn’t kill it, just coaxed it onto a tissue
And walked it outside my apartment
Into the freedom of a warm summer’s night.
After I learned stink bugs were harmless,
I grew to like them, as I like the one
That just soared off my computer, tiny wings flapping,
Airborne for a few seconds in lamp lit skies,
And landing on a runway somewhere behind me.
In a little while he might land on me.
Maybe he’ll sit on my shoulder like a best pal
And watch YouTube videos with me.
And tell me how he can’t meet any stink bug women online,
I’ll say I feel your pain, been there with human women.
Maybe after he pours out his love life miseries,
And cries for a while on my shoulder,
He’ll give me some ideas for this poem, like a muse.
Maybe I’ll adopt him as an exotic pet.
I wouldn’t tether him to a restraining leash
Or stick him in a four-sided, oppressive aquarium,
Or imprison him in a soul crushing miniature cage,
That is if stink bugs have souls.
Or dress him up like dogs with sissy sweaters.
But mercy me I don’t know what I’d feed him,
And I doubt I’d find stink bug food at Petsmart.
I could probably find him some food on Amazon,
Hopefully with a five gold stars rating
And next day shipping between 4 and 8am.
I hate that it has such an undignified name.
I would have named it unique looking cool bug.
And by the way, stink bugs only stink if you crush them,
as if dead they get the final say.

Bob Boyd

Country Living

Thought I’d love country living
Breathing clean country air every day
Avoiding congested city traffic and crazy drivers
Observing deer, a variety of birds, and other animals
Strolling down quiet, peaceful country roads at night
Living a carefree low pollution serene life
Enjoying a refreshing country living dream
Woke up from the dream after a about a week
Stores shut down at 9 PM every night
Nothing nearby for a late night smack
Or a craving for some pizza and a cola
Nearest grocery store like a continent away
Strolling down country roads perilous at night
No sidewalks, risks of rabid animals, narrow roads
Locals drove like maniacs down those narrow roads
Like nearsighted drivers racing in the Indy 500 at night
Good luck to you if you were taking that nightly stroll
Was relieved when I packed up and returned to the city.

Bob Boyd

Guppies

Maybe the Hindus have it right. Maybe we reincarnate,
starting as the lowest lifeforms and evolving up to
human births and eventually attain enlightenment
where we get off the wheel of rebirths and attain the
Sat Chit Ananda, the Eternal Bliss Consciousness.
I’m thinking about this because as I look at the guppies
in my aquariums swimming about merrily, I’m wondering
do they just die into nothingness, and that’s it? Oblivion,
and it’s over for them? Or maybe they die into the tunnel
of White Light and emerge into a guppy heaven. A celestial
world freed from oppressive fish tanks and whatever cares
earthbound guppies have, swimming and playing ecstatically
in bliss-laden bodies of water, vast as oceans with no predators
to annihilate their joyous lives in an eternal, aquatic paradise.

Bob Boyd

Bishop Bonner, The Devil’s Dancing Bear (1500-1569)

Bishop Bonner did the Devil’s work
Under Queen Mary the First in 1555
Torturing hundreds of Protestants
To renounce their faiths,
And become Catholics
In the Tower of London.
Breaking many on the rack,
Burning many at the stake.
Supposedly a man of God,
He had the modus operandi of
A cruel, murderous psychopath.
But when Queen Elizabeth
Ascended to the throne in 1558.
Bishop Bonner was thrown
In jail and died there in 1569,
His legacy of infamy the only
remnant of him remaining.
Would liked to have been an
Observer in the afterlife,
To see where he went,
Perhaps indeterminately
Broken on the rack and
Burned at the stake.

Bob Boyd

A 1612 Lancaster County Atrocity

As innocent as a fresh born babe and with a deformed face, my left eye lower than my right, accused of being a witch, I denied the claims of witchcraft at the August 1612 Witches Trial in Lancaster County, England.
Wrongfully convicted, sentenced to death, I couldn’t believe I’d come to this.
Shocked by the thought of my life ending so soon, I passed out before being dragged to my cell.
Days later, I stood below a hanging noose tied to a thick branch of a tree, my heart trembling, tears falling from my downcast eyes.
About to be hung to death, through my tears I spied my nine-year-old daughter, Elizabeth Device, watching from afar in a field, whose false testimony brought me here.
And I screamed, “God save me!” before I left this unjust world.

Bob Boyd

A Long Ago Fairy Tale Love

Summer days on the shores of a picturesque pond
His head on her lap blissfully gazing up at her
The most beautiful woman he’d ever seen
The backdrop of a beaming summer sun,
Enhancing her radiant blonde hair,
her incredible, goddess-like looks.
Knew they had a fairy tale love forever.
Though they lived states away and only saw
Each other during teenage summers,
He never knew love could be so wonderful,
So consuming, so blissful beyond anything
he’d ever experienced or could ever have imagined.
But like Icarus who flew too close to the sun
When she cheated on him and ruined everything,
His wings of love singed, he crashed to the ground.
Days turned into dark nights of dead dreams.
A saddened sun sobbed behind consoling clouds.
A melancholic moon cried in a lovelorn night.
And rivers of tears fell from his eyes
Over the loss of a fairy tale love.

Bob Boyd

Maximum Gratitude Beyond Measure

This may sound kinda contrary, but I’m grateful I got cancer, no regrets. It vanquished my whitecoatitis; It liberated me from medical fears. It gave me admiration for the medical profession. It abolished my hate of hospitals; now I love what they do, though I still don’t want to be stranded in them, and I hate those freakin’ unwieldy hospital gowns. I’ve become like the phoenix out of the ashes, more inwardly powerful, my character enhanced. I’m grateful for the knowledge of cancer I gained and for all the wonderful infusion room nurses who like angels on earth helped save my life. I like how “I’ve been there,” kinda like street cred and can connect, commiserate, and relate with others with cancer so easily. It made my presentations ten times more powerful, my kinda like street cred makes me more legit. The worst thing happening, the dreaded C gave me the calmness of a Zen Master, something I never had even with years of attempts to reach that elevated state. And if I have to face cancer again, I’m game. And if it kills me I’m good with that too. The way I see it, I get to go to my real home, the abode of unconditional love and eternal bliss. You may doubt that, but I’m as sure as you are a living, breathing human being reading this that that’s where I’m going. I base that on extensive research into the land of NDES, shared death experiences, deathbed visions, a mystical experience I’ve had for over 50 years and having experienced bliss beyond description and the peace beyond understanding many times in the past and an unwavering faith in the Ruler of Time and Space despite His name being taboo in many quarters now. And this is a stream of consciousness poem.

Bob Boyd

The Birdman of Stirling Castle

In the Autumn of 1507 in Stirling, Scotland
an Italian-born abbot, John Damian de Falcuis
Studied birds in flight and believed he could fly.
He fashioned the feathers of eagles into wings
He wore on his arms. Clad in the makeshift
Flying machine, he leaped off Stirling Castle.
For a moment, he hovered in the sky
As if, like a bird he really could fly;
Then plummeted seventy feet to
The unwelcoming ground. Miraculously,
he survived, woke up in a doctor’s urgent care,
Many injuries and a shattered thigh bone.
He never could walk properly after that
And he stayed out of the sky.

Bob Boyd

Imagine if You Were Born to be Fish Food

Imagine if you were born fated to be fish food. Imagine knowing your demise was only a purchase away. And since you couldn’t go to church and no proselytizers would be knocking on the door of your plastic container to save your soul, you wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hades of getting to heaven.
You’d probably be hoping that death was a Hindu thing where you could come back at a higher birth.
Maybe living the good life as one of the privileged, high born fish who ate the fish food. If your karma had been even better, maybe you’d come back living the dream as one of the customers buying the fish food.

Bob Boyd

Thailand’s Sak Yant Tattoo Festival

An hour west of Bangkok
Sak Yant animal spirit tattoos
Administered by Buddhist Monks.
Tranced devotees run like crazed animals,
Growling and gesturing, newborn beasts
Through crowds of thousands upon thousands
To the front of the astonished crowds
Captured, restrained by handlers
Stabilized by the Buddhist monks.
Is it as claimed the cleansing of Karma
Manifesting as spirit animals
Or crazed imaginations run wild?
Whatever the reason, it’s a bizarre sight.
You will never forget once you’ve seen it.

Bob Boyd

Two Summers and a Fairy Tale

I knew you for two summers, met you at a teenage dance.
We danced to the song Sixteen Candles, and with each step
We became more enamored, knew we’d be a couple.
Teenagers we fell in love, planned to marry when older,
Vowed we’d be together forever, prince and princess, the fairy tale.
I loved you so much it was like I was living in a heavenly dream 24/7.
But when when the two summers became chilled by ill-fated fall winds,
You were untrue, and the heavenly dream became a heartbreaking reality.
The sun hid its tears behind darkening clouds.
The moon turned blue in the dismal night.
And I, heart-wounded prince, whose vow of love ever true
Couldn’t believe the princess killed the fairy tale,
And I could no longer be with you.

Bob Boyd

Four Young Girls from Birmingham

September 15, 1963 bombed to death in the 16th Street Baptist Church In Birmingham:
Addie Mae Collins (14), Cynthia Wesley (14), Carole Robertson (14) Carol Denise McNair (11).
I’ve seen their photos, read their stories – long ago,
Bright futures awaited those innocent, young girls.
Reading about them, tears fell. It was all so heartbreakingly sad.
Soulless monsters, the killers didn’t seem to care;
They didn’t seem contrite and ashamed, as they should have been.
Wondered how God could have let that happen, and in the sanctity of a church.
The only way I can reconcile their awful, unjust fates
Is that surely God must have needed four more angels in heaven.
Never forget those four young girls from Birmingham.

Bob Boyd

The Wooing of an Inscrutable Woman

What is it going to take to woo this inscrutable woman?
Am I going to have to crawl over a hundred miles of broken glass?
Or swim the seven seas seventeen times?
Or like a gladiator of old, fight off hundreds of lions in a coliseum?
Or scale Mount Everest ten thousand times?
Good God in heaven, what on earth is it going to take?
In an attempt to make her favor sweeter,
I think I’ll start with some chocolate mousse from Harris Teeter.

Bob Boyd

8th Century Chinese Poetry

I love 8th century Chinese poetry.
I even like their poets’ names like Li Po and Wang Wei.
They sound so cool and so exotic to me.
Those poets liked things like jade — in abundance;
They seemed to like it more than we like gold.
They liked oriole birds, and if you see one, you’ll know why
And there are eight species in the US and in Canada.
They loved the word crystalline, as in crystalline water.
In many ways their poetry is close to peerless,
Their use of imagery is phenomenal and sublime.
All of this amazes me because it was written so long ago.
And by that way, I’m not talking reading these poems
In Chinese. I know nothing of Mandarin, and I can’t
Speak Cantonese. Nor any of the hundreds of
dialects that are considered Chinese.

Bob Boyd

Coming and Going

Some come into this world suffering
all manner of medical conditions
out of the womb.

Most go out of this world suffering
dementia, cancers, other medical
conditions into the grave.

Why all this suffering? Where’s the love?
I swear by heaven above, if I were in
charge of the here and now, the

comings and goings, nobody
would ever suffer on the way in
or the way out.

Bob Boyd

I’m Relating a True Account – This Poem is Not Fiction

One night after she turned out her bedroom lights and went to bed
A shadowy nonhuman hulk appeared at the door of her bedroom.
It had no tangible bone and flesh substance.
A dark malevolent form, no legs, no arms, no head, no face,
It silently summoned her attention; she could not resist its bidding.
It paralyzed her body, her will too weakened to move or flee.
A glowing white cross manifested upon her bedroom wall.
A voice inside her said repeat the Lord’s prayer over and over out loud.
The shadowy nonhuman hulk drew nearer more menacingly.
Terrified, she kept repeating Our Father …. Our Father …. Our Father ….
The horrifying dark form gradually dissolved into nothingness;
The glowing cross turned in upon itself and melted away.
She telepathically heard the assurance she was safe always;
Never more to be tormented by that monstrous, intangible hulk.
All her previous cares evaporated in that miraculous moment;
Whereupon her life became more carefree, more liberated.

Bob Boyd

Luckless, loveless Old Man Lament

As a luckless old man ten unsteady steps away being in the obits,
I’ve given up on the ship I’ve waited for all my life to come in.
I think it’s docked forever in Singapore or at the bottom of the Bering Straits.
The only ships I see are those that always pass me in the night.
I sit here marooned in a beggar broke, loveless unshipworthy life.
Almost won the lottery, 10 million, but somehow the ticket got lost.
Had what I thought was the love of my life, Daisy Bobby Sue Mae,
Didn’t know she was half crazy and crazier about the monied life.
She left me when she somehow got flush with cash and bought
a BMW, designer clothes, diamond rings and a fancy pants gigolo.
I know what you’re thinking.

Bob Boyd

A Tangled Life

He lead a tangled life,
A miscreant in high school,
A troublemaker in the military,
A criminal back in the real world.
Then as an incarcerated outcast
Had an epiphany in solitary that
Untangled his tangled life.
Saw he was the architect
Of his destructive behaviors.
Reformed and rebuilt himself
Into a better benevolent man.
His troubled life vanished
like dark clouds after a storm.
Spent the rest of his days
In compassionate service to others.

Bob Boyd

Anu

When Anu was in the highest heaven
I was waiting in the wings of the ethers
To be born.
Though there a thousand years
passes in a millisecond,
Trillions of those is a long time to wait
To be born.
Soon I’ll die and go back into the ethers.
Will I have earned heaven
or liberation from the wheel?
Or will I be back in the ethers waiting
To be born?
Whatever the outcome, I’ll be
Better off than Anu. No longer
In the highest heavens, he’s
Dead and gone.

Bob Boyd

The Bad Boy of Religion

The bane of Heresiologists
The scourge of Polemicists
Even Peter didn’t like me
He wouldn’t take a bribe
I was formidable
I was a sorcerer
I was a magician
I could levitate
I could fly
I was the bad boy
Of religion and I
Never knew why
They said I was
Malevolent
I said Nobody’s
Perfect we all
have our
Imperfections
In Rome I
Was redeemed
And deified
Name’s Simon
You probably
Know the rest

Bob Boyd

Amazing Woman at Harris Teeter

She works making pizza at
Lawndale Harris Teeter,
Friendly, helpful, compassionate,
Exceptionally nice.
Survivor of cancer three times,
Now in remission.
Fiance got cancer too, the
Cancer ended his life.
So terribly heartbreaking, hard to
Imagine coping with the loss.
She has a strong, brave spirit,
And a beautiful disposition.
Awes me how despite the cancers
And her fiance’s death,
She still smiles and stays strong
And exceptionally nice.
I’m so impressed with this amazing
Woman at Harris Teeter,
Hope she has a long and happy life
And never gets cancer again.

Bob Boyd

They Used to Rock Us on the Way to Church

Elderly exemplary woman, eighty years plus, medical conditions.
Despite having little, better, nobler than most having much.
Daughter shot to death by ex boyfriend, four year old daughter
saw mommy in pool of blood on kitchen floor.
Elderly self-sacrificing grandmother worked two jobs for years to
Raise that child right, Honor Roll student, Bennett College graduate.
One Christmas, asked grandmother if she wanted a free Christmas turkey,
My agency had many that year. She said no, let someone have it
Who needs it more. Knew her for many years, had highest respect for her.
Despite how noble, how magnificent she was, when a child
walking through a field to go to church with preacher father and four sisters, racist teenagers and hateful grown men often threw rocks, rocked them, on the way, should have been arrested.
But things were different back then, justice for some never served.
How horrible, how sorrowful, must have been those hateful, dangerous days.
A religious woman of high character, she forgave them,
never holding a grudge. In my opinion, always saintly, and I’ll
Never forget her.

Bob Boyd

In Memory of a Mike McHugh

I remember you friend Mike McHugh, always a good story, always a great smile.
Women loved your raven black hair and your bright, deep blue eyes, to them
you were a handsome prize.
I hated how time dulled your bright deep blue eyes, grayed your raven black hair,
stole the stories from your lips, numbed your mind with a medical condition worse
than Parkinson’s.
How it saddened my heart that all that you were and more the years erased
And worse, now that all that you were and more is gone forever
buried in the cold, unfeeling ground.

Bob Boyd

The Older I Grow

The older I grow the more people and generational icons
I know in the afterlife.
The older I grow the more I realize I’m merely a
sojourner in this uncertain, fleeting life.
The older I grow the more my body breaks down and
needs medical repairs to maintain it.
The older I grow the more I become like a fossil in
this fragile, transient existence.
The older I grow the more things I see I dislike
in this ever downward spiraling world.
And the older I grow the more I see death as a friend
who will usher me into my eternal home of
limitless love and unending bliss.

Bob Boyd

In Memory of Joe Drew

From Woburn, Mass, a small city, in 1964 Joe Drew joined the Marines,
The few, the proud, the brave sent him to the front lines in Viet Nam.
A good, gentle guy, never harmed anyone with words or fists.
Often thought, Joe why … why … why you, the nonviolent one?
Concluded gentle Joe probably felt he wasn’t manly enough,
And the Marines made manly men out of gentle teenage boys.
I’ll never forget Joe Drew, goodhearted, tender soul, great guy.
Joe came back from Nam in a body bag, first in Woburn.
Tears rained all over the city, one of our own down forever.
How I wish Joe never joined the marines and went to Nam.
A nicer guy there never was. If when I die, I wouldn’t be
Surprised if I meet an angel in the afterlife … Joe Drew.

Bob Boyd

The Guppies or Me

My kinda crazy ex named Daisy had an obsession with guppies, seventy six tanks and counting. The guppies multiplied into thousands. She’d coo over them as if they were babies. She seemed to love them more than me. Soon so many tanks in the house I could barely get in and out. I told her she needed to see a shrink and cut back on her guppy explosion. She said never happen, the shrink or the guppies. Said I’ve had it, the guppies or me. She said good riddance, Bob. I’ve got my guppies, I don’t need you. I’ve got to get better at selecting or, more likely, being selected by, the wrong women.

Bob Boyd

Forsaken

The sun tearfully sets in the horizon
The moon cries in the lonely night
The world pines over your departure
I stand at your grave, eyes full of tears
Feeling broken hearted and forsaken
If only you’d given life another chance

Bob Boyd

A Glimpse of the Realm of Bliss

Temporarily clinically dead, a car accident
Above his body witnessed, heard everything
Before the scene vanished and his spirit
Went through the panoramic life review
Like passing movie scenes of his life events
Realized life and afterlife spiritual schools
Graduation permanence in the Realm of Bliss
Swept through the tunnel of radiant White Light
Glimpse of the inexpressible abode of Love and Light
Awed and humbled by encounter with the Absolute
Unconditional Love beyond words, source of everything
Unimaginable, inexpressible eternal unending bliss
His earthly life lackluster, unreal and dreamlike
Wanted to stay in his true home forever and ever
Told he had to go back and be more loving.
Came to in the ICU disappointed and saddened
To be back in the impermanence, longing
to return to where he was born to be eternally.

Bob Boyd

Remembering Ruth

Remembering you with tears my eyes misted
was saddened to learn you had 52 years only.
You should have had at least 70 or more.
Never learned what sent you into the afterlife.
Your nicotine decades long addiction, I suspected.
You always smoked too much, worried me.
But maybe you hit the afterlife lottery, leaving
sooner, freed from the ravages of aging,
and I’ve no doubt you’re in a heaven. And
just maybe … we’ll meet again.

Bob Boyd

Crystalline Unicorns

We rode on crystalline unicorns in the afterlife, the unconditional love and the bliss mind blowing beyond words, beyond imagination, beyond anything one can experience in the transient days of impermanent, earthly life. Me temporarily only, an NDE tourist, her, Brianna, luckier, a permanent resident. Bliss beyond measure as we gallop through euphoric Elysian fields, Brianna, my newly discovered soulmate.

Now I know why I never found love true In my earthly existence of near misses. I needed to die to finally find her, not only the woman of my dreams, but the one I’d seen in my dreams before the car wreck that killed me temporarily. And though I miss her I know she’ll wait for me until I die permanently.

Bob Boyd

The Parade

This passing parade of people
you see throughout your life,
some you love, some you hate,
some you barely know.
Some are strangers passing by,
some linger then say goodbye.
Of the many in that parade,
few remain. The rest are
as if dead, gone from
your life forever,
returning never.

Bob Boyd

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