Category: Poetry

she woke up to a new world
free from a going nowhere romance
with the wrong man
she had nothing in common with
and she embraced her new singledom
unfettered and free
with the wonders of a new love
awaiting her
with the excitement of finding
a better lover to be with

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

she tells him she
is dying of cancer
and she is leaving him
he asks her why and says
he wants to be there for her
her martyr mind made up
she walks out the door
because of her condition
he doesn’t make a fuss
a week later she is
with another guy
miraculously healed
of her fake cancer

bob boyd

wandering through life wondering what is the point of it all,
having some successes, having some failures
making the best of a situation i had no say in.
why was i thrust into this life with no sense of where I came from?
why am i going to be obliterated out of this tenuous life
without a say in how and when, non painful or extremely painful ends?
why must i endure all of these good times and these terrible times?
why does that rich guy have it all and I have little?
why was I essentially screwed and him essentially blessed?
what is the point of it all?

bob boyd

Though her cousin was personable and funny
She always sensed bad energy around him,
And she always avoided being with him.
Others didn’t seem to feel the bad energy.
Maybe she had a paranormal sixth sense.
Whatever she had, it was unfailing.
Five of her family members were poisoned to death
From sirloin steaks garnished with botulinum poison
That her evil cousin prepared for them
At a gather she had refused to attend,
Her sixth sense warning her to stay away.
When she warned her family members about attending,
They dismissed her superstitious and unfounded fears.

Bob Boyd

someone is stalking you
you cannot see him but you
will know him when you do
he is heartless, deceptive
and a master serial killer
and he is coming after you
you will know him when
you see him as he kills you
he carries a scythe and
he is going to use it on you

bob boyd

she was amazingly beautiful.
men gasped when they saw her in movies.
they dreamed of being with a woman
as incredibly beautiful as she was,
they knew she was impossibly inaccessible,
being a minted hollywood queen of queens.
despite her gasp-worthy, supernatural beauty,
she never found true lasting love.
married seven men in her prime years
divorced from every last one of them.
got older and her beauty waned
and never married or loved again.

bob boyd

relationships are not durable she said
she’d had three husbands and four kids
i took a chance on her anyway
desperate as i was for some love
i lasted seven years with her
maybe seven was an unlucky number for me
but i beat all her husbands who only lasted for four

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

she said she had to leave me
i said, “ok.”
“i expected more of you,” she said.
“i expected you would beg me to stay.”
i never begged her; it wasn’t me
to debase myself with begging.
she had a change of mind.
i didn’t.
she got mad. exited my apartment
and slammed the door
and found herself another guy.
i was good with that.
we’d run our course
on a going nowhere semi-romantic
highway to boredom and unhappiness.
it was better we got off the tour
of recuring heartaches and endless miseries.

bob boyd

she heard
the terrible keening
outside her bedroom window
frightened
scared to look outside
she summed enough courage
to peak out her window
into the dark, disturbing night
saw a female spirit
with red hair and
red eyes
from crying
staring at her
the next day
she was dead
banshee

bob boyd

riding in a train and seeing all of america
more enjoyable then flying the skies
get to see the scenery of many towns and cities
relaxing and no air pockets or flight fears
a joyful and fascinating alternative
and you even get sleeping accommodations
as the train keeps rolling across america
another pleasant experience in your life
maybe one day you will take a train to heaven

bob boyd

manny lost his limbs in a war
didn’t want to live anymore.
pondered his sad fate constantly
and obsessed about how he’d
take his worthless, wasted life.
decided a bullet to his brain
the perfect expedient solution.

a christian proselytizer knocked
on his apartment door
turned her away
didn’t want to hear
about any religion
even god couldn’t
give him back his legs.

but the knock made
him reassess religion,
made him ponder
god and salvation.

eventually that interlude
saved him from
killing himself and
he found a purpose
in following god and
became a minister
leading other disabled
people to a comforting
faithful religious life
with god as a soothing
friend in times of need.

bob boyd

he woke up in a coffin
dark and terrifying.
it wasn’t a nightmare;
it was horrifyingly
real.

claustrophobic
he panicked
and screamed
and screamed
till his lungs
almost burst.

he scratched
the coffin frantically
in his crazed,
screaming state
trying in vain
to open it.

but the weight
of six feet
of freshly
shoveled earth
kept the
coffin hermetically
sealed and
the horror
engulfed him.

he panicked gasping
for his dying breath
over and over,
his heart pumping
like an overworked
failing piston,
and he mercifully died
of a massive heart
attack.

and he found freedom
from the coffin
as his spirit rose
out of the coffin,
out of the grave
and into the light
of the afterlife.

bob boyd

he liked to fish as much as he could.
he’d caught trout, perch, bass and more.
he’d caught so many fish he couldn’t keep score.
but one day after thirty years of avid fishing
he had an epiphany. he realized he’d been
wantonly taking all those fish lives for sport
instead of fishing for sustenance and survival.
what he had done amounted to no more
than a wasteful, selfish fish killing spree,
and he never fished again after that.

bob boyd

i kept wondering what ticked
inside her oblong brain
what the hell made
her the way she was
half crazy, half normal,
her brain short-circuited
her synapses
intermittently transmitting
her brain cells
sometimes fried
sometimes overcooked
one day she loved me
next day she hated me
i gave it a good year
all i could take,
my mind baked
from her split personality
her unceasing drama
her love hate
thing for me
and her hot and cold
temperament

bob boyd

those bastards the greys took my amie away from me.
they came through the walls. they froze me like a statue
before I could try to stop them from taking my love away.
somehow they floated through the walls with her,
and she was gone like the moon in morning daylight.
i have a horrible feeling they will never bring her back.
i was told they might be turning her into a hybrid.
oh, god how that worries me, the thought of them
turning my amie forever into a human alien freak.
it’s worse there is nothing i can do about it.
no way i can follow their otherworldly trail.
all i can do is pray and pray and pray
and hope those aliens come back again
and bring my amie back to me.

bob boyd

though i marvel at the ferocity of werewolves
under foreboding full moon nights.
and i love their dramatic transformations
from mere men to mighty beasts,

i prefer the aesthetics of vampires,
those magnetic, elegant creatures of the night.
i like how they are so debonair
and how with a mesmerizing gaze,
they can seduce even the most resistant beauty.

werewolves lack class and refinement,
uncultured, they are just savage beasts.
instead of wooing a comely lady
with hypnotic charms and enticements
they choose to tear her body apart,
like desecrating a masterpiece work of art.

and if you are a werewolf reading this,
you will get no apologies from me.
you are what you are;
i am what i am –
your worst critic.

bob boyd

he met bree through a spirit box.
she said loving things to him,
though she was disembodied
they hit it off, and he fell in love.
little did he realize the talks
were just in his receptive head,
a case of auditory pareidolia.

bob boyd

falling off a tall building and
splattering on the pavement?

thrown bound and gagged
into a pit of poisonous spiders?

thrown bound and gagged
into a pit of poisonous snakes?

your life ended in the slow horrifying
grip of a giant python?

beaten senseless and thrown off a cruise ship
at night in shark infested water?

being slowly cut to death by a razor?

bound and burned out of this life in a raging fire?

devoured to death by starving hogs?

tied up and tossed into a pool
of bloodthirsty razor-toothed piranhas?

snatched off a shoreline by an alligator
and eaten chomp by chomp by it?

mauled to death by ferocious dogs?

savaged to death by hungry lions?

pray you don’t expire in any of these ways,
but if you had to, which one would you choose?

bob boyd