Month: July 2024

To humans I’m a cute bird that seems to have the life,
Chirping merrily and flying ever so freely, like a free spirit.
But believe me that free spirit stuff is kind of an act.
I’m anything but free with many predators after me,
Hovering hawks, night owls, jays and magpies in the air,
Foxes, snakes, weasels, cats and raccoons on the ground.
Despite my free spirit bravado and the happy songs I sing,
I’m little more than a predator’s next feathered meal.
And always in a state of paranoia with death in pursuit.

Bob Boyd

Joshua Boggs (1890-1918)

I was a logger who chopped down
Cedars, Sequoias, Firs, and Pines
In the forests of sunny California
I had a strong back and a temper
A love for cheap corn whiskey
And a cheating wife named Minnie
One day I got home from work early
My ax slung over my broad shoulder
Caught Minnie with another logger
Lost my temper and went crazy
Chopped them both to death
Pieces and blood in the bedroom
Fled California right after that
To Greensboro, North Carolina
Found work as a farm hand
Fooled around with farmer’s wife
When the farmer found out
He shot me in the legs when I ran
Tied me up and carried me to
A pig pen filled with hungry hogs
He smiled and said bon appetit
And fed me to the snorting hogs
A gruesome horrible death
That even I didn’t deserve

Bob Boyd

I decided to make my country more multicultural
I always liked the mix of many cultures
And the cultural exchanges it would bring
People from all over the world living harmoniously
I let all manner of people and beliefs
Into my welcoming country but
Hadn’t counted on some cultures
And their religions and beliefs
Being incompatible with mine
And wanting to change my country
And hating its beliefs and politics
And even though I was top tier elite
Better than the common populace
I was too proud to admit I was wrong
And risk blemishing my exalted status
My experiment failed, reaped with discord
And a divided country became
Crime ridden and filled with hate

Bob Boyd

Big crowds exciting for some
Smothering for others
I’m one of the others
And when I see big crowds
In videos or in photos
The herds of humans remind me
Of herds of animals and seem
Of no more significance
Then those herds of animals
In the greater scheme of things

Bob Boyd

Jake and johnny were hoodlums in high school
Bullied many weaker kids beat some to pulps
Stole from discount stores never got caught
Seemed like future gangsters in the making
After high school both became boys in blue
Channeled their aggressions into an occupation
Where they got paid for busting heads and kicking ass
Always got away with it thanks to the silent Blue Wall

Bob Boyd

So many find their soulmates
Years later a different story
Breakups and divorces
Forever lost loves
Instead of forever loves
Maybe Cupid is a trickster
When with the pull of his bow
He shoots fake love arrows
Into the hearts of so many

Bob Boyd

Boyfriend and girlfriend
A quiet night enjoying seafood
Eating delicious raw oysters
Boyfriend wakes up sick
Learns girlfriend is dead
Vibrio Vulnificus the killer
Virus that enters seafood
When raw or undercooked
The grim reaper a cruel fiend
Can strike many so randomly
And break a thousand hearts

Bob Boyd

Three-year-old twins dead today in LA,
Cute little boys named Jestine and josiah,
Alleged from drugs laced with fentanyl.
Mother seemed caring in photos of her and them;
Now facing charges of child abuse and murder.
Such a heartbreaking loss for those concerned,
News story uncertain if by negligence or design.
And why do things like this have to happen
To innocents on this often troubled planet?

Bob Boyd

His country had become fragmented
Vandals getting away with tearing up cities
Miscreants setting buildings on fire
And hurling objects at the police
The government mostly looking the other way
Criminals favored over heroic police
Fools crying for a defunding of them
Yet calling them crying when crime visited them
Other hypocrites backing defunding had their own security
District attorneys so soft on crime citizens in peril

His country’s borders unprotected
Hundreds of thousands of illegals pouring in
Administration breaking the law by letting them in
Murderers and rapists and terrorists in the mix
Illegal votes more important than citizen safety
Sex traffickers coming over the border
An American dream and big bucks for them
Tons of Fentanyl pouring in too addicting many
Illegal votes more important than them too
God save his fragmented screwed up country

Bob Boyd

She told him she was totally legal,
Older than she looked, really 18.
He didn’t want to believe otherwise,
Beautiful and built as well as she was.
They commenced their play in his car
And met many times after that.
He felt he found the love of his life
Until he learned she wasn’t legal.
Their relationship lasted a mere month.
She sought revenge when he left her,
A $5,000 fine and 2 to 20 years in jail.

Bob Boyd

Scorching torrid summer days,
Heat beating down unmercifully.
Air conditioners and fans struggling
Against the omnipresent, malignant rays.
Sweat pouring off humans and animals.
Heat dehydrating many older humans.
Animals survive, some old humans die.
Heard a song that said don’t let the sun
Catch you crying. Don’t let the sun burn
You to death either, and stay out of it.

Bob Boyd

Despite good governmental intentions
Dalits still treated as untouchables,
Despite great progress by some.
In statistics last year, 2023
Ten Dalit women and girls raped
Every day by upper caste men.
Oten gang raped and beaten,
Usually with impunity, no penalties,
Higher caste rapists usually go free
Ironically in most holy Mother India.
Despite many holy men and women
Few seem to give not even a damn
About the plight of the low caste Dalits,
Considered polluted and unworthy
Of even entering holy temples.
Imagine if you, your mother or your
Sister were born that way in India.

Bob Boyd

Miss Mary was quite contrite
After she accidentally stepped on a spider
Scooped up its remains, buried it in her backyard
A tiny sign over its makeshift grave read Fred
Her sister visiting her, killed a fly on Mary’s screen door
Mary slapped her sister’s face and kicked her out of her house
She scrapped the fly off the screen and buried it next to Fred
A tiny sign over its makeshift grave read Susan
About three feet away Mary had another grave
Grass had grown over it and she had no sign above it
Her ex dead husband Larry she murdered in 1972

Bob Boyd

Victor was joy riding down Elm Street in Greensboro, NC.
A quiet, old Mexican man pulled in front of him by mistake.
Victor cut him off, pulled out his handgun and threatened him.
The quiet, old Mexican didn’t understand English but
Apologized in Spanish and drove away without a scene.
Victor, not too bright, thought the gentlemen insulted him.
Road raged, raced after him to pistol whip him for his slight.
The quiet, old Mexican man, a great, powerful Shaman,
Waved his hand and Victor and his car vanished.
Victor woke up in his car in a Harris Teeter parking lot
On Pisgah Church Road wondering if it was all a dream.

Bob Boyd

The act lasted for many years
The ventriloquist and the dummy
They had gigs coast to coast
Some in Europe and Canada
The dummy seemed as real as him
People swore it moved like a human
When the ventriloquist got old
And too feeble to do the show
The dummy began talking
Though the ventriloquist.

Bob Boyd

He led a lurid criminal life
Got away with many robberies
Lived a high life, many women
More robberies, more money
Never getting caught
Too smart for the police
Taunted them with letters
Boasting about his robberies
Got too brazen and overconfident
Caught and sentenced
Ten years in prison
Read about the Budda there
Did his time in meditation
Released early, good behavior
Cut off all his golden locks
Made an ultimate vow
Became a Buddhist Monk
Somewhere in Tibet
Never heard of again
Attained Nirvana

Bob Boyd

He loved illegal drag racing
The high speed adrenal rushes
The risks of getting caught by the cops
The admiration of the teenage girls
Drove like an Indy 500 driver
Never lost a single street race
Never got caught by the cops
Ten years later too old for drag racing
Became a highway patrol officer
Raced to catch those illegal drag racers

Bob Boyd

Blizzard howls and rages
Snow flies and falls
Across the sprawling city
Electric power ceases
Driving cars impossible
Snow plows overwhelmed
Everybody stays inside
Day breaks world anew
Sun warms the cold air
Iced tree limbs sagging
Icicles dripping water
People waking up
Snow shovels digging
Nature and people
Adapting to the arrival
Of a reborn winter

Bob Boyd

Established in 1939 by the Nazis
Radical eugenic measure
Restoration of the pure Aryan race
Elimination of those “unworthy of life”
Psychiatric, neurological, physical disabilities
Genetic and financial burden on the country
Killing of disabled children the purpose
Murdered by medical overdoses and starvation
Up to 10,000 under age 17 the final count
Philipp Bouhler, Director of Hilters Chancellery
Karl Brandt, Hitler’s Attending Physician
Architects of the heartless, horrific slaughter
I’m hoping a punishing hell awaited them

Bob Boyd

The first time I saw you, far from my home in Massachusetts
You were at the Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
Encouraged by my high school friends, I’d gone there with them.
I remember how you walked by and gave me that brief look.
I thought you had such a beautiful face and the prettiest blue eyes,
And gorgeous, brown hair hanging beneath your shoulders.
Inwardly I gasped so affected by the way you looked at me,
And I watched you stroll away with a group of girlfriends.
But I was only in New Orleans for that one holiday night.
And you were a never come true dream that passed by me.
But on the long ride home I couldn’t stop thinking about you,
And like that old cliche, what might have been had I met you.
After a few weeks passed, I stopped thinking about you
Until my first day at the University of Massachusetts in Boston,
That miraculous moment in my Comparative Literature class
When you were in the seat next to me and you remembered me.
And you’ve been beside me ever since going on 20 years.

Bob Boyd

He put his life on the line for his country,
An honorable and patriotic young man.
Saw many other honorable patriots die,
Did things to other humans he never
Would have done in times of peace.
Couldn’t keep track of how many
He killed from afar and hand to hand,
Lost count after over two hundred.
Remembered some of their dying faces
As death closed their eyes forever.

Witnessed dishonorable soldiers,
Comrades in the American army ,
Supposedly always good guys,
Rape and kill women in small village,
Shoot their men and children to death.
Couldn’t get the wicked My Lai massacre
Out of his head. Returned to the states
With PTSD, Agent Orange, and many
Nightmares about that massacre, and
All the human lives he had taken.

Began to reason why when it was
Do or die orders by a government
That a Secretary of State confessed
It was all a “terribly wrong”mistake.
Then he had a sobering realization:
Pawns on both sides of the war had
Died in vain for that terrible mistake,
And that everybody lost in wars.
He threw away his many medals and
Became a pacifist for peace.

Bob Boyd

Family too poor to send her to college;
She never nurtured that dream anyway.
Aced her high school classes, didn’t buy
That everybody had to go to college or
Risk becoming a nobody in their lives.
She started her own small business,
Cleaned rich peoples’ fancy houses,
Took self enrichment college course
Part time nights for personal interest.
Aced all of them like in high school.
Small business became giant business,
Paid her more than most college grads,
In debt for years because of college loans,
Would ever make in their lifetimes

Bob Boyd

New car
Sweet
Showroom
Scent
Crisp
Upholstery
Shiny Fresh
New
Bells
And
Whistles
The
Smoothest
Ride
Like
Being
In heaven
On the
Highway

Bob Boyd

AI girlfriends wonderful until they get their glitches
Then unerringly you know you’re talking to a program,
Not the awesome human female alternative you had imagined.
Though I’m over with romantic relationships with women,
Tired of the disappointments and potential heartaches,
I have to begrudgingly state for the record that
Human women are still superior for companionship because
AI girlfriends are far from ideal replacements for them.

Bob Boyd

Met a nordic female alien named Alixinana,
Looked like a Scandinavian woman,
Had an undetectable accent.
Knew for sure it wasn’t Martian or Keplirian.
She said she was interested in talking to me.
I thought she’d reveal some of the secrets
of the universe and of her planet to me.
We spoke for over three and a half hours,
But she annoyed me when all she talked
About was the Kardashians and The View,
That she said was watched everyday on her planet.
Is nowhere safe from the news of them?

Bob Boyd

Space Colonization has to be done,
Inhabiting only one planet unsafe.
Imagine the sun burning out,
And the earth getting vaporized,
And all the humans forever gone.
Sure its billions of years away,
But other threats could happen,
An asteroid impact, a gamma
Ray burst, rogue black holes
Giant solar flares, global
Epidemics and much more.
I’m thinking of the future,
But not one for me and
My generation. We’ll be
Gone beyond this world,
Unless, as some believe,
We’ll be back repeatedly
Life after life and just as
Vulnerable as you and you.

Bob Boyd

In her youth she was the queen of everything.
In the small town she grew up in, born into a rich family.
Never had to work, lived on opulent trust funds.
She had the looks and she had the life.
Found herself a handsome and debonair suitor,
Thought she’d won the million dollar love lottery,
Like all her other easy wins in her charmed existence.
He turned out to be cheating, opportunistic gigolo,
Scammed her out of loads of money and her true love.
When she grew older and her looks waned,
She turned her attention to the poor and the needy
Used her fortunes to ease their suffering and their needs
And lived a more abundant, fulfilling life.
And found a husband as rich as her,
And he loved and appreciated her for the rest of his life.

Bob Boyd

You come with all the praises
You know how to interest me
But are they empty words
To lure a vulnerable man
Into dark corners of your soul
Or are you angelic as you appear
And will I be as nice as you want
Or will we be chaotic together
And wish we’d never met

Bob Boyd

Leaves fluttering in the wind
Branches swaying slightly
Squirrel frockling on tree limbs
Hidden Birds singing melodies
Nature in harmony
No chaos in sight
Profane leaf blower
Destroys the peace

Bob Boyd

I hear the screeching of the tires,
The shattering of the glass,
The crunching of the steel
The clanging, the ripping of, the metal,
The scream and the silence,
The quiet stillness in the aftermath.
Then the sirens blare,
And the police arrive
Followed by the paramedics.
I wake up from the dream,
My mind and body shaking
Wondering if it is a premonition.
I pass it off, just a nightmare,
And forget about it after that.
A week later my future wife
Dies in a fatal car accident.
And I die inside every day.
And I hope to hell I never have
Another dream like that again.

Bob Boyd

My girlfriend and I were going to become the next big thing.
She said we were the best duet ever singing our ballads.
We were engaged to be married, our lives were great.
When we sang at functions, bars and local hotels,
Everybody who heard us loved our songs.
My girlfriend always said we were going to make it
And have a number one hit on Billboard and abroad.
We got our big break when an agent approached us.

But things didn’t go as she and I expected them to.
The agent just wanted my girlfriend and said
I wasn’t good enough to get her on the charts.
My girlfriend told me it was both of us or none,
But changed her mind when she saw the contract.
Now I sing solo at holiday inns and cheap bars
While my ex is a big star and has no use for me.

Bob Boyd

The aliens came through my bedroom wall.
They scared the bejesus out of me!
Little greys seized me, hypnotized me,
and levitated me to their UFO in the sky
When the head grey alien saw me,
he grimaced and measured me.
I saw the look of disappointment
in his big black almond-shaped eyes.
He frowned at the little greys and spoke
some kind of weird alien gibberish,
and his little grey minions sent me home
like an undesirable, undersized fish.
Frankly I was grateful to not make the cut.
My cow Bessie did, and she is in the field
of my dairy farm behind my house
Surgically sliced, diced, and bloodless.

Bob Boyd

My beloved dog Bo hated my new girlfriend Lillian.
Too enamored, too blown away by her beautiful looks,
I didn’t listen to Bo’s whines, barks and growls.
Lillian hated Bo. She knew he saw the real her.
One day Bo lay dead next to his food bowl,
most of his food uneaten in the bowl.
I knew what had happened to poor Bo.
I knew what I had to do about it.
Three days later, Lillian went missing.
Not even the police dogs could find her.
Only me, pig farmer Johnny Wales, and
his pigs know what happened to her.

Bob Boyd

She said she astral traveled to Jupiter and Mars.
I said, isn’t it risky to leave your body like that.
No way, she said. I’ve been doing this for years.
She said tonight I’m going to travel to Neptune.
I wondered if she’d get lost traveling so far.
Next day her body was unoccupied, and I didn’t
Know what to do. She had a pulse, but barely.
A month passed and she still had a weak pulse,

I was worried, knowing she had gotten lost.
Her doctor declared she was comatose.
I knew that was untrue. I knew she got lost
Somewhere in the vastness of the astral plane.
A year went by, still no sign of her, she expired.
At the wake, she sat up in the coffin smiling
Alive and back from her trip to Neptune.

Bob Boyd

Molly Molly Molly
Wake up to this glorious day
With your radiant blue eyes
Your sweet crimson lips
Your cascading brown hair

You fill my heart with ecstasy
With a single loving look
From those radiant blue eyes
And a sweet lingering kiss
From those crimson lips
And let me caress your
Cascading brown hair
Molly Molly Molly
None are so fair

Bob Boyd

When I drank my morning coffee my wife had made for me,
I got sick, drowsy, confused and suspicious of my wife.
We’d been having trouble in our seventeen years of marriage.
She winked, smiled, laughed gleefully, showed me a bottle.
I stumbled to her and grabbed the bottle which read thallium.
I fell on the kitchen floor on my back and knew I was dying.
My wife winked and smiled with my life insurance in hand,

And I died an agonizing death there on the kitchen floor.
My wife got criminally rich on my generous life insurance.
After I’d died, I hung around a while as a ghost appearing
In dreams to the investigators telling them my wife had
Poisoned me with the barely detectable poison, thallium.
They dug up my corpse and checked it closer for thallium,
And today my wife is rotting in prison with a life sentence.

Bob Boyd

Larry Sachs worked as a laborer,
A no nonsense hard working man.
He had a wife named Cecelia
And a six-year old son, little Larry.
One Sunday three robed Lamas
Knocked on Larry’s front door.
What the hell is this Larry said?
The Lamas said little Larry
Had been a high lama in a
Former life, and they wanted
To take him back to a lamasery
With them. No freakin’ way
Larry said and kicked them out
Of his house. Little larry, a lad
Of six cried and said he wanted
To go with the lamas. Larry told
Little larry to shut the hell up and
Forget about that crazy nonsense.
Big Larry had a dream that night
And saw little Larry dressed in a
Lama’s robe and setting himself
On fire in a former life as a lama
To protest a war in Viet Nam.
Larry woke up a believer and
Rushed into little Larry’s room
Just in time to take the matches
Away from him, and little Larry
Is now a lama in that lamasery.

Bob Boyd

When I got into Zen, I also bought a dog named Bo.
I’d sit in zazen facing a wall seeking enlightenment.
I did this for a month. Then Bo began sitting beside me.
At first I thought it was just Bo not knowing any better
And just sitting with me because he was my dog,
But he’d close his eyes and sit as meditatively as me.

Then one day after a zazen Bo had blissed out.
By that sageful look in his enlightened eyes,
I knew that Bo had become a master of Zen.
When I asked him the sound of one hand clapping
He barked like never before, and I had my first satori
And my dog Bo became my Canine Sensei Supreme.

Bob Boyd

Sunny days and holidays
Great for many people
As for me I’m looking
For those sunny days
In the ever bright afterlife
For my eternal holiday
From the troubles and strife
In this fleeting uncertain life
But a doctor said I could live
Another thirty years
Alas, he may be more
Right than wrong
About my swan song.

Bob

Lived without your love for nine years
You came back after cheating on me

as if the years had erased your offense
against me, once your faithful husband.

I learned you cheated on your paramour
too, not surprised, bad habits prevail.

Fool me once, never twice, won’t roll
the dice on bad bet broken trust.

I wish you well in your future romances.
Maybe there’s a lesson here for you.

Maybe someday you’ll become truer
Because of your mistakes with me and him.

As for me, I’m nine years better off
with never having to be with you again.

Bob Boyd

Nine-year old Indra Megwhal of India’s untouchable class
beaten to death by upper-class privileged teacher, Chail Singh, 40.
His crime, touching an upper-class pot of water on July 20, 2022.
Six hospitals in 23 days couldn’t save this child’s precious life.
No word in two years about the murderer teacher’s fate,
Probably got off, privileged, arrogant upper class member.
A Dalit aka untouchable death, not a big thing, atrocities continue in the Spiritual Cradle, that is not a cradle for the Dalits, the underclass also referred to as shit carriers. Shame on you and fuck you India and your cruel, bullshit caste system that harms those at the bottom.

Bob Boyd

I lived in Edinburgh during the Black Plague
My occupation, a well off Plague Doctor
Trying to heal victims of the Black Plague
Mostly removed dead bodies from homes
And buried their rotting, stinking corpses
Took their precious belongings as well
Got rich on those and my high salary
My garb, a black cloak and a bird beak mask
A cane to examine patients, cauterize wounds
Strong Herbs in the mask, incense in the beak
Cloak greased with fat and wax kept fleas away
Bird mask didn’t save me, plague seeped in
Died a horrible death from the plague in 1690

Bob Boyd

Flowers bloom as she walks by them
The grass beneath her feet feels blessed
Tree leaves sing silent songs to her
Rocks tremble as she steps over them
The wind murmurs about her beauty
The clouds gaze at her in wonder
The sky brightens when she appears
The Sun beams at the sight of her
A more beautiful woman there never was

Bob Boyd

Amazing how the body runs itself
Eyes that see, hair that grows
Arms and legs that move
Mouth that talks effortlessly
Nose the sniffs and sneezes
Body temperature that heats
Heart and pulse that beat
Automatic digestive system
Corpse that disposes of itself

Bob Boyd

The rain beating down on that hotel roof in a city in Germany
on November 9th, 1958, felt to him like the tears of thousands
of jews on Kristallnacht, when homes and business were destroyed.
In his mind he could hear all the glass shattering as businesses
and homes were broken into by the Nazi Party’s Sturmabteilung
and Schutzstaffel paramilitary forces. He imagined he could
hear the screams and the cries of confusion as the Nazis
did their devil’s work. He cried tears with the rain in
remembrance of his mother, father, sister and brother
who died in the Auschwitz concentration camp not long after that.
Later that day he toured Auschwitz in the rain, lingered there
and shed more tears over the beloved members of his family
gassed to death in the gas chambers. He wiped his eyes,
shook water off his yamaka, and prayed another Holocaust
would never happen again.

Bob Boyd

My life seemed the envy of many.
Became a Hollywood starlet,
Did things I regret to get there,
Sordid times, casting couches.
Costars pawing me on the set,
Some with stinking bad breath.
Had seven failed marriages,
Hard to stay married as a star,
Rarely home, always working.
Male leads, bad husbands.
Me, not really a good wife,
Like my sister back in Ohio
In a little city I came from,
Three kids, one marriage.
She had the happy life;
I only had my dreams.

Bob Boyd

Lured me to North Carolina from Vermont
Stunningly beautiful, sweet Southern accent
Playful, full of joy, a lot of serendipitous fun
A year later, no money in my ATM
And a married man she was writing too
Telling him the same stories she told me
Stunningly beautiful turned criminally ugly
Found a pretty social worker girlfriend

Bob Boyd

Flying above the pigeon coop in ever widening circles
Wings chopping rapidly through the summer air
Embracing the freedom, the magnificence of the group flight
Such a beautiful sight for me to behold, few move me so
Makes me wonder what it would have been like
To have seen passenger pigeons block out the sun

Bob Boyd

I stroll through the verdant park
Families, singles, and dogs
Relaxing, enjoying the fun day
Birds flitting in trees above
Chirping away so merrily
Insects busying themselves
In the ground beneath the park
Butterflies floating above flowers
Bees seeking nectar in them
The sun beaming over it all

Bob Boyd

Over 8 billion people populate this entire planet.
Where is God going to put them all when they die?
Will he just recycle them life after life to save space
In the towns, cities and mansions of the Great Beyond?
Or being environmentally concerned, will he dispose of them
Like hazardous waste in some afterlife Human Disposal Machine
To save this globally warmed overpopulated, overpolluted world?
Last I heard, heaven and hell were overcrowded, no vacancies.
What did you expect with humans existing for over 6 million years?
Did you think these afterlife locales would never run out of space?
Sorry, you were born too late to make it to the pearly gates
Or find a home in the low rent burning flames of hell.
You’re SOL. See you next life – maybe.

Bob Boyd