Month: November 2024

Young people getting cancer constantly
in America now.

Many follow all the rules for
staying healthy and fit,

eating the right foods and
exercising daily.

Many theories have evolved
about this cancer plight.

It baffles me how with so many advances
in cancer treatments

and many fine physicians successfully
treating cancers everyday

that cancer still keeps spreading and
appears to be winning the war.

Bob Boyd

She fought the cold as well as she could
as it crept into her apartment day after day.
Because she couldn’t afford the heating bills,
she wrapped herself up in layers of clothing
which worked until the temperature dropped
below zero degrees and she began to freeze.
An old woman with thinning skin and sick,
she succumbed to hypothermia at age 86.
Alone and unmonied, she died because of
poverty and a lack of family or any help.
I believe this condition is not uncommon
among the many poor and alone elderly.

Bob Boyd

Marriage didn’t deliver what she thought it would.
At first it was exhilarating playing house with a husband,
but after a while it became boring and unfulfilling.
She felt trapped in a miserable relationship,
and she sensed her husband felt the same.
Tragic and sad so many marriages seem to
follow this same love forsaken love lost pattern.

Bob Boyd

His friends told him to stay out of the
place in the park after dark that
was known as The Triangle.

He went there on a dare in 2006
He went there on a bet that
he would never make it out.

He even said he’d camp there
on a full moon night to prove
nothing unholy would occur.

When he didn’t return the next day
people were not surprised that
The Triangle had got him.

They found his tent and his provisions
and his abandoned car with
no signs of him anywhere.

They didn’t know it was all a ruse
and that he was on his way to Europe
to escape his wife with a new life.

He met up with the woman from Russia
he fell in love with on an online dating site
and people still think he’s a missing 411.

Bob Boyd

He had an unsettling feeling
walking alone in the moonlight
along the paved path in
the large wooded park.
Then he heard the horrifying howl
and saw the huge wolf-like creature
standing on two feet and growling.
He ran like his feet had wings
at incredible fear-fueled speed
and didn’t stop or look back
until he was safe in his car
speeding away in the night.

Bob Boyd

She basked in lunacy.
She reveled in madness.
It seemed to suit her.
She wore it well.
Though her behavior
was often strange
and her manner
was often bizarre,
she wrote the
greatest poems
and painted the
greatest pictures.
In some ways
her lunacy was
like a God-given
miracle gift and
she became as sane
as the sanest
when she was
put on meds.
And lived a
good life despite
being fated
with what to
some seemed like
an affliction.

Bob Boyd

he used to listen to ghosts talking
with white noise on spirit boxes
he traveled to haunted locations
in small towns and big cities
eventually he started hearing
the ghost talking all the time
without using the technology
thy talked inside his head
eventually the talking began
to take possession of his mind
and he heard the ghosts telling
him to become one of them
he jumped off a bridge and did
now others hear him talking
with white noise on spirit boxes

bob boyd

always sweet at work
never an unkind word
nice to everyone
incredibly polite

different at home
mean to her husband
angel turned diabolic

poisoned her husband
to death with antifreeze
in the summer of 1973

bob boyd

he drove through his old hometown
that used to be like a patch of buildings
in the tapestry of greater Chicago
where crime was nearly nonexistent
where streets were never congested

the traffic had become stop and go
he saw thieves running out of a store
with bags of stolen goods
homeless people were everywhere

he got disgusted by the changes
he rolled down his car window
to catch a breath of air
and coughed from the smog
rolled the window back up
turned his car around
and beelined out of the city
never to return again

bob boyd

He heard a preacher on the radio say
there was no romantic love in heaven.
Maybe the preacher was right
but it saddened him to think that
romantic love wasn’t everlasting
in the heavenlies of the afterlife.
It saddened him more when he
realized the preaching radio preacher
may have been honest to God right.

Bob Boyd

Though getting back together was non negotiable for him,
he sometimes thought about the good times they had
now that he was an old man all alone at the end of his life.

Despite her being an extrovert who always had to be away from home
and him being an introvert homebody preferring to be home more
than always on the move with other people, there had been
some great and memorable times.

And though getting back together had been non negotiable for him,
he was saddened by her death at age 58, probably from a cancer,
he wished her well and hoped she had peace and eternal happiness
on the other side of this impermanent life, and sometimes wished
they could have had a compatible, lasting love.

But sometimes a fairy tale love is just a fairy tale.

Bob Boyd

for fifty years she stood by him
loved him through the years
and all the tears
when life dealt them
cloudy days and dark storms

loved him when they had money
and when they had no money
stayed by his side
during all the good times
and more importantly
during all the bad times

made a better man out of him
when he was a lesser man
and he often told her
he didn’t deserve a woman
as good to him as she was
and she said the same
to him for standing by her
for those fifty years
of lasting love when
he had been there for her

bob boyd

treacherous woman

his friends warned him about her
they said she was treacherous.
she was too hot for him to resist
he kiddingly said he liked
to live dangerously
and he could tame her
he had no idea how dangerous
things would become
he only lasted a week in his
dangerous relationship
with the treacherous woman
when he went to the hospital
with a gunshot to his back

bob boyd

When he was a kid it took forever to reach age 21
and be totally legal and totally free.
Then the unexpected happened after that
when he thought he’d be young forever.
The years began speeding up
slowly at first, then faster and faster
and faster and faster and faster!
At age sixty when he wanted the years to slow down,
They went into overdrive and seemed to go 100 miles an hour
until the days seemed to pass like the speed had doubled
just when he wanted to put the brakes on and avoid dying
as long as he possibly and humanly could.
Then one day he woke up and found out he was 80
and dying of cancer. In what seemed like a week
months sped by and in what seemed like seconds, he was dead.

Bob Boyd

when he was a kid
everybody told him
he could sing
as well as the singers
who sang the songs
on the radio
some said he sang
even better than them
so when he
got out of high school
he took the shot
at being a rock star
and he knew
he’s make it big
he sang for
various bands
for thirty odd years
until he had to face
the heart-sinking truth
that he was never
going to make it
his rock star dream
had eluded him
tired of singing in
going nowhere gigs
he resigned himself
to driving a taxi
for a living
and getting drunk
and doing drugs
nearly every night
until he and his
dreams died
on the streets
of an uncaring city
after he became
drug-addicted
and homeless

bob boyd

He always saw women in dreams,
some he knew, some he didn’t.
Some were beautiful, some were sweet.
All were in his dreams once and once only.
Dreams were the closest he ever got to a woman.
In real life he’d never been with one.
It wasn’t he was unattractive or unlikable;
He just had bad luck with women.

Bob Boyd

I saw my beautiful first love 40 years later.
I hadn’t seen her since age 17 when we parted.
I was shocked to see her beauty was erased forever.
Aging had been incredibly cruel to her.
I almost shed a tear remembering how beautiful she was
when we were young and felt as though good looks were forever.
I could see in her sad eyes she was thinking the same about me,
remembering when she said I was so handsome
and was shocked to see what aging had done to me.

Bob Boyd

They felt they had carte blanche on always being right
despite the fact they were on the left.

They’d defend even the craziest notions their lackeys
put forth as undeniable truths.

Even when the notions were indefensible and idiotic,
they lined up like lemmings to support them.

They’d become more like a mindless cult
than critical thinking followers.

One day they controlled an entire country with their insanity
and wrecked it like an out of control wrecking ball.

Until sanity and reason overruled their harmful policies,
and they were exposed and tossed out of power.

Bob Boyd

He yearned for the limelight all his life
until he got it and his life darkened.
He never imagined his life would become
like living in a goldfish bowl with so
many people hounding and pestering him.
He never expected to be misquoted and
portrayed as a villain or an unfeeling fool.
After enough of the everpresent exposure
and the never ending invasions of his privacy,
he said screw it all and dropped out of the limelight
and basked in the freedoms of obscurity.

Bob Boyd

brandon was
a nice guy who
wanted to fit in
with the in crowd
who had the
flashy cars
and the
fancy girls
got his break
when one of the
in crowd invited
him to a party
alcohol and
drugs at the
wild party
brandon didn’t
do drugs and
rarely drank
had a beer
right before
cops busted
the party
everyone arrested
included brandon
guilty by his
association with
the in crowd
wrong place
wrong time
a high cost
for trying
to fit in

bob boyd