Day: March 10, 2025

Somehow, some way, in the seventies
a friend and I found ourselves
in a room with a spaced out pretty
hippie flower girl, who reminded me
of the song, I Love The Flower Girl.

I can’t remember the
how of that situation,
how we got there or
what city we were in
I’m thinking Boston.
My brain was too dumbed
down by Budweiser beer,
back in my wasted and
excessive drinking days
before the k energy took all
that irrevocably away.

I do remember I sensed
my friend was poised to
try to take advantage of her
in her vulnerable,
spaced out state.

Despite my beer-clouded
brain then, I remember telling
her I would protect her.

My friend, acting like a
POS, touched her leg and
she freaked out and
ran to me.

We talked for awhile
and seemed to have the
possibility of starting a
romance despite the
fact we were both blitzed.

And we decided to meet
in a park the next day,
like the Flower Girl song
where the guy sees the
flower girl sitting in the park

except she was a no show,
which might have been
for the absolute best

even though she rained on
my flower girl song dream.

But thinking of what might
have been and listening to
that upbeat song right now
makes me surprisingly happy,
and for a moment, I feel like
I’m back in my twenties,
like the way writing poetry
often makes me feel.

Bob Boyd

I read in SciTechDaily that now we
have to worry about microplastics in our brains.

I had read about loads of microplastics in honey and
decided to refrain from eating it, just in case.

Supposedly we have “a plastic spoon’s” worth
of microplastics in our brains.

It gets far worse.

According to recent research people with
dementia have higher levels of microplastics
in their brains

suggesting that more of us could get
dementia due to our microplastics-ridden
gray matter.

Some sources of this brain plastics problem
are bottled water, plastic tea bags, and plastic
food storage.

This life is like a game of dodging hundreds of
poison darts, some you don’t even see coming at you.

Maybe like insecticide resistance that some insects
have developed against DDT, humans will develop
resistance to microplastics and render it harmless
to them.

Or, perhaps, a pill or a supplement will be developed
to cleanse our brains free of microplastics

until the next menace to our existence takes center
stage in making us sick or killing us.

And as I ponder this microplastics menace,
I’m reminded of the saying, “Ignorance is bliss,”
and I think maybe being blissfully ignorant of
the dangers that assail our health has some
merit.

At least that way, you won’t have to spend
even an iota of time worrying about dreadful
things that might come your way.

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 fragments of sutras
Inside his disordered head.

Bob Boyd

A stink bug just flew on my computer screen.
though they’re grotesque looking, I like them.
but I must admit the first time I saw one
It looked so bizarre it startled me,
wondering if it was harmful and would sting or bite.

Rarely had I seen a weirder looking bug.
It had kind of a threatening don’t touch me look.
We don’t have them where I’m originally from,
just outside of Boston, MA in the milder burbs.

Despite not knowing if it was harmful,
I couldn’t kill it, just coaxed it onto a tissue
and walked it outside my apartment
into the freedom of a warm summer’s night.

After I learned stink bugs were harmless,
I grew to like them, as I like the one
that just soared off my computer, tiny wings flapping,
airborne for a few seconds in lamp lit skies,
and it landed on a runway somewhere behind me.
In a little while he might land on me.

Maybe he’ll sit on my shoulder like a best pal
and watch YouTube videos with me and listen to 30s music
and tearfully tell me how he can’t meet any female stink bugs online.
I’ll say I feel your pain, been there with female women. Never going back.

Maybe after he pours out his love life miseries
and cries for a while on my supportive shoulder,
I’ll tell him he’s a handsome enough stink bug
to find a decent and beautiful female stink bug
who will be his true love and treat him like a prince among stink bugs.

And maybe I’ll adopt him as an exotic pet.
I wouldn’t tether him to a restraining leash
or stick him in a four-sided oppressive aquarium,
or imprison him in a soul crushing, miniature cage;
that is if stink bugs have souls, which I imagine they do.

But mercy me I don’t know what I’d feed him,
and I doubt I’d find stink bug food at PetSmart.
I could probably find him some food on Amazon,
hopefully with a five gold stars rating
and next day shipping between 4 and 8am.

I hate that it has such an undignified, unfitting name.
I would have jazzed the name up with some Latin,
like Incredibilis Insectum or maybe something more relatable like Super Cool Bug or Bug That Only Stinks If You Mess With It.

And by the way, stink bugs only stink If you
harm or try to crush them to death,
as if harmed or dead they get the final say.

Bob Boyd

Click here to Return to the Selection of Poems

In the past I’ve researched music as far back as
I could find it on the Internet.

And I’ve always held that a good song is a good song
no matter if it is current or hundreds of years old.

In those explorations I became enamored with 30s music, mostly because of the lyrics, often romantic.

Some of those songs I researched the history on, like the dance hall girl song, 10 Cents A Dance.

And, unknown to me, I learned many women earned their living dancing for money with men in dance halls in the 20s and 30s.

And they called these women taxi-dancers who worked in Taxi Dance Halls where men bought tickets to

twirl around dance halls with these charming and adept at dancing young women.

I also learned some objected to these dance halls and considered dancing for money akin to a lesser form of prostitution

and tried to offer the taxi-dancers what they felt were more respectable jobs.

But the problem was these jobs were mostly unappealing and paid far less money.

Here are the lyrics to Ten Cents A Dance with the song linked in the title:

Ten Cents a Dance
Ruth Etting

I work at the Palace Ballroom, but,
gee that Palace is cheap;
When I get back to my chilly hall room
I’m much too tired to sleep.
I’m one of those lady teachers,
a beautiful hostess, you know,
the kind the Palace features
for only a dime a throw.

Ten cents a dance
that’s what they pay me,
gosh, how they weigh me down!
Ten cents a dance
pansies and rough guys,
tough guys who tear my gown!
Seven to midnight I hear drums.
Loudly the saxophone blows.
Trumpets are tearing my eardrums.
Customers crush my toes.
Sometime I think
I’ve found my hero,
but it’s a queer romance.
All that you need is a ticket,
Come on, big boy, ten cents a dance.

Fighters and sailors and bowlegged tailors
can pay for their ticket and rent me!
Butchers and barbers and rats from the harbors
are sweethearts my good luck has sent me.
Though I’ve a chorus of elderly beaux,
stockings are porous with holes at the toes.
I’m here till closing time,
Dance and be merry, it’s only a dime.

Sometime I think
I’ve found my hero,
But it’s a queer romance.
All that you need is a ticket.
Come on, big boy, ten cents a dance.

Written by: Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart
Album: Presenting Ruth Etting
Released: 1926
Lyrics provided by Musixmatch

Many have been trying been to unravel
the Bigfoot mystery for many years,
seemingly with no solid proofs
of this mysterious creatures
existence.

As an armchair speculator,
I’ve come to the conclusion
that Bigfoot is interdimensional
since he’s uncannily elusive and
vanishes when scared hunters
take frightened shots at him.

And that could explain why there
are no corpses or scat left behind
in the 75,000 alleged sightings of him.

Imagine if Bigfoot were interdimensional
and more evolved than us.

Imagine if Bigfoot lived in a
Shangri La-like dimension
and when not playing hide seek
with astonished humans to prank
them and enjoy a few chuckles
between his vanishing acts and
his forays into our material world
and whatever else preoccupies
his transcendent existence.

Imagine if Bigfoot were a perennial
free spirit living his best life
leapfrogging from one dimension
to another, carefree and liberated
from the constraints and worries
of lesser, restricted human lives.

Bob Boyd

While having an otherwise peaceful sleep
a night hag froze and frightened him.

Trapped, unable to move, he tried to
panic himself into the waking state.

He failed as the night hag became
more menacing and drew closer
to him.

To make things worse, the night hag
looked exactly like his dead ex-wife.

Then an idea popped into his mind
and he mentally made
the sign of the cross.

And poof, the night hag aka his ex
dissolved back into the darkness
and he woke up and

gave his wife’s bullet-ridden corpse
a proper burial from the freezer
in his ceiler to a secret plot
hidden behind some flowers
in their backyard.

Bob Boyd

I hear the werewolf howling at my door
I yell back at her, “I can’t do this anymore.”
I’m not terrified as I should be because
Even though she’s a werewolf tonight,
Even though she’s a horrifying beast,
She still loves and respects me
And won’t break in and kill me.
I thought my total love for her
Was more than strong enough
To face the worst of challenges.
But after she got bit by a werewolf
And became a moon-triggered monster
And killed seven people and a little girl
I could no longer be yoked to her.
She asked me to become like her
To ensure we’d always be together.
But though I still loved her despite
The monster she had become,
I had to get away from her
And her killing sprees.
But she’s not giving up
On me or our love,
And she visits me
Every full moon night.

Bob Boyd

The singer in the song I’m listening to
is singing about how he “can’t fight
this feeling anymore” because he,
for whatever reasons, is fighting
against falling in love.

I conjecture that maybe he’s been
hurt one time too many or fears
losing what he sees as a loss
of his freedom.

Whatever the case that song,
Can’t Fight This Feeling by
REO Speedway is one of
my all time favorites

Then he sings that the woman
he is becoming increasingly enamored
with is like a candle in the window
in what seems like his toughest times.

And I realize I’ve forgotten about
fighting those feelings, as if they’re
dead, waked, and buried in a
graveyard of forgotten memories
in the depths of this old man’s head.

But I let those feelings pass by
in the rivers of thoughts and
speculations that flow
profusely through my ever
thinking and imaginative mind.

And I finish this poem listening to
another guy singing about
how he “just doesn’t want
to be lonely.”

Bob Boyd

From a Beautiful Actress to an Unrecognizable Homeless Woman

I read in the news about this woman who had
been a beautiful actress in a popular tv show,

but now roams the streets homeless, disheveled
and pushing a shopping cart full of items
she finds in dumpsters.

And I wonder what caused her to fall so hard.
I think in the news the fall was due to drugs,

but I have to wonder if a mental health issue
led to her awful demise along with the drugs.

It concerns me that there seems to be
no help for her. No one to intervene and
save her from the streets

and the horrible things that could happen
to her in such a vulnerable state,
and it saddens me to see she has
such a tragic, horrible fate
and seems totally abandoned.

I guess it comes down to free will
even if your will is compromised
and you’re putting yourself in jeopardy.

I find that heartbreakingly sad
and I wish I could wave a magic wand
and save her and probably thousands
upon thousands of others from
being seemingly abandoned in the streets.

Bob Boyd