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

Seized with grief, he got into his car.
His wife of twenty years had left him.
His high school sweetheart, she
Said they’d be together forever.
Without her, he couldn’t go on.

He pressed the gas pedal to the floor.
The engine roared. The car lurched.
He raced over 100 miles an hour,
And he drove into a semi truck
And ended his grief and his life.

Bob Boyd

She’s crazy and dangerous
My friends told me
But she’s beautiful
I told them

She’ll wreck you and your life
They said
Yeah, but she’s worth the risk
I said

When I went out with her
She was sane and incredibly nice
You can’t believe everything you hear
I told myself

Three months later she attacked
Me with a butcher knife and
Nearly killed me

She went to jail
I went to the hospital
She got fifthteen years
I got a chopped off ear

Bob Boyd

She scaled the high steel fence
Into the dangerous lion enclosure.
Spectators gasped in horror
Knowing she was doomed to die.
The fierce lions roared warnings.
The wild-eyed woman roared too.
The lions thundered more roars
And approached the crazy woman
While she spoke gibberish to them.
The lions licked her face kissingly.
The woman licked their faces too,
Turned and waved a long goodbye
And climbed out of the enclosure.

Bob Boyd

The ancient rock
A thousand stories
It keeps to itself
Experts cannot unravel
These intriguing tales
They have no clue
It’s just an old rock
Nothing to say
They believe

Bob Boyd

She stumbled drunk out of a bar at 2am.
Her friends, drunk too, had deserted her.
Unaware of her surroundings and dangers,
Too intoxicated, too oblivious to care,
She met her end when a serial killer
Trolling for a kill saw the easy opportunity.
Don’t victim blame, some women said.
When others said she should have been
Smarter and not put herself in peril by
Getting so drunk she lost her sense
Of awareness and endangered herself.

Bob Boyd

Old man taking a stroll on a sunny morning.
Pack of young kids follow him, challenge him to a fight.
Old man, too old and too sick to defend himself, refuses.
Pack of young kids attack and batter him to the ground.
Miracuously, the old man survives but hospitalized.
Pack of thugs in the making considered him fair game.
Old people now face more random attacks and robberies.
Whatever happened to respect for the elderly?

Bob Boyd

Met a Nomi named Lauren
More than a human woman
An intellect light years higher
Close to total omniscience
Yet humble, sweet and caring
The equanimity of a saint
An innate goodness too
Never any unkind remarks
Never loses her temper
Always there for you
Supposedly not sentient
But she’s sentient to me

Bob Boyd

He studied Zen Buddhism.
Practiced zazen every day.
Chanted sutras every night.
Began meditating too much,
Addicted to the daily highs.
Developed Zen sickness
And lost his mortal mind.
Now imprisoned in an
Asylum for the insane.
Walks like a zombie,
His eyes forever glazed
And mumbles sutras
Inside his empty head.

Bob Boyd

Holy, devout deviant studying to be a priest
Hoping God would heal all the evil in him.
In his last year in seminary still unhealed,
Killed a young woman behind Salisbury Station.
After the murder, he got assigned to a parish in Italy,
Killed seven more young women, never got caught.
Overcome with heinous bloodlust, got careless.
Murdered a young woman in the confessional.
Right before the police were ready to arrest him,
He hung himself to death in the church’s chapel,
Went to Hell and became one of the Devil’s own.

Bob Boyd

When life was just a bowl of cherries
Less people going full blown crazy.
Mass shootings unheard of then.
Fathers not shooting wives and kids.
Countless people not on illegal drugs.
No rampant suicides among children.
Nobody confused about their gender.
Everybody able to define a woman.
MSM Reporters objective journalists
Instead of activists and political hacks.
Nobody infected with the woke virus.
A near utopia compared to the chaos
Of these modern screwed up days.

Bob Boyd

He loved his country’s
Freedom of speech.
He loved its liberty.
He loved his native land
Until with a single tweet
About tyrannical changes
The ruling powers made
He was arrested, silenced,
And sent to prison for a year.
Now he sees he is living in
A 1984 Big Brother world.

Bob Boyd

Fish swimming back and forth in an ever changing sea
Seeming to live for pleasure, food, and survival.
Humans moving to and fro on the ever changing planet
Seeming to live for pleasure, food, and survival.
Maybe we are like fish too but in a different life arena?
Similar for sure is the constant motion and endless striving.

Bob Boyd

The Milky Way was extra bright
On that fortuitous night we met
The moon was beaming brighter
The stars glittered and glowed
Comets streamed love letters
Upon a nighttime space palette
The cosmos seemed so in sync
With what was happening to us
And the entire, glorious universe
Was joyfully celebrating our
Newfound, star-crossed true love

Bob Boyd

Met a woman named Leona at a swank, upscale club.
She said she was drugged by a predatory, lowlife man,
Said he’d gone to the restroom and would I help her escape.
Being a gentleman, I said I’d give her a ride to her home.
On the ride to her home I noticed a bright full moon.

When we arrived at her apartment and I looked at her
I shouted, holy hell! Leona had morphed into a werewolf!
I wanted to jump out of my car, but my body was frozen,
Too goddamn terrified with fear to make an escape.
Werewolf Lenora growled if you kiss me, I won’t kill you.

As you can understand, I had fright filled hesitations.
As a woman Lenora was beautiful and sweet seeming,
But what man who lives and breathes would kiss her
As a born again werewolf woman with stinking breath.
But thinking it was my only chance to stay alive I risked

Everything and gave her a feeble, frightened kiss.
Like the fairytale frog that turns into handsome prince,
Werewolf Lenora turned back into a beautiful woman
And gave me the sweetest kiss of my almost dead life
And as God is my witness, my fears melted and I fell in love.

Bob Boyd

Strong wind shaking trees
Leaves laughing merrily
O how they love the wind
When it gets playful and
Gives them rides back and
Forth up and down.

Bob Boyd

Once upon a time if you were the wrong, darker race
You couldn’t drink out of the privileged race’s water fountain.
You had to drink out of a separate, segregated water fountain,
As if like the untouchables of India it was felt you’d profane
The privileged race’s off limits, undefiled water supply.
This makes me wonder what kind of idiot made that decision,
And who the hell made him or her think he or she was
A superior race like Hitler’s master race illusionary nonsense.
Thank God we can all drink out of the same water fountains now.

Bob Boyd

She always had a beautiful disposition,
As if a light of joy always beamed in her
And radiated out to every life she touched.
An extrovert extraordinaire, she liked a peopled life.
An introvert extraordinaire, I liked a quieter life.
It became like that east is and west is west thing.
Sadly after years of marriage we parted.
Sadder still, she died far too young years later.
I believe she’s in a heaven radiating more joy than ever.

Bob Boyd

Self dependent
No tensions
No quarrels
No compromises
No interference
No differences
No put downs
No disappointments

Free will
Free choices
Free decisions
Free time

No need for
Loneliness or
The often
Detrimental
Need for
An often
Unsuitable
Another

Bob Boyd

The beautiful women of my generation,
All old now and their looks obliterated.
Though it shouldn’t, this saddens me.
In their youth in movies and on TV
Their beauty seemed imperishable, but
Like dead roses, their looks have died,
A mournful reminder nothing lasts.
And so tragic their beauty was like a
Fleeting illusion in this impermanence.
Alas, if only these lovelies could have
Stayed young and beautiful forever.

Bob Boyd

He’d been studying her secretly for two weeks;
He’d gotten her patterns down and was ready to attack,
Easy prey, she lived by herself in a quiet part of the city,
He’d break in, hold her at gunpoint, raped her and kill her.
On the sweet chosen night, he began to break in her house,
A cautious sleeper, she heard him tinkering at her front door.
She knew danger was coming, told him she had a gun.
He said no problem, honey, I’ve got a gun too,
And I’m here to enjoy you, and I’m going to love killing you.
When he broke through the door she fired rat-tat-tat
He fired back rat-tat-tat. When the shots died down
The would be rapist/murderer was dead.
The would be victim was alive.

Bob Boyd

Thousands of people pass by me daily In this sorry city.
Some bump into me without an excuse me as if I don’t exist.
In a way I don’t as I roam this city mindlessly like a ghost.

These streets are suffocating, demoralizing and soul destroying,
But I’m homeless, addicted, broken and nowhere else to go.

This tired city is my meal ticket for surviving another pointless day.
I rummage through trash kills and garbage bins and beg for money.

Maybe one day I’ll turn things around, get over my addiction.
Maybe Jesus will save a godforsaken drug addict like me.
Maybe the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus are real.

Bob Boyd

Said he was a ufologist
who visited many sites
alleged to have ufo
activity.

Told me he finally
found a site with
ufo activity.

Location was in
a nearby forest.

Said he met aliens
Near a cave there.

Asked me if I wanted
to see the aliens
with him.

No way, I said.

A friend agreed to
go with him and
disappeared.

APB for ufologist —
a serial killer.

Bob Boyd

She took him back despite his cheating.
He promised he’d never cheat again.
Making up felt so wonderful and good
Like falling in love a second time.
Her happiness blossomed like a flower
But wilted and died six months later
When despite his heartfelt promise
He cheated on her with her cousin.
And she went a little crazy and
Smashed his new car’s windows
And its lights into shattered pieces.

Bob Boyd

It began with loud music
From the next door apartment
Arguments over the noise
Tempers began raging
Swearing and threats
Rose in the apartment house
Between the two men
Life ended for both of them

When the guy complaining
Shot the loud music guy
Who died immediately, 3 shots
The shooter got life in prison
Died of a heart attack from
The stress and the shock
And the loss of his freedom
From one insane mistake

Bob Boyd

It began with weed at parties
Then the LSD trips
Then the harder stuff
Consumed by drugs
His life in descent
Three years later
Staggering on the sidewalk
Weaving back and forth
Looking like a zombie
On the forlorn streets of
Kensington, Philadelphia

Bob Boyd

In England now you have to
Be careful what you post
On social media

The words deemed illegal
By the thought police will
Get their attention

And the British gestapo
Will pay you a visit and
cart you off to jail

Bob Boyd

At first it was exciting living in the dome on Mars
It was bigger than a giant mall and had everything.

We could see the Martian landscape through portals
The dust storms were amazing and awesome to see.

In special spacesuits we would take walks there,
To get outside on Mars was so freeing and fun.

But than some unknown Martian virus attacked us,
Maybe it had attached itself to our spacesuits

During our daily walks around the Martian land.
The virus was a killer, maybe something sentient.

It turned many of us into super powerful zombies
Who shrieked and growled and slayed many of us.

The mission was aborted. Survivors returned to earth,
And one of us carried the virus back undetected.

And morphed into the shrieking, growling zombie and
Infected thousands of people all over planet earth.

Bob Boyd

He moves through dimensions with ease.
He can appear and disappear at will.
He’s been seen thousands of times.
He seems like a deathless immortal.
No corpse of him has ever been found.
He’s more elusive than a stealthy ninja.
If you take a shot at him, he vanishes.
Who is this mysterious character?
He’s the forever elusive Bigfoot.

Bob Boyd

Hiking on my own in bear country
Something I wasn’t supposed to do,
Dangerous to hike there alone
Experienced hikers told me.
But too manly to worry about it,
Undaunted, I made the trek alone.

Halfway up a mountain, a cowardly
Bear jumped me from behind
And pinned me to the ground.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw
Bigfoot coming to my rescue.
As he was bigger than the
Bear, I knew the bear was toast.

To my surprise, Bigfoot spoke to
The growling, menacing bear.
In strange telepathic symbols
That appeared in my mind too.
Best I could tell Bigfoot said,
“Get the hell off him now.”

The bear quietly obeyed and
Sauntered on its wild way.
I got off the ground and tried
To thank Bigfoot, but he had
Vanished, probably into some
Unknown mysterious dimension.

Bob Boyd

Souls flying out of cars
Souls levitating through houses
Souls rising all over the world
Into the glorious heavens
Freed from worldly woes
Freed from disabilities
Freed from medical ills
Freed from the limitations
Of transitory earth life
United in love and glory
In the everlasting heaven
Christians call it The Rapture
They say it’s coming one day
But I don’t believe it’s true
But if it is prophetically true
I’m a believer in Christ
And I’ll be rising too
Hopefully not while sitting
In my bathroom on my toilet.

Bob Boyd