Day: March 5, 2025

I’m here because you probably
never heard of me.

In a book that hosts a single
poem of mine

it is written I lived around 1070
and was born in the Sung
capital of Kaifeng
and was an official
in the provinces.

It also reads “I had a brief
moment of fame in
literary circles.”

The reason the moment
was brief is because
I didn’t care about worldly fame.
I knew it was fleeting and
eventually we all
fade into obscurity.

And though I wrote poems
all my life, I didn’t try to
gain public recognition
for any of them.

I knew that even if I
did gain mountains of
recognition and fame
those things never endure

I was more interested
in embracing the Tao
and achieving immortality.

Long ago I read
it was better to
have loved and lost
than to never have loved at all

As a loser at love
I agree with that
and my heart goes out
to the many people
in this world who have
never had a chance to
win or lose at love

who pined for romantic love
all their lives
who saw so many others have it
in poems, books, movies
and in real life

but never them
who lost at finding the love
they never had

Bob Boyd

She was an entertainer and an extrovert
He was a supportive but homebody husband.
Two entirely different spouses, but unlike many
maybe most, they made their marriage work.

He passed away recently after a long life
with a famous and beautiful talented wife.
I hope she is able to join him in the afterlife
and continue their marriage forever there.

In high school my dream was to have what
they had, but high school dreams are often
only teenage fantasies that never become
realized in the grown up realities of real life.

Bob Boyd

Just like with the cults
some people are brainwashed
to the end.

Worst case, the Nazis.
Lesser contenders, religion
and politics.

Closer to worst, needless
wars and the people of
other countries portrayed
as evil enemies

even though those people
are pretty much like us
just wanting peaceful
happy lives

unless they become like
mindless zombies and
it’s Heil Whoever controls
their propagandized and
my country right or wrong
minds. And to their deaths
or his or her deaths they
remain the puppets
of their uber allis masters.

Bob Boyd

When I was 16 and gotten beaten up badly in two fights,
my mother, a Celtic wicca of sorts made me a Celtic Shield Knot Talisman to protect and strengthen me.

And she said now you won’t lose anymore fights. Even bullies won’t be able to beat you up.

Maybe it was the power of belief, but she was
right. After I wore the talisman around my neck,
I fought the two bullies who had beaten me up
at the same time and easily kicked the crap out of them.

But when I came up against a bully named
Casey O’Reilly, he dropped me with a single
punch. We made friends after that and he
confided in me that he had a Celtic Shield
Knot Talisman too.

But his had a preserved 4 leaf clover in the center of it,
which I concluded must have given him more luck in the fight with me.

Me and Casey became best buddies after that.
When we graduated from high school
Casey joined the Marines. I joined the Air Force.

Casey got sent to Viet Nam. I got sent to Germany.
I came back untouched by war, never in any combat.
Casey came back in a body bag despite
his 4 leaf clover Celtic Shield Knot Talisman.

To this day I don’t know what went wrong,
unless the Viet Cong who shot him to death
had one of those powerful Vietnamese
Numismatic Talismans.

Bob Boyd