Day: August 22, 2025

Some seers claimed they knew
what the afterlife was all about.
Some NDEers believe they experienced
what it is all about.
I don’t believe having all the answers
about the afterlife is possible.
I don’t believe a person can know what
the afterlife is all about until a person is
not just temporarily dead but permanently dead,
provided an afterlife is more than just dead
and buried or burned to ashes and nothing more.

Bob Boyd

My newfound love of my life said she
had something called Entomophobia.
I had no idea what that humongously
large word meant nor its implications.
She said it was a dread of insects.
I said I could understand that because
creepy crawly spiders creeped me out.
When she moved into my apartment to
make it a love nest, all was love and bliss
until a single cockroach crept under the
front door of my apartment, and my love
began sweating and freaking out as if
the end of the world was happening.
She shrieked like a woman on fire, packed
her suitcases, said we were done, and
flew out my life, gone forever.
And as I never saw a single cockroach
in my apartment before, I swear that little
demon was a buzzkill cockroach from hell.

Bob Boyd

Chanting Cicada Monks

I hear the cicada monks chanting their
nightly prayers with their sacred tymbals.
I wonder if with all that vigorous chanting,
any of them have attained enlightenment.
Some people think the chants are for sex,
but the cicadas are far higher evolved
than chanting for hours merely for procreation.
Sometimes they copulate out of nature’s
necessity to propagate their species.
Most of the time they are on a higher path
tirelessly chanting their sutras over and over,
experiencing profound moments of cosmic bliss,
striving toward getting off the wheel of rebirth,
and transcending into the higher, eternal bliss,
instead of merely singing noisily in towering trees.

Bob Boyd