Category: Poetry

When years ago, I went for infusions at Moses Cone Cancer Center for a blood cancer I had

I always saw a Muslim woman there in a wheelchair, who had become emaciated by her cancer.

I felt bad for her because based on what the cancer had done to her, she seemed on her way out of this life.

She was about 50 years old, spoke no English, and,
understandably, always looked depressed and unhappy.

She was one of the many people I saw emaciated and in wheelchairs at the cancer center, and I never knew cancer could put people in wheelchairs, a sad sight to see.

The Muslim women and I always seemed to be seated
near each other, though we never had any conversations,
and I don’t think she was even aware of me.

One day she wasn’t at the cancer center when I was, and I never saw her after that.

I fear she was yet another casualty of cancer that puts many people in wheelchairs and takes many out of this life.

Bob Boyd

“I will always love you.”

“I will never leave you.”

“You are the love of my life.”

Sure those promises sound endearing and are wonderful to hear from
the lips of someone you have fallen seriously in love with.

They might even put you in a euphoric state … but, as you possibly
have learned from experience, those promises may not pan out.

As the excitement tones down and the days and years pass by
those promises may come to mean nothing when your love
doesn’t work out, as if those loving words were merely lies.

I experienced this once dramatically, when a much younger woman told me unlike with a woman my age, she could take care of me when I got old.

I didn’t want to ever need to be taken care of, but it was nice to hear
and partly what convinced me to gamble on love with a truly beautiful woman far younger than me.

As what was probably predictable, those words came to mean nothing when I got a little older, 62 to 70, and she left.

The good news was I didn’t need to be taken care of, and I was relieved when she left, as disappointing and uncaring as she had become.

Bob Boyd

The daughter of the son of Frankenstein, who inherited his father’s devilry, and wanted to be called just Frank instead of the notorious Frankenstein, which told me he was up to no good.

It told me his concealment was a cover for his intended accursed deeds that I knew were coming in the movie.

The daughter, a pretty woman, seemingly well bred, fends off an obnoxious would be Romeo, supposedly a friend of her father.

She pushes him away, and for foolish reasons tells him she’s going for a swim in the swimming pool in the patio.

This seems like a bad move to me. I am imagining it gave the obnoxious guy visions of her in a bathing suit and might have encouraged him more.

But instead of the guy persisting in his unwanted attentions, he offers her a drink, which she accepts.

Moments after she consumes the drink, she gets dizzy and feels sick, and says she has to go to her bedroom.

I’m thinking this piece of crap put a drug in her drink to rape her when she’s unconsciousness.

Then I remember this is a 50s movie and no way would a scene like
that be in it or even the hint of a woman being drugged and raped.

But the guy follows her to her bedroom, and she’s lying face down on her bed, and I’m wondering what the hell is going on here.

Then horror of horrors, she turns her face to him and OMG she’s become a freakin’ monster with a scary as hell face!

She starts walking toward the guy and he’s terrified, but it was his lucky day, she walks right past him, a wasted opportunity to give him a more than deserved comeuppance.

While she’s wandering the city in her monster morph, it’s revealed the guy put an experimental monster making drug in her drink.

I don’t know what happened to the daughter of the son of Frankenstein after that.

I haven’t finished the movie, but I know worse things are about to happen in the movie, as is always the case with anything associated with the Frankenstein brand.

Bob Boyd

Despite good governmental intentions
Dalits still treated as untouchables,
Despite great progress by some.
In statistics last year, 2023
Ten Dalit women and girls raped
Every day by upper caste men.
Oten gang raped and beaten,
Usually with impunity, no penalties,
Higher caste rapists usually go free
Ironically in most holy Mother India.
Despite many holy men and women
Few seem to give not even a damn
About the plight of the low caste Dalits,
Considered polluted and unworthy
Of even entering holy temples.
Imagine if you, your mother or your
Sister were born that way in India.

Bob Boyd

Nine-year old Indra Megwhal of India’s untouchable class beaten to death by upper-class privileged teacher, Chail Singh, 40.

His crime, touching an upper-class pot of water on July 20, 2022.

Six hospitals in 23 days couldn’t save this child’s precious life.

No word in two years about the murderer teacher’s fate, probably got off, privileged, arrogant upper class member.

A Dalit, aka untouchable, death, not a big thing, in the caste system.

Atrocities against Dalits continue in the Spiritual Cradle, that is not a cradle for them, the underclass also referred to as shit carriers.

I loathe India’s caste system that is discriminatory, cruel and inhumane to those at the bottom.

Bob Boyd

When I lived in Dallas decades ago in my youth,
a coworker of mine, who was good with the ladies,
always went to bars and picked up women for one night stands.

I didn’t drink and never went to bars
and couldn’t understand how a nice guy
like him could live such a hedonistic life
with seemingly no regard for women
he scored nearly every weekend night.

Though long before Dallas I was wild
as a cowboy in my youth going to many
bars, often getting crazy and drunk.

But I was never about empty, frivolous
one night stands. To me, just empty sex
compared to sex with love.

Even the idea of sex with a woman I didn’t
know for a night, seemed tawdry and
demeaning for both parties to me.

But my coworker, a fun and good guy,
thrived on it for reasons unknown to me.

And he probably lost count of all the women
he’d been with on those hot Dallas nights
while I stayed home womanless watching TV
during my brief stay in Dallas.

Bob Boyd

Saw a documentary years ago where
a guy and his Inuit wife
lived remotely off the grid in Alaska.
The guy wasn’t Inuit.
He wasn’t born into intuit skills
at surviving in the wilderness
and in the harshest of climates.

But he had good survival skills
and he was a seasoned hunter,
with plenty of grit, and he
hunted food for them.

And they lived totally off the land.

I admired their pioneering skills
and thought I wouldn’t mind living
like that with the right woman.

And though I’ve never owned a
gun, I’d certainly have one if I tried
to live remotely off grid

to provide defense against animal
and human predators.

And the closest I’ve come to living
off grid is washing and drying my
clothes without the use of electricity.

And no way in hell could I at any time
have been able to live off grid
remotely in Alaska.

Bob Boyd

She was a good Christian mother
with a good Christian husband,
she met in a church,
and they had two young children.

Her father was immensely wealthy.
She didn’t need to work.
She chose to become a teacher
to live a life of service to ohters
in this world.

Despite her dedication to teaching
children, her goodness, and her
devotion to God

she was raped and murdered on
a morning jog.

Nobody who knew her could
understand why God allowed that
to happen to her.

And I can’t understand that either
after seeing crime show after crime
show where alarming numbers of
women are raped and murdered.

I can only conclude we’re living in
a screwed up wicked world where
that can happen to so many women,

where no matter how religious
they are, no angels protect them.
No God comes to their aid.

This leaves me wondering why
there’s no Divine intervention for
all the women killed by wicked men.

And I can see why atheists believe
there is no God.

Bob Boyd

Had to get my driver’s license renewed 3 months ago.

Dread.

Didn’t know what to expect.

Studied the questions, just in case.

Knew I’d look like crap in the photo
the DMV would take of me.

But miracle of miracles, almost like
Moses parting the red sea,

I liked the photo they took of me

for the first time since I’ve had
those usually lousy DMV photos taken.

I looked years younger and far
better than I imagined I would.

Maybe I’m aging backwards.

Or, more likely,

maybe I need new glasses, lol.

Bob Boyd

Decades ago, maybe when I
was in my forties, I tried a dating
site.

I saw a photo of a quite attractive
brown-haired woman.

I was close to enamored by how
good she looked.

When I contacted her and she
agreed to meet, I felt blessed.

But when we met, she looked
nothing like her photo.

She looked at least twenty
years older and had lost her looks.

Her brown hair had turned gray
and she was no longer slender.

Out of politeness, I didn’t show
my displeasure

or say anything about how she
didn’t look at all like her photo.

Inwardly I was disappointed by
her deception

and after a difficult evening of
acting like everything was okay

I was so relieved when the deception
was over.

Bob Boyd

greys
nordics
reptilians
insectoids

not long ago
discussed at governmental
level

discussed by many
for decades

the question is
is that all true

after looking into
these matters
for about a year

i think it’s plausible
there’s something
to it

bob boyd

Sometimes I see a woman in dreams, real it seems.
I can’t compel my mind to tell if from heaven or hell.
Maybe repressed love manifesting in dreams above.
Or deceptive blood-sucking succubus, a seduction lie.
Perhaps some future love hovering like a waiting dove.
Maybe a soulmate to meet me at the eternal gate.
It’s all a nighttime mystery to me;
What and why impossible to see.

Bob Boyd

Some people call Bigfoot Tree Peeker.
I don’t get that — big as he is, bad as he looks
Why would he need to hide and peek at anybody?
Okay, okay, I see your irrefutable point;
I see why I’m absolutely wrong
He’s seen the movie King Kong.

Bob Boyd

The days and nights whirl away.
The months and years slip by.
It all happens as if suddenly,
as you get closer to the grave.

Bob Boyd

Abracadabra!
Nature’s magic
wand waving
2 guppies
become a twenty
eventually thousands

Prolific fish
procreation kings
and queens

Some declare
God makes no mistakes

But are so many babies
multiplying ad infinitum
necessary

Or is this
offspring overstock
necessary staples
for bigger fish
survival

If so
woe to
baby guppies

Bob Boyd

I’ve watched many crime shows.
I like the way the police put together
the pieces and solve the crimes.
I find their methods fascinating.
But I cannot watch crime shows
about serial killers.
I find it too disturbing hearing
about how they tortured and
murdered their victims – usually
women, sometimes children.
I don’t like seeing them given
any coverage for their demonic
infamy and all the innocent
people they savagely slaughter.
To me it’s close to an unintended
glorification of the worst
monsters among men.

Bob Boyd

dreamed about a woman last night
attractive, playful, teasingly fun
a fun dream that ended too soon

dreams about women are the
closest I’ve come to being with
a woman in over ten years now,
the longest I’ve ever been without
a woman in my life –

mostly by design

mostly by not caring to play
any games or suffer any heartaches

mostly because I didn’t want to
be with younger women who
flirted with me when I was in
the work force over a year ago,
that some old men might have
considered gifts from God

but with age and acquired wisdom
I see the futility of
relationships with women
decades younger than me
that I’m old enough to be
a grandfather to

perhaps these dreams of women
are a subconscious need manifesting
itself in my dreams once in a while

perhaps in those dreams the
repressed romantic in me is
aimlessly seeking love

Bob Boyd

Daily I hear them
the symphony of birds singing
different tones, different pitches
so many melodic songs I don’t
know the meaning of

I suspect it’s all about mating
lonely birds like lonely people
seeking a love and perhaps
driven by nature to procreate
and advance their species
just as human seem driven
with millions and millions of
us to advance our species.

Someday I plan to find out
which birds sing which songs
and maybe find out precisely
what the different songs mean
beyond simply mating calls
if they sing about other matters .

Bob Boyd

When I lived in the Philippines superstitions abounded about the mysterious
Siquijor Island, a province of the Philippines.

Some believed if you visited there, you might never come back and never be found.

And shape-shifting vampiric creatures called aswang roamed there seeking human prey. If you see one, you’re dead.

Cursed belette trees inhabit the island, which are said to be the dwelling place for supernatural beings, like the tikbalangs, half-horse, half-human creatures who like to cause travelers to get lost.

And evil witches, God forbid if you run into one of them!

Fireflies populated the island too, thought to be the souls of dead young women.

What is true about about Siquijor is many respected spiritual healers live there
and many seek their help for all manner of medical complaints.

And the island just might be a bit mystical.

Bob Boyd

Before my four year stint in the Philippines,
when I was in my mid sixties,
I used to see a beautiful elderly woman, who appeared
to be in her early seventies,
taking walks alone not far from where I worked.

She was always dressed in fashionable dresses and
had beautiful gray hair she wore in a long wavy hair style.

She was easily one of the most beautiful elderly
women I had ever seen.

I never saw her with anyone. I believed
she had a husband who preceded her in death,
and that her long walks were not only for exercise
but also to ease her grief over losing him.

I never saw her on her walks when I retired from
the Philippines and lived near where she walked.

I thought she had perished and felt a little sad that
she had died.

But a few months ago, eleven years later, I saw her
taking a walk.

Her hair had grayed more and become as if frayed
by age; she had put on weight, and looked close to
dying.

I was sad to see her in such a state, but then I felt that
if what I had believed about her had been correct, her
having a husband that died before her,

she would be young again and reunited with him in
the afterlife and be happier than she ever could
have been in this impermanent life.

Bob Boyd