There are many YouTube videos about haunted churches
I never imagined houses of God could become haunted

but given many churches have graveyards attached
to them for the departed faithful

maybe the dead in those graves rise from the dead
to once again attend church services

maybe the worship, the preaching, and the choir
were all so holy and so good, they could raise the dead

or maybe when dead some of the disembodied became directionless and couldn’t find their way to heaven

so they compromised, best they could do, and
in spirit hung out in their former churches

but between me and you, or you and I, I find even the
thought of ghosts in churches more than a bit spooky.

Bob Boyd

Daddy Longlegs,
the only spider
I do not hate
also called harvestmen
why the hell that is,
I do not know
I’ve never seen
them harvesting hay
or anything for that matter
but wait!
I just learned they
are not spiders
these thin-legged
seemingly harmless
tiny creatures
“make up the
family of Opiliones”
I don’t know what
that family is but
I guess it’s relative.

Bob Boyd

On a YouTube video about Newcastle, England
a young man is arguing with the police in the streets

I can see he’s close to getting arrested and thrown in jail
for his arguing and hassling the police

a pretty young woman
presumably his girlfriend

puts her hands gently on his shoulders
and softly implores him to cease

his foolish, stubborn behavior
her touch, her words, like a bomb diffuser

he settles down, mellows out a bit
stops arguing with the police

as if he got a reprieve
he’s able to work away without being arrested

thanks to his loving, caring girlfriend’s intersession
sometimes a good woman is better than a lawyer.

Bob Boyd

Pray you are never in a forest when everything goes quiet
birds, insects, the wind

an eerie silence, a foreboding stillness that chills your soul
and signals something horrifying is about to happen

if you are lucky it will be only a rambunctious bear
but most likely it will be a terrifying cryptid coming for you

and that horrific terror will be the last thing you will see
before you are disappeared and become a 411.

Bob Boyd

I’m not kidding you; they really do
supposedly these spouses are hybrids
part human, part alien
supposedly aliens have been creating
these hybrids for ages
extracting semen from human men
stealing eggs from human women
with those basic building blocks
manufacturing human replications
that look and act like you and me.

Bob Boyd

I fully got that saying
marriage can change everything
best behaviors fade away
thoughts and words less guarded
the real person emerges
the hidden faults exposed
less of that person inhibited
hopefully no darkness in that soul
or evil in that spouse’s core.

Bob Boyd

Aside from loved ones, there are some people
I wish never died

listening to Art Bell’s Coast to Coast
old shows in YouTube videos

thinking about how I wish he could
have continued his shows forever

even though Coast to Coast continues
and Georgy Noory is a great replacement

I still bemoan that Art is no longer hosting
and died in 2018

but maybe he’s broadcasting in another world
where he’s living a better, blissful life forever.

Bob Boyd

Sometimes I wish the sexual impulse
wasn’t so prominent in my species

when I think of all the harmful excesses
rape, pedophilia, sexual harassment, etc

unwanted babies, couplings based
on sexual gratification devoid of love

men relentlessly tormented by the impulse
the need for release constant, unremitting

some have made irreversible mistakes
because of its control over them

if only the impulse could be less domineering
and only aroused for real love and procreation.

Bob Boyd

Crowds of people in Newcastle, England
roaming the streets tonight

some are lovely young women dressed alluringly
some are young men looking to meet them

one man is like a zombie, barely conscious, standing
on a sidewalk weaving like a reed in a gentle wind

he’s completely drugged out, reminds me of the people
on the streets of Kensington, Avenue, PA

a lost soul drowning in the sea of Newcastle people
the police approach him presumably to help him

hopefully in a hospital, not in a prison cell
which might be a chance to save this terribly lost soul.

Bob Boyd

I believe based on many NDE reports
from people who have been
clinically dead

that when you die, instead of being
in the ground
you are really above it

I don’t mean the body
you probably identify with when
embodied

I mean your consciousness,
that I believe separates from your body

when its lights go out, and your eyes
close to the impermanence of this world

I see this as the awakening of a lifetime
something to look forward to

rather than to fear and dread
and I see death not as a foe

but as a friend who ushers you out
of this world full of uncertainties and tears

into a better world free of the suffering
immediately or eventually full of unconditional love

and, if needed, a school for souls to evolve
to the higher more blissful, unconditional love

and if you have a morbid fear of death
I’d suggest reading about NDEs

or listening to them on YouTube
which may give you a more positive

take on transitioning
from this transitory existence

as well as some comfort if any of your loved
ones have already left this world

it worked for me, it might work for you.

Bob Boyd

On a website about the 10
most dangerous dog breeds

pit bulls were designated as number 1
that’s not by chance

it’s a breed involved in many attacks
and some deadly maulings

but here’s a redeeming news article:

a toddler who wandered far from her home
a frightening scenario

was followed and protected by
the family’s pit bull until she was found

nice to hear of some good PR
about a dog that usually when

in the news the breed is attacking
or killing people

it makes me wonder if
one day there will be a way

to turn all pit bulls into protectors
instead of predators.

Bob Boyd

Many people allegedly abducted by aliens
report they came through the walls of their homes

and supposedly they take the abductees
through the walls to their UFO laboratories

I find that mind bending, maybe you do too
if these abductions are legitimate

there’s more to these otherworldly accounts
aliens extracting men’s semen and women’s eggs

the reason, it is believed, is for the manufacturing
of human alien hybrids

one alleged abductee claimed he saw what looked
like humans upright in tall tubes

what to make of this I do not know
except the more you delve into these matters

the deeper you go into the rabbit hole.

Bob Boyd

I know what you’re thinking
I had to be slightly deranged
to watch a movie like that

but hold on, take heart
it has a 6.4 rating on the IMDB
which is decent, as you might know
and it’s not about blood and guts
or slicing and dicing
it’s a psychological thriller
about a guy whose eyes
have the right amount of crazy
to properly represent derangement

he’s a mama’s boy who goes crazy
when his mother dies

and when he’s about to be
making the beast with two backs
with a more than willing woman

his dead mother springs to life
comes back from the dead
in his deranged head
tells him the tramp is sinful
and he must kill her
which mama’s boy that he is
he dutifully does

fortunately, the movie spares you
the gore, but you know what
he’s done for mama

he has a stash of their corpses
in his house sitting at his kitchen table

I see an actress in the movie
named Miki Moore
who plays a waitress named Mary
she’s looking good back in 74
I find myself a bit taken with her
despite the fact the her of her in 74
is no longer the her of her today
if she’s even still living

in one scene her car has flat tires
flattened by the deranged son of
the dead mother to entrap her
when she finishes work

he talks her into accompanying him
to his house where he says he has
spare tires and will put them on
her car for free

she waits for him in his car outside
his house while he pretends he’s
going inside to get the tires

but he doesn’t come out
even when she beeps the horn on his car

exasperated, she gets out of his car
and starts toward his house of horrors

although I’m fully cognizant that it’s
just a movie

inside my head I’m saying no … no …
don’t go in … don’t go in ….

as if I could telepathically save her from
her predestined, godawful fate

I’m that caught up in it, and I don’t want
to see Mary suffer such an
awful end to her life

but, alas, neither I nor God
and all his angels and saints
can save her at that point
Mary doesn’t have a prayer

even with Revered Green in the
Walking in Memphis song
who usually can help
“when you haven’t got a prayer”

Mary is a doomed woman
and my imagined telepathic thoughts
cannot save her

from the ravages that await her in that hell house
so I try to remotely view and rewrite the script

to save my beloved Mary
but even that imaginary power doesn’t work

and she succumbs to the derangement of the
deranged principle in Deranged 1974

and Mary is just another corpse
thank God it’s all just a movie.

Bob Boyd

P.S. I showed this poem to a friend,
and she thought I was that caught up
in the movie. She didn’t realize
I was kidding around and exaggerating
for the sake of some fun with the poem.

I Have Become the Savior of Ladybugs

In the last three days, two ladybugs
fell into my fish tanks

gasping for air, unable to swim to safety
I, all 6’1” of ectomorph me

heard the cries, heeded the call
reacted to the impending doom

and like a god from above the aquariums
compared to the size of the ladybugs

swooped down with a piece of paper
like a lifeboat for the drowning

saved their lives before they drowned
in the deep

or ended up as a fish-food gourmet treats
and I could hear the fish in the tank

exclaim Hail Bob Boyd
the Savior of the Lady Bugs!

Bob Boyd

Editing genes in embryos
Inserting DNA
in sperms, and eggs
a controversial process
supposedly banned
but not quite
seems some are
doing or trying it
maybe eugenics
at its worst
designer babies
for the rich
to me, something
seems terribly
wrong with this
like scientists
acting like gods
creating unnatural
gene tweaked babies.

Bob Boyd