Category: Poetry

some people claim they have experienced them
some say their houses were haunted by them
some catholic priests allege they have exorcized them
some tv shows and documentaries seem believable about them
as for me, i’ve never seen any of them in real life
perhaps because i never put any stock in them
or tried to summon them with ouija boards or seances
though i have seen two deceased people in dreams
one a native american medicine man, the other an old friend
perhaps summoned by the empathy i had for them

bob boyd

maybe because i’m a lone wolf
is the reason i like real wolves
and fictional werewolves
maybe we’re like common kin
in some magical mystical way
if reincarnation is factual
maybe I ran with a wolf pack
in one of my transmigrational times
or since I have an empathy for
native americans and have been
to powwows many times
maybe in a former like I was
a native american and the wolf
was my family’s totem
concerning former lives and wolves
one thing i am certain of
i was never a werewolf

bob boyd

he was an ultimate party guy
he could drink anybody under the table
get up you pussy he’d jokingly say when others passed out
a friend said he thought the party guy would end up on skid row
an addicted going nowhere drunk who would die there
because he drank so often and too damn much
but everything changed when night turned to day
and the Light lit him up and he never drank or partied again
because the Light left him with spiritual energy streaming up in him that was never going down
that made even talking a drink like pouring dirty swamp water into pristine spring water
and the Light irrevocably changed his life forever

bob boyd

sometimes i envied monks
their lives of detachment
how they don’t seem to
have the longings that
anchor most to the world
how they seem impervious
to the need for romantic
love and the attachments
to the things of this life
trading those for peace
and advanced spirituality

sometimes i thought of
becoming a monk without
but i just couldn’t live
without a woman and
deny myself the joys of
romantic love and living
free of the restraints
and the sacrifices
and the renunciations
of a monk living in an
isolated womanless world

bob boyd

though my memory of you is hazy
i think i was maybe ten
when i knew you
i was too young for romantic love
when i knew you
but i do remember vaguely
when i used to walk you home
and how it felt so good talking to you
and that you were a pretty girl
even though i can’t remember
what we talked about
i just remember how nice you were
and how nice it felt being with you
i have no memories of you
after those walks
when we both were about ten
and maybe almost had
a crush on each other
that we were to young
to do anything about
i just remembered you today
for the first time in decades
and i am wondering
whatever happened to you
and hoping you are still
alive and healthy and
are having a great life
or if you are no
longer living
i hope you had
a wonderful life

bob boyd

days and lives grow shorter
death comes nearer
memories and achievements
grow dimmer
as if they never happened
past loves
the good ones
the not so good ones
mostly forgotten
as if they never happened
things that used to matter
don’t matter so much anymore
as the end draws nearer
and everything grows dimmer
and your life has melted away
and you wonder where it all went
before you close your eyes
and you are more alone
than ever when you realize
you are about to die

bob boyd

Home from the Vietnam War, two tours,
Wheelchair confined, broken body, traumatized mind.
High School sweetheart wife waited through the
Years, the tears, the fears. Cared For him,
Stayed with him, loved him through PTSD,
Times of depression and despair, hospital stays,
Many health problems, her love, her caring unwavering
Through it all till at age sixty- eight when he died,
Wife at his bedside. Could love be truer than that?

Bob Boyd

Unfettered gypsy spirits fearlessly catch cobras and poisonous lizards in India.
Tame cobras, display them in gypsy shows magically controlling the cobras
Gypsy women dancing beautifully, the soft sounds of their whirling feet, mesmerizing mantras.
The air perfumed with sweet sandalwood scents, the ambience extraordinary.
Self-designed radiant clothes, outward displays of joyful liberated lives.
Funerals celebrated with music and dance, death a natural freeing event.
Lives unbound by 9 to 5 grinds; no company owns their souls.
No pressure to be better than others or get degrees from the right colleges and tread
waning career paths desperately trying to get to the top of the heap.
No keeping up with neighbors’ expensive perishables; everything eventually perishes,
no matter the glitter.
Pure living, spontaneous, free, now, forever – Cobra Gypsies.

Bob Boyd

Rabbits scurrying outside my apartment
Far from forests, far from better cover
How they survive and thrive
In the burbs is a mystery to me
Yet here they live abundantly
Though always on edge
They run and hide when they see me
How I wish they weren’t afraid of me
And knew I’d never harm them
How I wish we could be friends
It would be so serendipitous
If one day they ran to me
When they saw me outside
Happy to see me and
Maybe wanting to be petted by me

Bob Boyd

He told me had been a crow in a former life.
I wondered if he’d lost his mental faculties.
The strange things is he looked like one
But in a good way. He had the raven hair
And unusual but compelling birdike eyes,
And women found his looks attractive,
Flocked around him like birds around seed.
I’ll never forget the day he asked me if
I believed his story about being a crow.
After I said sorry I just can’t believe it,
He spread his arms and cawed like a crow,
And the air was filled with hundreds of crows,
So many they blocked out the sun.
I swear it was like a crow apocalypse,
And it scared the holy hell out of me.
He cawed again and the crows flew away.

Bob Boyd

when i was a teenager
i was nothing like i am now

no seeking in me
just living life
as it came my way

no questioning the
purpose of it

no intellectual
speculations

but i did seem to have
some logic in me

once a christian kid
befriended me
but with an ulterior
motive

his friendship was
about proselytizing

to win my soul
for his religion

he said if you
do not follow jesus
you go to hell

i said what if natives
living on an island
never saw a missionary
or heard about jesus

would god send them
to hell because of
their ignorance of
jesus
it made no sense to me

now i believe that
the absolute in it’s
infinite mercy
would manifest in
the minds of those
natives in another way

for example

if those natives believed
a mountain was god
i believe the absolute
in its infinite mercy
would manifest through
that mountain to the natives
their mystics would have
confirming visions
and the natives would
become firm believers

furthermore i believe that
the ancient gods were
conduits to the divine
and that the absolute
honored that

bob boyd

a friend once told me a woman he was involved with
said they were not of this world

at the time he told me that I was probably in
my twenties

and thought in a way it sound kind of nice
like they were uniquely made for each other

and different from most people who seem to
be very much of this world

now with more years on me and more experiences
in life

I think the woman who loved my friend was right
but maybe in a way you had not imagined I would

for many the average time spent on this earth is
about 76 years of age, a blink in eternity

and if we live forever in some kind of afterlife
maybe none of us are really of this world

or if reincarnation is real and we are just here
for temporary lives

until we get off the wheel of rebirths
to me that would also suggest we are not really of this world

bob boyd

once I read humans would look like aliens
in the far future

bigger heads shaped like alien ones
spindly legs from not using them as much

bigger eyes like aliens
not sure why

maybe enlarged by
staring at computers and cell phones
constantly

thinner bodies overall
maybe from not having to use
them much due to modern conveniences

but I’m sure people would still work
out and probably have a pill which
would give you the same results
without having to work out

thinking about how human
bodies haven’t changed much
in thousands of years

I didn’t put any stock
in that theory

bob boyd

The Night Has a Thousand Eyes
by Francis William Bourdillon

The night has a thousand eyes,
And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one:
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.

I never read much poetry and didn’t have any interest in writing poetry until a little over a year ago, but I did hear or briefly see a handful of poems I liked. For instance:

A Red Red Rose by Robert Burns
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love by Christopher Marlowe
Annabelle Lee by Edgar Allan Poe

And I liked this verse:

“To see the world in a grain of sand
and a heaven in a wild flower
hold infinity in your hand
and eternity in an hour”

William Blake

To my right on the Soundcloud music widget a guy is singing about guarding his heart.

And he has a great voice as well.

And I love that indie song.

And the sage advice.

If only I had taken his advice on occasions when I didn’t guard my heart well enough.

If only I hadn’t been like that saying, “Fools rush in.”

But, alas, despite some of those unguarded, vulnerable heart decisions,

if I could go back in time, I probably wouldn’t guard my heart any better.

Looking back, I really don’t regret the times and the heartaches I had from not guarding my heart well.

Like the saying, “It is better to have loved and lost,” I really don’t regret any of those unguarded heart decisions.

In the greater scheme of things and life and death matters, romantic mistakes and broken hearts are really insignificant to me now, and I like that my heart has become strengthened and battle hardened.

And I think it’s better to take a chance on love, to, as the saying goes, throw caution to the winds, when like a miracle, into your lonely life a chance for love comes in.

Bob Boyd

Though you’re ambiguous about amore, I think I can work with that, provided you’re not volatile, rabidly political, self obsessed, or mercenary, and can endure my semi-rebellious, semi-reclusive, anti-authoritarianism, anti-fake news, anti-nonsense, poetry-writing ways.

Besides, we both love helping people, 8th century Chinese poetry, animals, romantic music, philosophical ponderings, spiritual pursuits, NDES, conspiracy theories, aliens, UFOs, equal rights, gentle people, underdogs, antiheroes, just about any kind of chocolate, and Haagen-Dazs ice cream.

And if you’re uncompromisingly unambiguous about the Haagen-Dazs, that would probably be enough. And if you love that Harris Teeter apple pastry, Crostata, that some people say is to die for, and it’s so good some people might have died for it …

I honest to God might no prenup propose.

Bob Boyd

In Northern Thailand Rhinoceros Beetles Battle
that can lift between 100 and 850 times their weight,
and inflict deadly damage with their pincher horns.

And like seasoned, world class MMA fighters,
their finely honed skill sets include:

Karate kicks and chops, spinning back kicks,
boxing feints and strikes, judo and jujitsu throws,
chokes and locks, and good ground games.

Spectators shout and cheer ecstatically and bet
Thai currency called baht all night on the fights.
Who would ever have thought bugs could
become synonymous with combat sports.

Bob Boyd

I loved you ten million years ago
before you and I were born.
Despite the mysteries of these matters,
the thousands of misaligned lives,
the thousands of misaligned loves.
I always knew we would be reunited
in this long awaited rendezvous.
And I’ll love you ten million years more
when our lives in this life are through.

Bob Boyd

I’ve come a long way from
when you knew me
loved me and left me
when I was
a confused and screwed
up teenage kid

hanging out in a pool hall
getting kicked out of
high school

I’ve expanded my life and
my mind in ways I don’t
think you could have ever
imagined

In ways I never could
have imagined

I’ve exceeded what my
high school teachers
thought was a doomed
future for me

I’ve gained wisdom from
the East and the West
and seen the Inner Light

Despite those boasts
sometimes I wonder how
your life went

and if you became the
nurse you wanted to
be

and if you’re still living
and breathing upon
this planet

or dead and buried in
the cold dark ground

I doubt we’ll meet in
the afterlife as soul
friends

but it might be cool
if we did

Bob Boyd

I look in the mirror today
and see my hair that I’ve
been combing and
brushing back for couple
of weeks and letting
air dry

I’m surprised at 80
that I still have a full
head of hair with no
balding

I’m more surprised
at how bizarre it looks
like Christopher Walken’s
hair style way too high in
the front

I always wear a hat
when I go out
so it doesn’t matter
when I’m in public

but I don’t like my
hair looking freakish
long on top

It’s not like I’m
back in the greaser
60s

I’ll have to cut it
soon

I’ve been cutting
my hair successfully
for 40 years

When I was living
in Vermont 40 years ago
I saw a book in a library
there with instructions
for cutting your own
hair

I said to myself then
that I could do that
Fortunately I was right
and I’ve been cutting
my hair for 40
years

and people I worked
with were always
surprised at how
good it looked
for self cut hair

But I kind of
don’t feel like
cutting it yet

Besides, I live
alone and no one
is going to see my
top heavy hair so
to borrow from a
song in the sixties
I guess I’ll just
let my freak flag fly
for awhile.

Bob Boyd