Month: January 2025

He was from Jamaica and a natural comedian.
He worked with me and Nate in a retail store
stocking shelves and clowning around.

When Nate said he was sad and lonely
because his girlfriend was visiting relatives out of town,
the Jamaican guy said you’re lonely because you only have
one woman.

He said I got more than one womens. I never get lonely
because I got me reserves.

He probably did have reserves. He was funny and charming,
and no doubt the womens loved him.

And I liked the way he said womens instead of women.
Maybe the grammar was wrong, but it sounded cool to me.
And I ain’t got no reserves and no womens.

But I’m no longer a young man, and the womens
don’t pay no mind to old me.

Bob Boyd

They swarmed us like a war of the worlds,
those goddamn bees.

I was nine. My lucky and strange friend Billy was ten.

I got stung twenty times. Billy got didn’t
get stung at all.

At first I couldn’t figure out why the bees kept stinging me
and none stung Billy.

Billy said it was because he was an alien.
I laughed back then, but now I think he was right.

Because three years later, I saw a large UFO over Billy’s house
and Billy and his family disappeared forever.

I think he must have gone back to his home planet
in some distant galaxy unknown to any scientists.

Bob Boyd