I’ll Never Forget Those Kisses Upon the Grass by the Pond

Though you’re decades gone and maybe dead and gone
like I almost was

I’ll never forget those kisses as we embraced on the summer’s grass next to the rippling waters of that pond in that small city, Woburn, MA.

Though we never consummated, went all the way, those kisses were more memorable, more wonderful, and far sweeter than

all the consummations, all the went all the ways, I ever had in my entire life.

Though you cheated on me and desecrated our teenage love, I hope you have had a wonderful life. And if you’re no longer living, I hope you are with the angels in heaven.

Bob Boyd

an unexpected diagnosis and a hospital stay

he is told to go to the emergency room
for what he thinks is a minor matter
he’s there for six long hours
but he’s not bother by that
he sees the staff are
overwhelmed with people
most in worse shape them him
or so he thinks

when he finally gets to see
the doctor he can’t believe
the doctor is keeping him
in the hospital to confirm
he has a blood cancer

he can’t believe it
he hasn’t been hospitalized
except for the day he was born

he has worked out for decades
is or was a healthy specimen
doesn’t drink smoke
do drugs or eat red meat
an unlikely candidate
for a deadly cancer

no time for sleep in the hospital
nurses and phlebotomists
testing and checking
on him day and night
he hates being confined
and he’s got fish to feed at home

days later he gets discharged
sick of hospital food tons of tests
no peace and no real sleep

a year and loads of treatments
and arm punctured blood tests
finally he’s free of the cancer
improved and reborn better
personally and spiritually

the trials the treatments
a triumph and he lost his
fear of death forever

bob boyd

When My Bride to Be Got Attacked by a Werewolf

It was like something out of a horror movie
when my bride to be was in the hospital
hysterical and attacked by a monstrous beast
that the doctors thought had been a bear.

She was lucky, only a wound. But her mind
was terribly traumatized. The psychological
wound was worse.

Things got worse weeks later when a full
moon lit up the night sky and my bride to
be screamed at me to get out of her
apartment before I died.

I didn’t take her seriously at first. But when
she howled and began to morph into what
I realized was a werewolf, though shocked
and terrified, I could not leave her,
my bride to be.

Perhaps God was on my side that night. When
she fully morphed into that giant howling
nightmare, a real life horror, she spared me,
ran past me and into the forest behind her
house.

My bride to be broke off our engagement after
that, refused to see me. And I kept hearing of
people torn to shreds on the news during
full moon nights.

Though it broke my heart, I knew what I had to do,
a gun and silver bullets.

One night as the moon was becoming full, I broke
into her home just as she was howling and morphing.
I aimed my gun at what was no longer her, that
giant hairy beast with evil eyes that radiated death,
but I didn’t have the heart to pull the trigger.

I dropped the gun because though she had become
a monster, something in me still loved her.
I think even in her morphed monster form,
she still loved me and spared me with
only a bite instead of tearing me to pieces.

Now she is my bride to be again, werewolves
in love forever.

Bob Boyd

Underdogs and Antiheroes

I like underdogs and antiheroes
I like them more than winners
and heroes.

I like seeing losers become
winners and the unlikely
become heroes.

I love the movies where they
are uplifted and glorified.

It’s wonderfully inspiring to see
characters like many, or most,
of us prevail in the challenges
and hard times of life.

Maybe I like underdogs and antiheroes
because I was an underdog in high school
and some teachers thought I end up
in jail because I was so troublesome.

Maybe because I proved them wrong
never spent a day in jail, never
committed a crime.

Spent the remainder of my work
history like an underdog reborn as a
nobler dog

for decades helping numerous
elderly people with their needs,
consoling them and brightening their
waning and often sad days.

But whatever the reason why, I’ll
always be rooting for underdogs
and antiheroes.

Bob Boyd