Day: April 11, 2025

Holding cells in the castle where people were imprisoned
hundreds of years ago.
Metal holding rings prisoners were chained to.
Some were thrown into a pit and left to die there.
Others were hanged off the front of the building.
And spirits are alleged to swarm the castle.
Ghosts moan, chains rattle, people see ghosts in
the mirrors.
Things get thrown around in rooms.
Sheets tossed off beds people are sleeping in.
In one room, stones appear and drop to the floor.
St Briavels Castle is truly a strange and haunted place.

Bob Boyd

Rats get a bad rap and were misidentified with
starting the Black Plague when fleas were the cause.
Rats are seen as pariahs and nuisances, and there
are unquestionably valid reasons for that.
According to an article in Prevention Magazine,
rats spread more than 35 illnesses to humans.
But who among us is perfect, and who among us
hasn’t spread a disease to another human being
and possibly a pet or two?
I see rats as being like humans, just doing what
they do. And what they do is without malicious
intent unlike the malicious intent some humans
harbor.
At least in India rats get some love at the Karni Mata
Temple in India where rats are revered and treated
with devotional love and tender care.
At least some people love rats and have them as
pets.
There’s even a National Fancy Rats Society
where clearly rats get their respect and loving due.
As for me, I have no quarrel with rats and wouldn’t
be surprised if there were angel rats in heaven.

Bob Boyd

This is why I have presently have squirrels playing in a band at the top of this blog.
I like the cute, the playful, and the impossibility of that.
This is why I have a Kangaroo bartending at the top of this poem.
Once I took a course in the Theatre of the Absurd. I liked that course, and I like absurd and surreal things and situations.
I find them a refreshing change from the things and situations of ordinary life.
I find them fascinating and sometimes close to mind blowing, like Dali’s melting clocks.
It could be that absurd and surreal things are a taste of an afterlife where anything and everything is possible, like a real Alice’s Wonderland.

Bob Boyd

I often wonder if love is ever after
Despite it seeming to end when lovers die.
Despite many wives and husbands finding new loves
when their husbands or wives pass away,
as if their loves were only temporary
and traded for other temporary loves.

I don’t blame those wives and husbands
for finding new loves.
I’d probably do the same.
It’s a hard road living life on your own
without someone to love, and if love is
only temporary, it doesn’t matter anyway.

Sure some stay the course married
or in love for the remainder of their days.
But what happens after death?
Is romantic love dissolved into
unconditional love for everyone?
Is there no romantic love after death?
My hope is romantic love is ever after,
and those who don’t find true or lasting
love in this temporary world find
true and lasting love in the afterlife.

Bob Boyd

Dead but not gone
Arisen from the grave
Never left the earth plane
Stuck or unable to
Some appear as only
Replaying images
No interactions
No sounds
No eye contact
No temperature changes
No touches
Others dynamic
Can do some
Or all of those things
Opinions vary on legitimacy
Real or unreal
Skeptics abound
Believers as well
Those who have
Seen restless souls
Have no doubts

Bob Boyd