The Afterlife Life Review

According to many people who have
been clinically dead and came back, NDEers

when you die, aside from the tunnel of whte light,
there’s a life review

kind of like watching a movie, and maybe like acting
in it at the same time

you view all the good and not so good things you
did in your lifetime

but, take heart, it’s not punitive; God or a higher being
is there with you

not to condemn you for the not so good, but to help you
grow spiritually from the viewing

I don’t know exactly how the viewing helps you grow
spiritually, but if the NDE accounts are true

at least you don’t get sent to hell, but a small percentage of NDEers, felt they were in hell

what I really don’t know is – what happens if you’re permanently dead, the end of you or a new beginning

though I believe despite our not so goods, no matter how bad,
no matter how heinous

like rivers flowing in an ocean, we all eventually get to what the
Hindus call Sat Chit Ananda Eternal Bliss Consciousness

the degree, the speed of getting there, a matter of either
many incarnations on the wheel aka rebirths

or, hopefully, growing spiritually up a ladder of different levels,
in the afterlife; for example, a Hitler beginning at the lowest rung

but gradually, he begins to ascend up the ladder and
after near timeless penance and spiritual growth

some scientists think the NDEs are illusionary, even the common
ones, and they make good scientific arguments

in simple terms, despite all the beliefs and NDE experiences,
when you’re dead, you’re dead

if they’re right, I’m okay with that, and I’d be unaware of being completely erased – no me to be concerned.

Bob Boyd

Brent Howard (2000-2024)

I’d been on sixteen ghosts hunts
But never saw any real ghosts like Midnight Mary.
In fact, I never really saw a ghost before Mary.
Sure my equipment suggested ghost activity,
But that’s not as spooky as coming face to face
With a real, dead spirit roaming the earth.

I’d heard about a ghost named Midnight Mary,
At the old, abandoned Bradmore Hotel.
I even saw an alleged photo of her ghostly face.
The photo looked fake, bogus urban legend stuff.
Supposedly people died messing with Mary.
Inside the Bradmore heard a scary rustling near me.
Shined my flashlight in the direction of the sound
Rats dashed away to their hiding places.
Searched the entire hotel, saw no sign of Mary.

Just more nonsense I mumbled to myself.
Drove to a motel, disappointed, another fake lead.
Retired for the night, fell into a dreamless sleep.
Heard an eerie sound fill the room, thought it was a dream,
One minute like a witch’s cackle, the next a ghostly wail.
Felt hands clutching my throat choking me to death,
Frightened, opened my eyes: Midnight Mary!
Died of shock in that old motel bed, my face frozen in fear.
Sometimes when you hunt ghosts, they hunt you.
Now as if I were bitten by a vampire, I’m a ghost too,
Every night I haunt this motel.

Bob Boyd

Passing Women

Passing women in this brief life,
what’s the point? Procreation
of the species? Or are these
parades of princesses merely
random encounters, some, one,
or none, that stick to a man’s
millisecond life in the timeless
eternity and make him happy,
miserable or nonplussed. And
why is the nearly irrepressible
need for a female’s endearments
and addictive charms ingrained
in a man’s DNA to his dying day?
And how is it some monk men
seem immune to this persistent
need? At times, eight years strong,
I have been one of those monk men –
almost, not quite. Yet sometimes
stirring amore undercurrents still
well up in me breathing unguarded,
old man foolish longings into my
weathered heart. Occasionally
I ponder will death rid me of
this resurfacing need, that
I repress and try to negate, my
resistance borne of too many
disappointments and painful
heartaches, or unite me with
a bona fide, eternal soulmate,
disappointments and heartaches
nevermore.

Bob Boyd