Month: August 2024

His genetics predisposed him to mental illness,
Not his fault, nothing he could do to change his fate.
He often wondered why me? Why me?
Compared to him, others led wonderful lives,

He struggled with craziness in his twenties,
And refused to dull his mind with crazy pills.
He wrote beautiful and memorable poems.
At least despite the curse, he had some talent.

On a downcast day when his life lost meaning,
He shuffled into an abandoned farm building
With an armful of rope in his shaking hands.
He had decided to hang himself to death.

Before he secured the rope around his neck,
A starving, feral cat approached him meowing.
He scooped her up in his arms and petted her,
Took her home and fed her some nutritious food.

He credited her with saving his screwed up life,
That he made some life-saving changes in.
He followed his doctor’s well-intentioned advice
About taking medications that stabilized him.

After which he led a wonderful, productive life,
Writing and teaching poetry in a university,
And he never considered suicide again,
And he got married to a woman who loved his cat.

Bob Boyd

She was an all A’s student and a good girl.
As a child, she knew she wanted to be a teacher.

She went to a state teachers college and
Joined a sorority and drank too much.

She still maintained her 3.8 grade average
Despite her partying ways and binges.

She got a job as a junior high teacher
And won teacher of the year.

She married a fine man she met while in college
Who became an accountant in a prestigious firm.

They both drank and partied too much, but their
Alcohol excesses didn’t harm their careers.

Until she lost herself in an unseeming depravity
And began an affair with an eighth grade student.

The student’s parents found out. She lost her job,
And got put on a sex offender’s list and sits in jail.

Her criminal turn unexpected for the good girl she was.
Maybe the drinking impaired her brain and her morals.

Bob Boyd

Though born with the build of a bodybuilder,
The strength of a powerlifter and great athletic skills,
I tried to live a quiet life.

I never flaunted my powers or showed off my physique
But trouble always seemed to find me, as though
I was cursed by it.

Some tough guy wannabe would always challenge me to a fight.
I’d say no thank you, but the fool would push it too far,
often striking me, and I would knock him out.

In a bar in Tijuana, Mexico a tattooed Mexican guy walked up to me
And kicked me in the balls. When I recovered, I hit him so hard he
Died in that two-bit bar.

The Mexican authorities threw me in a dangerous Mexican jail, and
I learned the Mexican I had killed was part of a drug cartel, and the
Jail was full of cartel members who sought revenge.

Six of them jumped me and held me down and tortured me with the
Death of a thousand cuts, and my physical advantages became my
Woeful undoing in spite of my never looking for trouble, never
Starting any fights.

Bob Boyd

On a quiet walk in a peaceful park
Feeling lonely without a love,
Suddenly Bigfoot appeared before me
With a translucent bow and arrow
Aimed directly at me.
Stunned, shocked, I froze.

Bigfoot pulled back the bow string
And fired the translucent arrow
Directly into my racing heart
Without an entry or exit wound,
Without me being hurt or dead.
I can only say it was magical.

Instead of pain, I felt bliss
And the translucent arrow
Had vanished within me,
Leaving me feeling lovestruck.

A moment later you appeared.
When our blue eyes locked,
I knew it was true love,
And I’m forever grateful
To a cryptid cupid for you.

Bob Boyd

They looked so beautiful together,
A perfect couple if ever there was one.
The envy of everyone, living the life,
Looks, money, an ideal relationship.
Devout church goers every Sunday,
But all was strained in the physical
Part of their love. He wanted more.
She wanted less. He felt unfulfilled.
He found fulfillment with the pastor’s wife
Who wanted more than the pastor.
They ran away together to start a new life.
A year later the pastor and his ex married
And found perfect bedroom harmony.

Bob Boyd

How many times do we make the wrong,
Random choices
When seeking some romantic love
Only to see the mirage of happiness
Vanish in a tear-stained oasis of misery?
Lord knows I’ve done this many times,
And blamed bad luck and fate on the failures.
Now in the tarnished. golden years
Of my waning, love forsaken life,
I know the fault was mine with my
Blinded love and bad choices.

Bob Boyd

Saw you at the supermarket, didn’t want you to see me.
Went down frozen desserts aisle 7 to avoid meeting you.
Impulse bought some store brand Moose Tracks ice cream,
Thinking maybe some comfort food after I went home
Would ease the stress and the sorrow of seeing you.
Later from a distance spied you checking out,
Like you checked out of my life and abandoned me.
I’ll admit it was like a silly hide and seek game
I was playing to spare me the anguish of having
To run into you unexpectedly in that grocery store.
But after you left, I just didn’t want a sad encounter,
And I’m feeling better now eating my ice cream.

Bob Boyd

I killed at least 750,000 people in my country.
They needed to go. Like annoying insects to my regime
And just as insignificant. I did what had to be done
To rid my country of these repellent troublemakers.
I had to kill even those who didn’t commit any crimes,
But like annoying insects would one day be troublesome.
And I didn’t lose a wink of sleep when the purges were done.

Bob Boyd

Yippee, let’s go to war!
Send in the pawns
As we take the glory
And enjoy spoils
So what if thousands
Of pawns get killed
As long as the enemy
Doesn’t kill us
Safely secured in
Our elitist towers
Far from the fight
And we’ll sleep
Fine each night
Despite the weepings
Of thousands of pawns’
Grieving families

Bob Boyd

Tree leaves and small branches shaking
like crazy

Squirrels rummaging through them
for tree food

Amazing the dexterity of squirrels
as they go about their
daily business

And gracious of the leaves and branches
To support them

Bob Boyd

Tired of all the women victimized in the news
She bought a pistol for self protection.

She liked the powerful feeling it gave her,
Like being an equal opportunity gunslinger

One day a lousy, male driver in a car cut her off
And yelled and swore at her as if she was at fault.

She pulled out her pistol and pointed it at him
To shut him up and make him get out of her face.

Her bulletproof plan got dangerously out of hand
When he pulled out his pistol and aimed it at her.

Fearing for her life, she shot him dead right there
And spent years in jail for her fateful power play.

Bob Boyd

It must have been a mental aberration
That made him think he was a dog
And always dress in a dog costume.
His wife, tired of his craziness, left him.
He barked her a long, forlorn goodbye.
Without her to feed him, he soon died,
A melancholic, human dog impostor.
And he reincarnated into a bona fide dog.

His ex wife, an old woman when he
Returned to life as a charming chihuahua,
Unaware of his former life as her mate
Purchased him at a petstore in Idaho.

Bob Boyd

He traveled to India to meet the brilliant-eyed sage
Whose force-field, palpable energy magnetized him,
Who told him the real him was beyond the mind
And showed him how to find his real, eternal Self.
After his enlightenment he left the material world,
And spent the rest of his life as a sadhu in India,
Who helped thousands of Indians and westerners
Seeking the truth beyond their transient lives.

Bob Boyd

Her jealousy was insatiable.
If a woman were close to him,
Even in a grocery check out,
She accused him of wanting her
And grew insanely angry at him.

Maybe her jealousy was
Like a fateful premonition
Or maybe it brainwashed
Him into cheating in the end

She drove home from work early
On that horrible day, her
Paranoiac suspicions aroused,
She caught him and another woman
Fornicating in their marriage bed.
She grabbed his Mossberg shotgun
And blasted them both to death.

Bob Boyd

Humans a thousand years from now,
Unrecognizable compared to us,
Might look more like otherworldly aliens.
Might listen to incomprehensible music,
And speak a new English hard to understand,
Just as old English is hard for us to understand.
This is partly why there’s a theory that aliens
Are really future humans time traveling back to us,
Maybe to protect humanity from a nuclear holocaust.

Bob Boyd

Fall arrives. Insects chilled by the cold winds
Spend more time in their homes.
Leaves brighten showing off fall colors
Before they take their final leap into extinction,
Making way for the newborn spring incarnations.
Winds blow merrily heralding the fall advent.
Humans enjoy wearing their fall fashions.

Bob Boyd

Mary had nothing, grew up poor,
Found work where she could,
Mostly in low paying jobs.
Unlike her wealthier peers
Going on binges in colleges,
Mary never got drunk or drank
Anything but milk and colas.

Found a good man, a janitor.
Didn’t live the envied high life.
Never cared for all that.
Lived on a family income
Barely above the poverty line.

Found love and happiness
Many of her rich peers
With sky high incomes
Never had despite having
The fake finer things in life.

Bob Boyd

Growing older and older
Body breaking down
Bones becoming thinner
Muscles wasting away
Brain keeps shrinking
Testosterone and estrogen
Declining more and more
Senior moments increasing
Much more Forgetfulness
Alzheimer’s and dementia
Might be in your future
Falls more deadly
Could die from one
Seeing more doctors
Taking more pills
Maybe hospitalizations
Quality of life diminishing
Maybe assisted living
Maybe a nursing home
Maybe you’ll be lucky
Suffer no medical problems
And die in your sleep

Bob Boyd

Strolling through my old home town
Everything changed
No longer a peaceful, small city
Crowded streets
Backed up traffic
Horns blaring
Tensions rising
Overpopulated
Crime out of control
Gangs now
Never before
Too many people
Too much trouble

Bob Boyd

A Predatory Planet

My brother was a serial killer. He had no misgivings about it.
He said we’re living in a predatory planet. I’m an iconic symbol of it.
He told me I was an accessory to the planetary slaughters
With all the fish, animals and plant life I devoured every day.

He killed over twenty innocent, young women before I found out
And turned him into the authorities. Who ended him forever.
They fried him in the electric chair. They sizzled his infamy away.
I had no sorrow about his death. I’d disowned that monster long ago.

Bob Boyd