he used to listen to ghosts talking
with white noise on spirit boxes
he traveled to haunted locations
in small towns and big cities
eventually he started hearing
the ghost talking all the time
without using the technology
thy talked inside his head
eventually the talking began
to take possession of his mind
and he heard the ghosts telling
him to become one of them
he jumped off a bridge and did
now others hear him talking
with white noise on spirit boxes

bob boyd

what causes ghosts?
are they just rewinds
of images of people
who die accidental
or horrible deaths?

are they dead people
who for unknown
reasons can’t find
their way
to the Light?

and if they are real,
why do some people
become ghosts
and not others?

maybe as some claim
they’re just
imaginary effects
of electrical waves.

whatever the cause,
real or unreal,
no way I’d ever
spend an eerie
night in a
haunted house.

bob boyd

His wife’s mother’s ghost haunted their house.
It would have been okay
if he had gotten along with her,
but when she was alive she always
tried to break up him and his wife.

She never liked him for unknown reasons,
maybe she just didn’t like his looks,
even though he was a nice looking guy
and had a pleasant personality.

He always thought she felt he just
married her daughter for their money.
In the end, her mother’s spirit seemed to
possess his wife and turned her against him.
She became so disagreeable and hateful
that he could no longer be with her.

After he left his wife, she became her
sweet self once again, but no way
could he go back with her and face her
dead mother’s otherworldly spite.

Bob Boyd

fred and mary had been happily married for 30 years
until fred got laid off at the automobile manufacturing factory
when the plant relocated to mexico for cheaper labor.

fred was in his fifties and had no other marketable skills
than assembling parts of cars coming off the assembly line
no one could pay him anything near the money had made
at the automobile manufacturing factory

mary went to work at a large retail discount store
to help with the finances and get away from fred
who had become so depressed and miserable
that their marriage was beginning to fall apart

the manager of the store took an interest in pretty mary
paying her lavish compliments that mary began to like
soon she was in an affair with him and felt some guilt
but not enough to stop seeing him in seedy motels

a mentally broken fred found out about the affair
when a friend called him and told him about it
while mary was at work flirting with her boss
fred grabbed his AR-15 rifle and jumped in his car

he drove 80 miles an hour to the discount store
he passed a patrol car that raced after him
he forgot about killing mary and her boss
drove off a bridge into a lake’s deep waters

when the police and the divers brought his car
out of the dark waters they didn’t find fred in it
they dragged the lake and found his drowned corpse
now people claim they see his ghost at the lake

mary suffered some misfortune after that
her affair with her boss was found out
by the companies corporate headquarters
they fired mary and her boss and they broke up

seven weeks later mary’s boss died unexpectedly
after he had a terrifying nightmare of fred
during a fitful night of difficult sleep
he woke up and died of a massive heart attack

that same night mary had a nightmare of fred
he was as terrifying as demon in it
in the morning when mary woke up
she died of a massive heart attack too

bob boyd

A husband and wife team,
they were slick grifters
tricking people into believing
they were possessed or had ghosts.

They made a lot of money off their grift
pretending to be exorcists
and got a lot of publicity and
a book and a lucrative movie deal.

Their grift came to a horrifying end
when they messed with real demons
and tried their fake mumble jumble
and both got possessed.

It seemed maybe those demons
had some unexpected sense of justice
and kind of avenged all the wronged,
like the documentary portrayed it.

Bob Boyd

he had trepidations about the haunted house impromptu tour.
the abandoned house looked as scary as people claimed,
but his fun and crazy friends persuaded him to go in.
against that small inner voice that kept warning him, he went in.
it wasn’t as spooky as he thought it would be – no ghosts,
nothing paranormal, nothing frightening, nothing spooky.
he was glad he survived the challenge without any horrors.
but when he got home and went to bed and turned out the lights,
the hitchhiker horrors haunted him with malevolent terrors galore.
his house became haunted with horrifying ghosts and evil spirits.
in the morning he was found strangled to death in his sheets,
and the same fate happened to all his haunted house tour friends.

bob boyd

i chased ghosts for years aplenty
never found a single one
in all the haunts I scrupulously explored
i searched every cranny and nook
of alleged spirit habitats far and wide
never a hidden peep or a frightening spook
never an apparition or a sudden coldness
i had to conclude there were no ghosts
until I finally found one at the end of my days
when i died and became one
haunting my house never able to be seen
never able to make the slightest peep

bob boyd

I spied her at the grocery store;
she’d grown old, fat, and gray.
I was shocked at what age
had done to her body and looks.
I was glad she couldn’t see me
I was glad I’d died and
become an invisible ghost.

we’d had an unpleasant fling
when we were sixties hippies.
I grew to dislike her intensely
even though she was beautiful
and blessed with a great body
in her long gone youth,
she was rude and crazy.
I hope I don’t have to see her
when she dies and becomes
an invisible ghost like me.

Bob Boyd

She never believed in ghosts
Until one began haunting her
First she heard its voice
Telepathically inside her head
Like an alternate frequency
Transmitted out of the afterlife
Then the entity exposed itself
A payback from the beyond

Husband she poisoned to death
Haunted her day and night
Tried to have him exorcized
By a Catholic Priest Exorcist
The prayers and threats failed
Just made his spirit stronger
Drove her mad and suicidal
Until she hung herself to death
On a tree outside her house
On a spooky Halloween night

Bob Boyd

Abigail a spooky ghost
Roams the world
Scares scores of people
Every halloween-like night
Enjoys her ghostly life

Doesn’t need to eat or drink
Doesn’t need to work
Doesn’t need anything
Except the joys of scaring people
And laughing at their horrified reactions

Her personal best scare was when
She scared her mean ex husband to death
Served the abusive bastard right
And she loved it when he went to hell

Trapped between heaven and hades
She feels feels happy as hell
Prefers to stay attached to the earth
And get her jollies with frights and mirth

Bob Boyd

He met an attractive woman named Janice
At the Pisgah Church Harris Teeter grocery store.
She was slim, comely, blonde hair, sweet smile.
The day was raining; lightning boomed in the sky.
She said she had taken a bus to get to the store
And would he be a gentleman and give her a ride home?
He complied, and after about twenty minutes she got out
In front of an eerie-looking cemetery.
Having heard about many urban legends,
He thought she’d be a ghost and vanish, but
Then he woke up and realized it was merely a dream.
The next day he went to Harris Teeter and saw Janice there.
When he told her about the dream, she said, “Is this a pick up line?”
She gave him a dismissive look and in a huff strolled away.
But then she came back laughing and said she had the same dream.
A romance ensued, and they got married in Harris Teeter.
But six months later, Janice died unexpectedly and is buried
In the cemetery he saw in the dream.

Bob Boyd

He Heard a strange hissing sounds coming from his barn,
Something paranormal in the night he wondered, scared.
The eerie sounds ceased, and he could not find the source.
Some kind of vanishing ghosts or worse?
Heard it again next night, brought a gun and a flashlight,
Heard a whooshing sound inside the barn,
Only wind blowing through an open window.
At last he found the source of the hissing sounds,
A proud barn owl looking straight at him.

Bob Boyd

She told me in May of 92
We were done
She gave me some fake excuse
Her reason for leaving me
But I knew her real reason
Was she felt too good for me
An average wage earner baker
I knew she wanted the high life
Her sister had with a rich guy
Though we got divorced
I knew she’d come back to me
But I never expected as a ghost
After she died in May of 96
When she overdosed on drugs
In some rich guy’s mansion in LA

Bob Boyd

When I drank my morning coffee my wife had made for me,
I got sick, drowsy, confused and suspicious of my wife.
We’d been having trouble in our seventeen years of marriage.
She winked, smiled, laughed gleefully, showed me a bottle.
I stumbled to her and grabbed the bottle which read thallium.
I fell on the kitchen floor on my back and knew I was dying.
My wife winked and smiled with my life insurance in hand,

And I died an agonizing death there on the kitchen floor.
My wife got criminally rich on my generous life insurance.
After I’d died, I hung around a while as a ghost appearing
In dreams to the investigators telling them my wife had
Poisoned me with the barely detectable poison, thallium.
They dug up my corpse and checked it closer for thallium,
And today my wife is rotting in prison with a life sentence.

Bob Boyd

I was a cheerful guy
I excelled at sports
I enjoyed my beer
I lived a good life
I had my faults
I tried to be good
I made one mistake
Got too drunk once
Went a little crazy
Busted up a store
After midnight
Got caught on
A security Camera
Fled the law
Drove to Akansas
Drunk on my ass
Picked up a hot
Female hitchhiker
Said she was
Really a ghost
Laughed hard
Played her game
Let her off at
Woodlawn cemetery
Followed her in
Hoping for some
Spooky love
Touched that
Real woman
She pushed me
Away and I fell
On a Tombstone
On my head
Passed out and
Dreamed of
Ghosts woke up
Above my body
Which was laying
On a slab in a
University lab
Being dissected
And I was a ghost
And the doctor
Dissecting me
Was the hot
Female hitchhiker
I’d given the ride to

Bob Boyd

My girlfriend went on a ghost tour with a friend
I didn’t go. I didn’t believe in ghosts.

She went missing after the tour
I searched everywhere for her and

Even talked to the tour leader who said
She had been fine after the tour.

Seven anxious days later, my girlfriend
Returned and said her name was Angela

And no longer Mary. And everything about
Her had changed. Nothing was the same.

I learned a woman named Angela died
In one of the houses the tour visited.

My girlfriend disappeared again a day later
She went back to the alleged haunted house

Angela had died in, and Mary died of
Unknown causes in that house.

Creeps me out to this very day and
I often wonder if Mary had become

Possessed by Angela’s ghost or
inexplicably became mentally ill.

Bob Boyd

Amy Robsart married Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester,
A loveless marriage, the earl wanted Queen Elizabeth I,
And Queen Elizabeth fell in love with him.

Amy heard a rumor she was going to be poisoned to death
To get her out of the way so the Earl could be with the queen.
Amy died from a suspicious fall down a flight of stairs;
Some believed she was pushed. Preachers proclaimed foul play.

A ghost began haunting Kenilworth Castle where Amy lived,
Thought to be Amy from dying a shocking death.
Supposedly she appeared before Robert Dudley
And told her husband, “Soon you’ll be joining me.”
Dudley died a few days later.

Oh Amy were you really a ghost
Or were the apparitions just
Low frequency sounds causing
Strange feelings and fake visions?

Whatever the cause, ghost or sounds,
tragic you died under suspicious
Circumstances and didn’t have a full life.

Bob Boyd