Day: July 6, 2026

Clouds wandered in azure skies
Rivers poured through towns and glens
Flowers swayed in windswept fields
Deer and elk frockled in fall forests
But in a time forgotten cemetery
Hidden among quiet oak trees
Defaced and abandoned
Not a soul stirred

Bob Boyd

After you left me
despite all I did for you and
your son

helping pay for his treatments
for his hydrocephalus
and tragically for his funeral

and bringing you to America
for a chance at a better life
than the poverty you grew
up in
and much more –

I hated you for two years,
even though I was glad you
were gone

Then one day
like the sun shining
through the dark clouds
of a ceasing storm

my hatred ceased for you
and I got on with my life freed
from the consuming turmoil
of the hate
that was buried in my heart

The artist Matisse had a young and beautiful assistant,
Lydia Delectorskaya.

She was hired to help him when his wife got sick to
run his art studio and be a nurse to his wife.

Lydia respected and admired Matisse because unlike other
artists, he never tried to seduce her after she became his model.

But Matisse’s wife Amelie grew jealous of Lydia, not because
she thought she was sleeping with Matisse.

She was jealous of how Lydia was doing all the things she
used to do for Matisse running his art studio.

She told Matisse it was her or Lydia, and Matisse told Lydia
she had to leave.

Distraught and feeling like she had lost her purpose in life,
Lydia tried to commit suicide by shooting herself in the chest.

Miraculously, she lived. The bullet hit a bone in her chest,
which saved her from dying.

Not long after that, Amelie left Matisse, and he asked Lydia
to come back and work for him again.

Though Matisse and Lydia never became lovers, she worked
for him till the day he died, running everything for him.

After he died, she wrote two favorable books about her
experiences with him and his work:

Against the Winds and Storms (1996) Apparent Ease (1998),
and she spent the rest of her life working on his heritage.

Bob Boyd

She plays with a Ouija Board one day,
thinking it’s just a harmless game.
That night she wakes up and sees a hag spirit
next to her bed looking at her ominously.
The nightmarish scene repeats night after night,
and eventually she gets drained and sick.
The hag spirit, really a demon, keeps draining
her life force till she feels like she is dying.
A woman with knowledge of dark things and
how to exorcize them is called in.
She uses sage and sea salt and mysterious chants
and prayers in the bedroom and around the girl.
A lightness is felt in the dark room, and the woman
knows she’s rid it and the girl of the hag demon.
Thereafter the girl regains her good health and
is never tormented by the hag demon again.

Bob Boyd