Month: March 2025

In his misspent, wasted youth
Sitting, profiling, in a pool hall,
Hard eyes, looking tough to fit in.
Often skipped days of school,
Had no time for education
In a small city in Massachusetts.

Inhaling a Lucky Strike cigarette,
Exhaling smoky circles in the air
Unfiltered, only manly way to go,
Greaser haircut, thought he was cool,
Thought he was super tough.

Cue ball breaking a rack to pieces,
Clatter of numbered balls
Speeding all over the pool table
Bouncing off the banks
Thudding sounds erupting
Some high and low balls
Dropping into the table pockets.

Cigarettes thrown in spittoons.
Hissing sounds when hitting the water.
Guys swearing over missed shots,
Losing serious betting money,
Some gangsters in the making.

Like Lucky Hall, 6’6” lean machine
Gangster mean and crazy as hell,
Always dressed in black.

Strolled over to him and
As he was taking a drag
On his unfiltered cigarette,
Lucky stuck a gun in his face.
He sat casually in a chair,
Pool stick in hand, unfazed,
Guns rarely seen back then.

He smiled and reached for the gun,
And said to Lucky, “Is that real?”
Not out of bravely was he unafraid,
Couldn’t believe the gun was real.

His nonchalance didn’t get the result
Lucky was looking for.
Lucky turned away, his black trench coat
Swirling in the smoky air,
Lucky looking gangster cool,
Dangerous, and genuine.

Two years later Lucky’s luck ran out.
Shot to death in faraway Alabama.
Probably put his gun in the wrong guy’s face.

Bob Boyd

Saw a sign, Free Krishna Feast With The Hare Krishnas

Didn’t care for their movement, the Hindu trappings, the way they dressed, the continuous chanting in the streets, selling incense in airports, a bit much though the chanting effective. It worked.

A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, founder of the movement, real deal holy man, seemed to live a pristine holy life.

Attended the dinner with three seeker friends, like me back then always interested in various approaches to the Absolute.

Appreciated the devotees – good people, fun to hang with, impressively devoted to their spiritual path.

But …

Krishna fundamentalism served up first and second course, the actual food exotic, holy, tasty treats.

If not with Krishna, wrong way, off course highway to nowhere.

Only way, correct way, true destination – Krishnaloka Heaven.

Then a Krishna devotional ceremony, well done, sacred.

Devotees precise, scrupulously respectful in their practice, the atmosphere reverberating with their chants, myself and my friends lit up with bliss.

After the chants and the highs, one of my friends vanished for awhile, where he went I didn’t know.

He returned with one of the Krishnas, two white tilaka marks painted on his forehead. Damn!

They got him! Like a scene from the movie The Body Snatchers. But my friend smiled, and I knew he was just going with the experience, entertained by it, having fun. Inwardly, I laughed.

Thanked the cordial Krishna hosts, bid them goodbye, walked into a warm Cambridge, Mass evening enriched from insightful and enjoyable dinner, our souls unsnatched.

Bob Boyd

Demonized in movies
Omens of Evil
Big loud birds
Pests to some
Scary to others
Raiders of nests
But I love crows
Love the raven black color
Love the piercing caws
Love the high intelligence
Love watching the flocks
Gliding in the skies.

Bob Boyd

Pounding drums
Songful chants
Sacred circle
Sacred fire
Swirling dancers
Whirling tassels
Headdresses
Feathered
Most noble
Traditional
Native
American
Dancers
Powwow

Bob Boyd

He saw her photo in the news
just twenty-two and dead
in an auto accident.
Something about her
attracted him to her,
even though she was dead.

He found the location of her grave,
brought a bouquet of flowers
he placed there tenderly.

He felt compelled to keep visiting her.
He had a crazy infatuation that
was impossible to go anywhere.
Thoughts about her were always on his mind,
and he wondered if he was going a little crazy
with his feelings for her that kept
growing stronger and stronger as he kept
visiting her gravesite and talking to her
in his head, hoping somehow his thoughts
would reach her heart in the afterlife.

Two months later, surprisingly,
she began appearing in his dreams
smiling and looking more beautiful than
her photo in the news.

Every night became a dream date
with kisses and hugs he could feel
that were more real than the
happenings in his day to day life.

Now he knows for sure
he’ll be with her when he dies

Bob Boyd

Now that I’m old, people only see a hag.
To them I’m just an annoying old nobody
when I take too long at the store checkouts.
I have become as irrelevant as a old broken bell,
a worn out, decrepit crone with no history.

But in my youth I had a wonderful full life
when I was beautiful and a theater actress
who performed in America and Europe.
I spoke French, Italian, and Spanish fluently
and climbed to the top of the Alps once.

I married a famous artist who was the love of my life.
We traveled all over the world and met famous people.
We lived in a villa in Italy and a chalet in France.
I read novels in three languages and wrote one myself.
My husband died while climbing the Alps. I almost did too.

But now I’m just an old throw away hag that people ignore,
an ancient wrinkled woman nobody cares about,
just a blank old body without a hint of a rich history,
an old gray-haired ancient relic that hobbles on a cane.
But I don’t give a damn. I lived a full life, and I have my memories.

Bob Boyd

If you’re ever in a forest and
hear birds and insects suddenly
go quiet, get the hell out of there.

Bad things may be about to happen.
Danger may be approaching,
and your life might be in peril.
You could become a 411 or
never live to see this world again.

Though I’ve read this about the
real or unreal cryptids, and to me
the scene portends some danger,
and were I in a forest and it went
quiet, I’d damn sure feel fear.

At the least, maybe a dangerous
animal like a bear could have
entered the forest and scared
everything in it to silence and fear
because all the living things know
there’s imminent danger there.

And If you ever go into a forest,
based on everything I’ve read
and heard, I’d suggest you
never go into a forest or even
hiking alone and unprotected.
Things that only happen to
others could happen to you.

Bob Boyd

I see this woman in a dream last night
who was a social worker in a nonprofit
that helped the elderly where I worked
before I retired a year ago.

She’s extremely attractive, in her sixties,
and looks remarkably young and
is intelligent and can be philosophical
when it comes to talking about
spirituality, the paranormal, and NDEs,
and she was a great social worker
which I liked about her.

Despite her attractiveness,
more attractive than most women,
and her depth, and her caring for clients
which I liked more than her compelling looks,
I found her annoying at times and
had no romantic interest in her.

In the dream I see her coming towards me
from across a street, and somehow I think
I can make myself invisible to her
because I suspect she will be annoying
and I don’t want to talk to her.

Then, and I don’t know how,
I’m lying down somewhere and
she’s affectionately kissing the
bottom of my shin on my left leg
and telling me her father needs
to go into an assisted living facility.

And though my feelings are not erotic,
and her kisses don’t seem erotic either,
I’m kind of liking the peaceful feeling
she is given me, and I nonchalantly
say to her that her father would have
some socialization were he in
an assisted living facility and maybe
find romance with a woman there.
I say that because somehow I know
he lives alone and is lonely and
having trouble taking care of himself
and feels the need for romance in his life.

I wake up after that wondering
how the hell did that woman
get into my dreams, lol. And I
start to wonder if sometimes when
a person sees someone in a dream
if the person they see is having
a similar dream and seeing them too.

And though my dream of that woman
was surprisingly pleasant, I hope I
don’t see her in anymore dreams.
And I can’t figure out why I would
have a dream with her in it because
I hadn’t thought of her since I retired.

I have had two dreams of people who
died, which I believe were more than
dreams (After Death Communications),
and I believe dreams are sometimes
more than dreams, and I hope that
bizarre dream didn’t mean she died
and was saying a final goodbye to me.

Bob Boyd

Over 8 billion people populate this entire planet.
Where is God going to put them all when they die?
Will he just recycle them life after life to save space
In the towns, cities and mansions of the Great Beyond?

Or being environmentally concerned, will he dispose of them
Like hazardous waste in some afterlife Human Disposal Machine
To save this globally warmed overpopulated, overpolluted world?

Last I heard, heaven and hell were overcrowded, no vacancies.
What did you expect with humans existing for over 6 million years?
Did you think these afterlife locales would never run out of space?

Sorry, you were born too late to make it to the pearly gates
Or find a home in the low rent burning flames of hell.
You’re SOL. See you next life – maybe.

Bob Boyd

sitting on my front porch at night
gazing at the stars in the darkened sky
and wondering about adorable you.
will we be like star crossed lovers
or destined to spin away from each other
like lovelorn passing planets?
or will love bring us into each other’s orbit
and make us soulmates for an eternity?
or will we be like passing comets,
that burn out and are gone forever?
all i know for sure … is that i love you.

bob boyd

I’ve begun to appreciate backup singers
Now I really hear them
Before I just heard the lead singer

And backup singers never get the recognition
for their cool, vocal skills

And I read they are underpaid
despite all their talents,
and how they enhance songs
by blending into the music
without detracting from
the lead’s vocals.

It’s regrettable they remain
anonymous and don’t get
the credit they should receive.

Listening to David Naughton’s
Makin’ It now, I’m really
hearing and loving what
the backup singers are
adding to the ensemble
with their nice looks
and beautiful voices.

Wow!

Bob Boyd

To humans I’m a cute bird that seems to have the life,
Chirping merrily and flying ever so freely, like a free spirit.
But believe me that free spirit stuff is kind of an act.
I’m anything but free with many predators after me,
Hovering hawks, night owls, jays and magpies in the air,
Foxes, snakes, weasels, cats and raccoons on the ground.
Despite my free spirit bravado and the happy songs I sing,
I’m little more than a predator’s next feathered meal.
And always in a state of paranoia with death in pursuit.

Bob Boyd

I loved you before the Big Bang
When the universe was born
Before the planets spun in
Vast galaxies
Before the stars rose in
Night skies
And I know we are
Destined to be
Reunited soulmates
In this life
Or the next
This existence
Or the heavens

Bob Boyd

The song I’d Rather Ride Around with you
by Reba Macintyre
fills my heart with such happiness,
makes me wish life could be
filled with that kind of happiness
every day in everyone’s life.

It’s my idea of the greatest
real and true love.

No need for fancy things
or exotic places,
distractions that pale
compared to just being together,
the incomparable joy
of our hearts united,
of our minds elated
in a simple pleasure.

Riding in that car,
more than enough.
Our love providing
all the excitement,
all the entertainment
we’d ever want or need .

Our true love,
our fun times,
our shared joys
beyond all those things
and all those diversions
that others crave and need,
that could never compare
to the happiness, the love,
we have just being together.
And I’d rather ride around with you.

Bob Boyd

Never go to doctors
They’ll find something wrong with you
Stay away and you won’t get sick or die
For example
My granny was the healthiest granny on the planet
Bench pressed 200 pounds, repeatedly
Squatted with 300 pounds, easily
Ran triathlon marathons, effortlessly
Kicked the crap out of a psycho subway pusher in NYC

All that, until she saw a geriatrics quack
A wacko psycho doctor of death
He diagnosed her with the big C
Placebo screwed her with a BS death knell
Stage 4, three months to live, he claimed sadistically

Three anxiety-driven, brainwashed months later
granny couldn’t bench or squat a mere 100 pounds
or even run twenty yards

Then granny was stone cold expired,
waked and buried at Bellevue Cemetery
Don’t ask me about the costs

In denial about my sweet granny’s passing,
vowed to find a way to bring her back.
Prayed to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
and Catholic saints of impossible causes
Didn’t work

Because Jesus came back successfully,
thought maybe he’d share
his secret resurrection formula
and give a dead granny some love
Didn’t work

Granny remained unresurrected
Exasperated and driven to near madness
I robbed granny out of her grave
and tried to Frankenstein her back to life
Bound her to a metal table
Rigged a lightning rod to it
A thunderstorm raged and rumbled
Lightning flashed and crackled
Struck her corpse, made it sizzle
Didn’t work

Lightning only barbecued her body
Or cooked it, not sure which
Brainstormed a better idea
Jump started her like a dead car battery
Problem solved, kinda
Granny is up and running
and chasing me around my house
alive and electrically zombified.

Bob Boyd

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

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