Category: Poetry

Houses, cities, farms and cows passing by,
the view from the train window.

Rivers, lakes, forests, and trees passing by,
the view from the train window.

The train derails, people screaming,
inside the train lives passing away.

Bob Boyd

A tree falls on a women in New York
and ends her life.

A bridge collapses in Baltimore
and 342 people die.

An elderly woman takes a walk
And a pitbull kills her.

A homeless man in Chicago finds a lottery ticket
And wins a million dollars.

Bob Boyd

When I was a child, I thought priests had a certain mystique,
a kind of holy aura about them.

How shocked I was when I grew older and read about
priests molesting children.

How outraged I was when I read about the Catholic Church
covering up those molestations.

How saddened I was for the good priests under clouds of suspicion,
people thinking they could be pedophiles too.

It was so unthinkable some priests with that certain mystique
could ever lose their holy auras and molest children.

Bob Boyd

Fred and Rose West raped their children,
tortured and murdered some of them.
Raped and killed many young women.
Without a doubt none of those victims
deserved such horrific deaths.

How can one account for such infamy
against innocent victims If there’s a
loving God residing in heaven?

Maybe you can believe the victims
had massive karmic debts accrued
from wicked past lives that had
to be paid off with their murders.

Maybe you can believe there’s no God,
so all these nefarious acts upon this
crime-ridden planet are random fates
with no karma or Divinity involved.

Christians often sing God is in control.
I cannot see God in control of such
depravity. Raping and killing one’s
children and murdering many
young and innocent women.

Maybe as some Christians believe
the Prince of Darkness Is the cause
of all the unending evil in this world.
I can see resolution in that belief.

But I cannot accept a Satan caused
The Wests to rape and kill wantonly.
Nor can I fathom why so much
evil runs rampant in so many lives.

Bob Boyd

She said never would she leave him.

She said never would she stop loving him.

She said she’d be his forever,
But that was the real never.

When her new love didn’t work out
And she wanted a second chance with him,

He said never.

Bob Boyd

Baby lions abandoned by mother
Nursed by German Shepard mother
At the nature park.

Separated when baby lions became
Too big and could hurt the dog.

Two years later, German Shepard mother
Runs to full grown lions in the park
Workers fear lions will attack and kill her.

Lions surprised by the dog’s bravery
Smell her and remember who she is
And the dog and the lions lay down together,
Friends and family forever.

Bob Boyd

He saw an ex wife in dreams two nights in a row.
In the first dream she wanted to make love.
In the second dream she asked him for his email twice
And was extremely sad when he refused her requests.
He could not do a rewind after the pain she caused him,
Despite all he had done for her and her disabled son.
He wondered if she was having nagging regrets
Bleeding into his otherwise peaceful dreams.

Bob Boyd

He grew to dislike the peopled world,
Too many crowds of noisy humans,
Too much motion and commotion.
He preferred the quiet, solitary life
Never a bothersome interruption.
Never any tensions or arguments.
Reading and writing many poems,
Passing his days in total tranquility.

Bob Boyd

The couple dismissed the foolish warnings
About the folklore named Forbidden Forest,
Which was only a peaceful, national park.
Supposedly if you went in. You wouldn’t get out
They knew others had hiked it without incident.
They knew they could trek it with comfortable ease.
They’d hiked more challenging trails many times.
They set out in August of nineteen seventy two
And ventured deep into the welcoming wilderness
And never returned from the Forbidden Forest.
Search parties ensued. Rangers, helicopters,
Trackers, search dogs, hundreds of volunteers.
All that was found of them were their hiking shoes.

Bob Boyd

The roars of dandelions cannot be heard,
Except by sensitives who hear hidden sounds:
Growing pains of freshly cut grass –
Seeds bursting through the ground –
Groans of trees withstanding furious winds –
Screams of dandelions beheaded by killer mowers.

Bob Boyd

His genetics predisposed him to mental illness,
Not his fault, nothing he could do to change his fate.
He often wondered why me? Why me?
Compared to him, others led wonderful lives,

He struggled with craziness in his twenties,
And refused to dull his mind with crazy pills.
He wrote beautiful and memorable poems.
At least despite the curse, he had some talent.

On a downcast day when his life lost meaning,
He shuffled into an abandoned farm building
With an armful of rope in his shaking hands.
He had decided to hang himself to death.

Before he secured the rope around his neck,
A starving, feral cat approached him meowing.
He scooped her up in his arms and petted her,
Took her home and fed her some nutritious food.

He credited her with saving his screwed up life,
That he made some life-saving changes in.
He followed his doctor’s well-intentioned advice
About taking medications that stabilized him.

After which he led a wonderful, productive life,
Writing and teaching poetry in a university,
And he never considered suicide again,
And he got married to a woman who loved his cat.

Bob Boyd

She was an all A’s student and a good girl.
As a child, she knew she wanted to be a teacher.

She went to a state teachers college and
Joined a sorority and drank too much.

She still maintained her 3.8 grade average
Despite her partying ways and binges.

She got a job as a junior high teacher
And won teacher of the year.

She married a fine man she met while in college
Who became an accountant in a prestigious firm.

They both drank and partied too much, but their
Alcohol excesses didn’t harm their careers.

Until she lost herself in an unseeming depravity
And began an affair with an eighth grade student.

The student’s parents found out. She lost her job,
And got put on a sex offender’s list and sits in jail.

Her criminal turn unexpected for the good girl she was.
Maybe the drinking impaired her brain and her morals.

Bob Boyd

Though born with the build of a bodybuilder,
The strength of a powerlifter and great athletic skills,
I tried to live a quiet life.

I never flaunted my powers or showed off my physique
But trouble always seemed to find me, as though
I was cursed by it.

Some tough guy wannabe would always challenge me to a fight.
I’d say no thank you, but the fool would push it too far,
often striking me, and I would knock him out.

In a bar in Tijuana, Mexico a tattooed Mexican guy walked up to me
And kicked me in the balls. When I recovered, I hit him so hard he
Died in that two-bit bar.

The Mexican authorities threw me in a dangerous Mexican jail, and
I learned the Mexican I had killed was part of a drug cartel, and the
Jail was full of cartel members who sought revenge.

Six of them jumped me and held me down and tortured me with the
Death of a thousand cuts, and my physical advantages became my
Woeful undoing in spite of my never looking for trouble, never
Starting any fights.

Bob Boyd

On a quiet walk in a peaceful park
Feeling lonely without a love,
Suddenly Bigfoot appeared before me
With a translucent bow and arrow
Aimed directly at me.
Stunned, shocked, I froze.

Bigfoot pulled back the bow string
And fired the translucent arrow
Directly into my racing heart
Without an entry or exit wound,
Without me being hurt or dead.
I can only say it was magical.

Instead of pain, I felt bliss
And the translucent arrow
Had vanished within me,
Leaving me feeling lovestruck.

A moment later you appeared.
When our blue eyes locked,
I knew it was true love,
And I’m forever grateful
To a cryptid cupid for you.

Bob Boyd

They looked so beautiful together,
A perfect couple if ever there was one.
The envy of everyone, living the life,
Looks, money, an ideal relationship.
Devout church goers every Sunday,
But all was strained in the physical
Part of their love. He wanted more.
She wanted less. He felt unfulfilled.
He found fulfillment with the pastor’s wife
Who wanted more than the pastor.
They ran away together to start a new life.
A year later the pastor and his ex married
And found perfect bedroom harmony.

Bob Boyd

How many times do we make the wrong,
Random choices
When seeking some romantic love
Only to see the mirage of happiness
Vanish in a tear-stained oasis of misery?
Lord knows I’ve done this many times,
And blamed bad luck and fate on the failures.
Now in the tarnished. golden years
Of my waning, love forsaken life,
I know the fault was mine with my
Blinded love and bad choices.

Bob Boyd

Saw you at the supermarket, didn’t want you to see me.
Went down frozen desserts aisle 7 to avoid meeting you.
Impulse bought some store brand Moose Tracks ice cream,
Thinking maybe some comfort food after I went home
Would ease the stress and the sorrow of seeing you.
Later from a distance spied you checking out,
Like you checked out of my life and abandoned me.
I’ll admit it was like a silly hide and seek game
I was playing to spare me the anguish of having
To run into you unexpectedly in that grocery store.
But after you left, I just didn’t want a sad encounter,
And I’m feeling better now eating my ice cream.

Bob Boyd

I killed at least 750,000 people in my country.
They needed to go. Like annoying insects to my regime
And just as insignificant. I did what had to be done
To rid my country of these repellent troublemakers.
I had to kill even those who didn’t commit any crimes,
But like annoying insects would one day be troublesome.
And I didn’t lose a wink of sleep when the purges were done.

Bob Boyd

Yippee, let’s go to war!
Send in the pawns
As we take the glory
And enjoy spoils
So what if thousands
Of pawns get killed
As long as the enemy
Doesn’t kill us
Safely secured in
Our elitist towers
Far from the fight
And we’ll sleep
Fine each night
Despite the weepings
Of thousands of pawns’
Grieving families

Bob Boyd

Tree leaves and small branches shaking
like crazy

Squirrels rummaging through them
for tree food

Amazing the dexterity of squirrels
as they go about their
daily business

And gracious of the leaves and branches
To support them

Bob Boyd