Day: October 25, 2025

I’m at my computer remembering when back in the
long gone, free love, Haight-Ashbury highs sixties
some adventurous free spirited women
were called hippy chicks
I’m also wondering how women ever got
called hen’s babies
that aside, I’m thinking an ex hippy chick
would probably be a good match for me
we could talk about peace and love, Hendrix,
Woodstock, India, Ram Das, getting high on mantras
cosmic consciousness and Meher Baba
we could have our own two person commune
and talk about how groovy, heavy and far out
our new age resurrected Age of Aquarius lives were
she’d wear paisley dresses with flowers in her hair
I’d let my freak flag fly evermore
we wouldn’t need LSD and psychedelic trips
or getting ten feet tall like Alice
groovin’ together, spacing out
on our stars aligned soulmate love
would be all we’d need ever and forever.

Bob Boyd

I suspect today the ants have run for cover
shivering and swearing about the cold

probably wishing like birds they could fly south
to those warmer cities, sanctuaries from the cold

probably wishing like me they lived in a house
and could turn the heat on

now I’m wondering what they do
when like hell freezing over
the ground they travel on gets iced over

I’m thinking they burrow deeper into the earth
maybe closer to what I think is a warmer core
maybe halfway to China

maybe like Tibetan monks they practice tummo
and turn the thermostats in their bodies
up to my age, 80 – degrees instead of years.

Bob Boyd

I have been yearning for the cold weather
and holy hell it’s here brrrr brrrr brrrr
shiver shiver shiver

57 but seems like 27 since it snuck in
so quickly and coldly last night

and was much lower than 57 initially
which my apartment has hung on to

like a kid refusing to give up one of its toys
I think it likes the cold more than I do

I’m gulping down hot coffee
blanketed in layers of warm clothing

and a hoodie and a lumber jack hat
which has warmed me up enough

I refuse to turn on the heat
until the cold becomes near unbearable
before I freeze to death

I did this last year successfully
and plan to withstand the cold
even better this year

you may think my plan is crazy
maybe it is but I don’t want to spend
a small fortune on heat with my poverty line
Social Security income

when I like a beast in the wild can endure the cold
and like the challenge of enduring it
like maybe that beast does

and maybe like that hairy beast I’ll get more hairy
longer hair and a bushy beard

besides this Don Quixote jousting with the cold
is one of the few quasi adventures left in me
in my reclusive, nonadventurous life at 80.

Bob Boyd