Month: September 2024

In the misty air of uncertainty
He began to get some clarity
He pondered his wasted life
Spent in drunken binges
And lost jobs and wives
Some wives he abused
Just as he was about to
Recreate a new himself
Two brothers of an ex wife
Beat the life out of him
For beating their sister
Who nearly died from
The beating he gave her
Justice served in a way
But the timing was so bad
When he wanted to make
Amends and become a
Reformed and better man

Bob Boyd

Right out of the womb stricken with cancer,
Poor little Liza Lella coming into the world like that.
The compassionate cancer doctor did what she could,
And Liza cried all the way through the ineffective treatments.
The doctor and the parents quietly thought to themselves
Why would a loving God allow this infant to suffer?
Little Liza Lella died at only six months old.
The doctor and her parents cried and cried at the injustice of it.
Unbeknownst to them little Liza Lella was happy in heaven
Spared from the murder that awaited her at age eighteen.

Bob Boyd

She was elegantly beautiful
She was uniquely wonderful
She was always personable
Attended all the social affairs
But in her middle age years
Her beauty began to wane
She became less wonderful
Began having mood swings
Began losing her temper
Became like a sour reclusive
And retired from the world

Bob Boy

She never believed in ghosts
Until one began haunting her
First she heard its voice
Telepathically inside her head
Like an alternate frequency
Transmitted out of the afterlife
Then the entity exposed itself
A payback from the beyond
Husband she poisoned to death
Haunted her day and night
Tried to have him exorcized
By a Catholic Priest Exorcist
The prayers and threats failed
Just made his spirit stronger
Drove her mad and suicidal
Until she hung herself to death
On a tree outside her house
On a spooky Halloween night

Bob Boyd

Twenty eight, mother of two
Diagnosed with colon cancer
In three months she’ll be dead
She bravely accepts her fate
But wonders why her
Why does she have to die
At so young an age
A kind and caring woman
With a husband and kids
While others go on living
She tries to stay positive
And believe God has a
Greater plan for her
But it’s a hard sell

Bob Boyd

Once an idyllic small town
Peaceful, crime-free, enjoyable
Today a massive metropolis
Clamorous, crime-ridden, maddening
Progress and greedy politicians
Destroyed the small town shangri-la

Bob Boyd

Elderly and low income
They huddled under their blankets
In the freezing winter night
They couldn’t afford the high costs
of heating their small Apartment
Temperatures fell below zero
The blankets not enough to
Keep away the deadly cold
Hypothermia assailed them
In the morning they were dead

Bob Boyd

Elated in our youth
Every night a party
Always up for excitement
Seldom a care
Lived for the high times
And the bright lights
Of our exuberant happy days
Never saw the dark clouds
Or the thunder and lightning
Coming into our carefree lives
Until the nights of Kristallnacht
Shattered our happy days
And put out our lights

Bob Boyd

Is the afterlife compartmentalized?
Do we go to a place where people we knew and liked are?
Do others go to a place where people they knew and liked are?
Do we just reside in a place with people and angelic beings agreeable to us?
I can’t envision an afterlife where we would bump into disagreeable people or annoying strangers.
I can’t envision an afterlife where we would suffer divisive individuals or intolerable agitators.
But, let’s say if you led a wicked life and harmed many people,
Maybe you go to a place with the disagreeable, annoying, divisive, agitating people.
Maybe that would be your hell.

Bob Boyd

Like a princess in public
She fooled everyone
Like an evil witch in private
She fooled everyone
Until she got exposed
For who she really was
And she obliterated herself
From public view
Did a lot of self reflection
Got a lot of counseling
Eventually because
A bona fide princess
Publicly and privately

Bob Boyd

Many have seen him in near death experiences.
Many have felt his presence in prayers.
Some have been blessed with visions of him.
Some have had miraculous encounters with him
That irrevocably changed their lives forever.
Some have been healed of lifelong afflictions.
Some have been transformed from criminals to saints
Who dedicated their once self-destructive lives
To following him: Jesus The Christ, Light of the world.

Bob Boyd

My dog Bo has a sixth sense.
He sees what I cannot see
When he wags his tail
At something in the air
And acts as if petted.
I could only see what he saw
When I saw it clearly in a dream.
He saw my angelic, dead sister
Come down from the heavens,
A halo around her head,
To bless and protect both of us,
A guardian angel from above.

Bob Boyd

Small town people don’t need big cities
The traffic, the hustle, the bustle, the crime
The crowded streets and stores
The increasingly polluted air
Houses crammed too close to each other
The soul suffocation of a penned in life
They’d rather the clean country air
The uncrowded streets and stores
The easy, peaceful living
The soul-satisfying, safer, quiet life

Bob Boyd

The birds no longer sing in the tree
Squirrels no longer frolic in it
Leaves have abandoned it
Nobody sits under it

Like an old person
It is withering and dying
Soon it will be dismembered
And carted away
Without any tears
Without a wake

A once beautiful tree
Bursting with life
Nevermore
Gone evermore

Bob Boyd

An old weather worn statue of the Virgin Mary
Stands in their backyard unattended,
Solitary with no saints there as friends,
I wonder if that statue is infused with Mary.
If so, is she sending prayers to heaven
For the good of them and the world?
Or is that statue of the Virgin Mary
Merely an old statue and nothing more.
Or is that life size replication of Mary
Like a backyard shrine fortifying their faith?
If so, I believe there’s some Godly good in that.

Bob Boyd

My girlfriend left
For another guy
My cat ran away
My dog died
My car broke down
I got laid off
From my job
Of twenty years
My doctor says
I’ve got cancer
And there is a
Monsoon outside

Bob Boyd

I’m leaving she said
I said okay
She said you’re not going to try to stop me
I said no you’re like a free agent
She said you’re not going to beg me to stay
I said I’m too proud to beg and too respectful
To try to talk you out of leaving
Baffled she decided to give us another chance
She decided to stay
Unbaffled I decided to leave

Bob Boyd

Kings and Queens
Princesses and Princes
Knights and Ladies
Kingdoms and Fiefdoms
Castles and Moats
O how I love Medieval History
Battles and Conquests
Bows drawn
Swords clanging
Knives stabbing
Lances piercing
Thousands slain
Massive carnage
Ungoverned bloodshed
O how I hate how bloody it was

Bob Boyd

She always used the expression smart as a whip
To describe people she deemed intelligent.
He hated that expression; it made no sense.
The only connection with smart to a whip
Was when your body smarted when it whipped you.
She never liked it when he said a person was cool
As if a temperature meant someone extra special.
They never told each other about those dislikes,
Their love more important than insignificant issues.

Bob Boyd

All she wanted was peace and harmony.
All he wanted was trouble and discord.
They tried to keep their relationship together
For three grating and insane years
Until they drove each other crazy,
Till their doctors prescribed them pills to
Medicate their minds and relationship ills.
Miraculously after that they lived happily ever after.

Bob Boyd

She liked watching the birds at her birdfeeder
Fluttering about the feeder seeking seeds
Until rogue squirrels scared the birds away
And ate all the birdseed and angered her.
Half crazy from the get go, she screamed
And charged the marauding squirrels,
Tripped and fell on her angry face.
The fall brought her to sane senses.
She bought a squirrel proof bird feeder.
And graciously fed the squirrels corn,
A satisfying compromise for each and all.

Bob Boyd

She said she knew me in a former life
Inwardly I scoffed at that
Another crazy
Why always me
I should have known
By the way she dressed
Like a neo hippie
Or a white witch
Though she was beautiful
I couldn’t do crazy
Did crazy too many times
Never worked out
I became crazy too
From the bizarre nonsense
And scatterbrained beliefs
But when she touched my hand
My mind reeled back to former lives
Like watching them in a movie
I saw she had been my wife
In the High Middle Ages, 1662

Bob Boyd

Rich or poor
Famous or unknown
In the end
Both go to the grave
Neither matter much
The world keeps spinning
Both keep dying
The sun keeps shining
Both fade away
It’s always the same
Like a cosmic game
If people reincarnate
Maybe the rich
Come back poor
And the poor
Come back rich

Bob Boyd

He sought God through prayer, song, and church.
He studied in a prestigious seminary all day long.
Eventually he became a pastor of a Baptist Church.
A Christian woman, she knew he was the man for her.
When he courted her, things were heavenly.
When he married her, things became like hell.
He controlled her every move, told her what to do.
Trapped and smothered under his despotic rule,
She had an affair with a less religious church member.
Left her preacher husband, married him.
Her new husband died under criminal circumstances,
A bullet to the head. And a preacher is praying
In church to Jesus for forgiveness for his heinous sin.

Bob Boyd

My dog named Bo is the greatest dog I’ve ever had.
He’s a big, shaggy mongrel, and sometimes I swear he has ESP.
When I introduced him to my hot, new girlfriend named Mona,
He barked and growled at her despite her attempts to appease him.
He wouldn’t even take some tempting dog treats she tried to give him.
I yelled at him to stop growling and barking at Mona,
But he wouldn’t listen, and I had to lock him in a room.
After that Mona said she was okay with Bo’s bad behavior
And graciously surprised me with a whip cream vanilla latte.
I took a sip of the delicious concoction that tasted heavenly
Until my vision became hazy. The room spun. And I passed out.
When I came to hours later, my watch, my wallet, my credit cards,
my laptop and all the money in my ATM …gone.
After I calmed down from the shock and the rage,
I let a barking Bo out of the room I had shut him away in.
He looked at me with unconditional love in his loving brown eyes,
His tail wagging. And he never said I told you so.

Bob Boyd

He hung out with drug users
The high was everything
Elevated ecstasies in pills
Eradications of misery
And depressing downers
When he told his
Drug user friends he
Had terminal cancer
They didn’t want to
Hear about his suffering
They didn’t want to
Know he was dying
They were too high
To care and didn’t want
His bad news to
Bring them down

Bob Boyd

She had a great life
Plenty of money
A debonair boyfriend
A dog she called Flossy
A BMW
A lifetime inheritance

She threw it all away
When she hired a hitman
To kill her ex-husband
Because of a custody battle
She was losing

The hitman ended the
Problem ex-husband
But he got caught
And ratted her out
For a lesser sentence
And the woman who
Had it all rots in prison
And her two kids lost
A mother and a father

Bob Boyd

You’re young
You’re ripe with life
You’re gonna life forever
Young, fun, and so alive
You see old people
Shuffling by
You know you’ll
Never share their
Antiquated fates
You know your
Moment is
Forever
Except for
Rare times when
Truth grabs you
By the neck and
Strangles some
Sense into you
But you ignore
The suffocation of
Knowing one day
You’ll be shuffling too

Bob Boyd

Born twisted
Unreformable
Never had a chance
Unsurprisingly
She led a
Crime-filled life
Got caught
Drugging
Robbing
Lonely men
In seedy hotels
Went to prison
Even religion
Couldn’t save
Her
When preached
To in prison
Got out of
Prison
Went back in
Again
For seven
Years
Got out
Found a
Boyfriend
Who cheated on
Her
Went psychotic
Killed him
Went to jail
For life
Never had
A prayer

Bob Boyd

You come into this world alone
Friends come
Friends go
Good times
And bad times pass
Boyfriends, girlfriends
Husbands, wives
Come and go
If not by volition
Then by death
And you go out of his world alone

Bob Boyd

At some point when you get old
You’re just waiting around to die
Time speeds up to accommodate you
Days and nights grow shorter
And you’re body is telling you too:
Get the hell out of here
Life has no more use for you

Bob Boyd

They left chicken bones and chicken heads
And blood on the altar, a Satanic sacrifice
In an old abandoned church,
A desecration of a once holy site.

They sacrificed crazy John White’s cat as well
And cut off his head,
Which was a more dangerous mistake
Than those responsible could have imagined.

John loved his cat like a member of his family,
And John was one tough, crazy hombre nobody
Wanted to fool with.

He found out who was responsible for killing his cat,
The leader of a wannabe Satanic cult, Evil One John.

He hunted Evil One John down, slew him with a sword, and
Cut off his head.

And put it on the altar of the church to freak
Out the wannabe satanists when they held their next sacrifice.

He hid with has AR-15 assault rifle the night they all entered the church
And screamed. He leaped out of his hiding spot, shot them all to death when they
Stormed out of the church terrified.

The police never solved the case, and John White got a new cat.

Bob Boyd

A Nonviolent Man with a Violent Woman

He drove as far away as he could from her,
Frightened by her abuse, mindful of her threat to kill him,
Ashamed he had been so unmanly
that he let her abuse of him happen.

Disappointed in himself when he never reported her for stabbing
Him in his shoulder and maybe stopping her violence
By having her jailed for attempting to kill him.

Now a too peaceful, too nonviolent man he realizes he’s a coward,
But at least by fleeing he’s still alive for now,
And no longer trapped in the toxicity of her twisted love.

She stalked him before when he fled to another state,
And give him a near death beating, her love brutal and obsessive.

When he reached Tulsa,Texas, he bought a pistol to shoot her with if
she found him again, which he felt sure she would do.

But when she showed up a year later, with a demonlike look in her blazing eyes
And breathing fire with the torrent of threats she screamed at him
And with a machete in her hand

For the first time in their insane relationship he stood up to her.
He aimed his gun at her enraged face and threatened to shoot her
If she didn’t leave him alone and get the hell out of his life.

When she charged him screaming like a female berserker swinging the machete,
He dropped the gun and let her hack him to death and end his unending fear and misery.

Bob Boyd

Saturday rolls around just like another day
Now that he’s retired and liberated from
The workday controls and time constrictions
That ruled his life for over seventy years.
Now that he’s free and no one controls him
Or runs interference on his activities,
He does whatever he pleases.

Bob Boyd

He wrote his poems just to create
He no longer cared about getting published
He enjoyed the satisfaction of the process
Writing poems about everything he imagined
Amazed at the things he could make up
As an old man with a shrinking brain and body
Like a one last gasp of creative activity
That helped to keep him alive and well

Bob Boyd

Mary primped herself in public
At a lovely age eighteen
And all the guys drooled
And wanted to be with her

Now Mary primps herself in public
At a vintaged age seventy
And even old guys who drool
All over themselves don’t
Want to be with her

Maybe Mary primping herself
Was a bit much
But I wish she could have
Stayed young and beautiful
And still looked great when
She groomed herself in public
And had such a fresh and
Springtime beautiful face

Bob Boyd

She was beautiful and she loved her donuts
Perfect face. Perfect body. Passable personality.

I felt she was donuts obsessed and ate too many of them.
She said I work out. I burn off the calories and can eat
All the donuts I want, which I’m going to keep doing.

Years later, after she turned forty, she complained to me.
“You were right,” she said. “Now I have a donut belly with
All the fat around my waist like an imitation innertube
Shaped like a round donut.”

“But,” she said. “I have a plan. I’m going to just eat those
Rectangular cruller donuts and slim down with a waist like them.”
Crazy as this sounds, somehow it worked. Her waist
Got slim again.

Or maybe she was just messing with me.

Bob Boyd

Under a past life regression hypnosis session I learned
I’d been Moses, Julius Caesar and Robert E. Lee
In former lives. I had always known I was special.
Now I know why.

I went to another past life regression hypnosis session and didn’t fare as well,
Nobody famous, nobody notorious,
Just humdrum lives. That one knocked me off my high horse.

I went to third past life hypnosis session with a dour-looking hypnotist
Who I sensed didn’t like the way I looked as I didn’t like the way she looked.
I learned I had a thousand insignificant past lives and was an old soul.

I left that session despondent, thinking I must be quite the insignificant, karma-ridden SOB to have lived all those lives and not gotten off the wheel.

Bob Boyd

Before World War II, invisible, interdimensional aliens came
From two alien worlds, one world full of evil, demonic creatures,
The other full of compassionate, godlike beings.
First the malevolent ones occupied Hitler and leaders of the axis powers
to start the agreed upon alien war and take over planet earth,
Occupy it and destroy human life.
The benevolent ones occupied Roosevelt and the leaders of the allied powers
To try to win the agreed upon alien war and save the planet
And prevent the mass destruction of human life.
The war won by the aliens controlling the allied powers,
They destroyed all the aliens controlling the axis powers
And remained on earth invisibly with the intent to try to prevent humans
From destroying themselves.

Bob Boyd

I was a dog before I died
And learned to my delight
I was going to be a human
In my next incarnation.

My soul beamed with joy
When about to be reborn
As Howard Cassidy in
An idyllic Idaho town.

At first, my human life
Was fun and exciting
Until I was diagnosed with
Incurable chronic depression,
And I began taking drugs
To blot out the dark despair.

From there on I had a lousy life,
Hopeless days, sleepless nights,
Homeless, ragged and hurting,
Begging in the streets,
Died of a drug overdose.

In the afterlife I asked God
Why I had to have such
A lousy human life when
I thought I’d got an upgrade

I was told telepathically
In my life as a dog
I’d been a bad dog,
Bit too many people,
Killed too many cats.
Had to pay of my
Karmic debt with that
Lousy human life

I lost my temper,
Called God a dick,
Pissed him off.
For that sacrilege,
That unholy disrespect.
He sent me back to life
As a hissing cockroach.

Bob Boyd

Being a pampered dog
Owned by a wealthy family
Might be a better life
Than most humans have
Fetching a bone or a stick
And doing some other tricks
To amuse the rich patrons
Never having to worry
About paying any bills
Or affording any food
More love and appreciation
Than most humans have
Might be a better life

Bob Boyd

He dreamt of becoming a great poet.
He knew he had enough talent to be one.
He lived off some savings he had in a bank
After ten years his dream not fulfilled,
Nothing published. No savings left,
He had to take temp jobs to support himself
And live in old rundown boarding houses.

He squandered what little money he made
On beer and cheap whisky to erase his sorrow
Over his failure to become a great poet.
He became an alcoholic, wrote worse poems,
His brain damaged from all the drinking.
He could no longer get any temp jobs,
Became homeless and begged for money
He spent on beer and cheap whisky.
Gave up on becoming a great poet,
Drank himself to death instead.

Bob Boyd

I liked the new pitbull in my neighborhood.
I hoped he liked me.
He eyed me sideways when he first saw me.
He made me wonder what was on his mind.
The other day in the news a pitbull,
Described as being as harmless as a baby,
By the elderly woman who owned him
Killed her granddaughter’s newborn baby.
I know not all pitbulls are dangerous
Like that pitbull.
But some of these powerful dogs are.
And the neighborhood pitbull growled
And snarled at me today
But doesn’t realize I’m open carry.

Bob Boyd

I hear birds singing in an acorn tree
Like a chorus in a church
While acorns drop to the ground,
Like paratroopers falling from planes
Into the arms and hands of
Hungry squirrels on the ground.
And I wonder if the ants want some
Of the leftover acorn crumbs.
And I wonder why those birds have
Chosen that acorn tree to sing in.
Do they have an affinity with acorns
Or was it just a random choice?
And I think to myself how much
I missed when I didn’t pay as much
Attention to the goings on of nature.

Bob Boyd

He sits in jail wondering how he and his country
came to this.

For a mere tweet criticizing his heavy-handed government,
the police knocked on his door and carted him to jail.

He never thought his beloved country would become
a totalitarian nightmare state.

He never thought living in a proposed new world order
would get him ordered to jail.

Yet there he sits silenced in a soul-stifling cell
as if he were a dangerous criminal.

He vows when he gets out to begin a fight
against the injustices of the oppressors.

And he takes solace in knowing
a revolution is brewing.

Bob Boyd

I’m a celebrity
More important than you
I know better than you
What’s best for you
Because I think
I’m better than
Peon you and
Have the right
To lecture you
About things
I know little
or nothing about

Bob Boyd

He pined for fame all his life
He wanted it more than a wife
He began acting in grade school
Starred in high school plays
Voted best likely to succeed
In his high school yearbook
Took acting class after that
Got his first break a year later
A bit part in an action movie
Got recognized for his role
Began getting bigger roles
Eventually became a star
And won an award
All uphill from there
Fame achieved
A high for a while until
His stardom began to dim
And the fame became empty
And he got depressed and
Bored and drank too much
And started hating his life
Until he found a good wife

Bob Boyd

No matter how important you are
Or how important you think you are
Just like me and everyone else
You will be brought down
You will be extinguished
And in time
You will be forgotten
With more time
You will fade into insignificance
Just like me and everyone else

Bob Boyd

I was making it before the Great Depression hit,
Living the American Dream, buying stocks.
Then I lost everything and felt so disgraced
When like everyone else I stood in line
For bread and soup
And nearly starved to death.
When like everyone else I lived in a shanty
In Hooverville and nearly froze to death.
When like everyone else I couldn’t find a job
And got so damn depressed
That one day I just couldn’t go on,
Living in rags like a goddamn bum,
Unable to support myself,
Unable to afford a decent meal.
I gave up on living my lousy life
And shot myself to death.

Bob Boyd

Hateful people have no shame
They lie about people
Anything to defame
They gin up their rhetoric
To try to take a person down
They have no concerns
About their verbal venom
In their evil hearts they pine
For that person’s decline
For that person’s death

Bob Boyd