free verse poems some fiction, some nonfiction
Heartless, psychopathic, Man-Monsters tortured
helpless, sobbing, screaming, innocent women,
torturing them physically and mentally, until death
became their only release
from the unbearable, unending, agonies, cruelties,
inflections and torments of of the wicked monsters
posing as men who killed estimated 30 to 40,000 innocent women,
falsely accused of being witches –
by burning them to death.
Bob Boyd
Once his heart sang a thousand love songs
for her,
and his love was infinite and eternal
for her.
But that was when he believed in the
fairy tales,
that was when he was her prince
and she was his princess,
that was when he thought his dream
could come true,
and they would live happily
ever after.
But the princess turned the dream
into a nightmare;
she abandoned the prince and the
fairy tale,
and the prince wept a thousand
tears,
and his heart never sang love songs
again.
Bob Boyd
Proud honkers, wings flapping,
Beaks bobbing, surround us
Delicious crumbs of bread
I decorate the ground with
Ravenous bird mob vying for manna
Chorus of wings beating above me
Air vibrating magically
More regal Canadian Geese
Landing on makeshift air strip
Bread crumbed ground
Like San Fran International
Suddenly something surprising
Never happened before
An urgent avian beak
Tugging at my pant leg
Saying me, me, me
My turn for some bread.
Bob Boyd
Mary had a little lamb;
she also had a beau.
Her lamb followed her
everywhere. Her beau
was just so so
and jealous of Mary’s
friendship with her
faithful lamb.
After many fights with
her beau about her
friendship with the lamb,
Mary realized she had
to choose between
the lamb and the beau.
But when Mary was
at work baking a
plum pie
for a customer named
Jack Horner,
her beau kidnapped
her lamb, drove him
50 miles away to a
lamb slaughterhouse.
When Mary came
home, he told her
her lamb had
run way.
But what her beau
didn’t know
is Mary had had
her lamb
microchipped
and she saved
her lamb just in
time as he was
about to be
slaughtered.
She kicked her
beau out of her
house,
said I don’t need
no man,
and her and her
lamb
lived happily
ever after.
Bob Boyd
He sits in meditation
everything slows down
he feels the subtle energy
flowing from the base of
his spine to the crown of
his head
but this time it speeds up
brilliant white light
illuminates his mind
dramatically
he feels as if he is going
to merge with the cosmos
and leave everything
near and dear behind
but he goes with it and
his consciousness keeps
expanding until it is one
with the cosmos and he’s
also a small pinpoint
anchored in his body
he returns to normal
consciousness except now
the subtle energy flows
from the base of his spine
to the crown of his head
all through the waking
state and for the rest
of his life
Bob Boyd
Clouds wandered in azure skies
Rivers poured through towns and glens
Flowers swayed in windswept fields
Deer and elk frockled in fall forests
But in a time forgotten cemetery
Hidden among quiet oak trees
Defaced and abandoned
Not a soul stirred
Bob Boyd
Through fires, smoke, and the stench of bombs, the moon was war-torn and blue.
Alone, dazed, shell-shocked, grieving, my heart was too.
My life destroyed, my mind numbed, my hopes shattered.
They bombed the hell out of my beautiful city and killed my Anastasia,
who bled to death in my arms in seconds, while I was helpless to help her.
My sweet angel, my love, who had accepted my proposal of marriage
before the bombs fell and turned our city and our love into rubble.
My world a nightmare without her, a godforsaken, war-torn hell.
Crazed with rage, I marched into battle to avenge my sweet angel Anastasia.
With nothing left and my life over, like an insane Viking berserker, I’d lost my fears and become like a crazed beast.
The enemy troops fear dying, but I don’t; a noble death will reunite me with Anastasia.
Dying is all I have left. I’m empty inside, marching through
this dystopian nightmare of corpses and dead dreams.
The cadence of a thousand determined boots marching summons
me to war under a blue moon that’s as broken as I am.
Bombs explode around me, soldiers and civilians screaming and dying.
I fight the battle raging and fearless, indifferent to the horrors,
like a bulletproof immortal protected by the gods of war.
The battle ends; we win; still alive, I collapse on the battleground,
the stench of gunpowder permeating the smoky air,
blood running in rivulets in the streets.
And I cry countless tears for my sweet angel, my love, my wife… Anastasia.
Bob Boyd
He ponders how everything fades away,
time, material things, a woman’s looks.
Then he wonders if rocks are the
exception, if they erode into nothingness,
and it seems the planet will have to die
before that can happen.
And since rocks don’t appear to have
parents, or consummate, he wonders
how rocks are born.
He learns they come into being by
something called a rock cycle, and
to his amazement, they can live
millions to billions of years.
Then he wonders if rocks have any
sentience, and he learns about
The Panpsychic World, the belief
that consciousness is present in
all things akin to what the Mahayana
Buddhists call the Buddha nature
in all things, sentient and insentient.
He doesn’t know if that theory is
possible, and, right or wrong,
he doesn’t know if reincarnation is valid,
but imagine if reincarnation were true
and all things, sentient and insentient,
would eventually reach an afterlife state
of eternal bliss consciousness.
He likes the thought of that, the
equality and the promise of it.
Bob Boyd
Butterflies flutter in blooming sunflowers.
Squirrels tightrope on telephone wires.
Crows darken clear cloudless skies.
Blue Jays sound alarms in sycamore trees.
Rabbits seek refuge in nearby bushes.
Cars rumble along neighborhood roads.
My mind drifts to sweet, summer days
When our love was so incredibly alive.
Bob Boyd
The seven seas are deep,
but the depth of my love
is deeper for you.
The universe
is endless
as is my yearning
for you.
And If you could
add up all the stars
in all the galaxies
the total would not
come close to
all the love in
my heart for you.
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
There are mystics
who say love is the way
to total liberation,
becoming one with God and
getting off the wheel of rebirth,
living forever in eternal bliss.
I love the thought of that.
I’d love to be one with God
and get off the wheel of rebirth
and live forever in eternal bliss.
But, honestly, my love,
I’d rather stay on the wheel
and keep coming back to this life,
forever … in love with you.
Bob Boyd
(Where my Rosemary Goes) 1970. Over 18 million hits on YouTube. Lucky fellas.
Magical, mystical song, still popular with those who hear it.
And wow, that Rosemary—maybe ethereal, surely surreal—never forget her.
One in a million, a mysterious goddess among women.
Every young man’s dream, the greatest fantasy female ever; the song is so clever, it makes you believe Rosemary’s really a goddess. Maybe she was. Maybe she still is.
O Rosemary, beautiful, mind-blowing, ultimate; you should have been the love of my life.
O Rosemary, why did I never meet an amazing, magical, enchanting woman like you?
And like the song says, “I would have loved you endlessly.”
But woe upon woes, you never existed except in that beautiful, make-believe tribute song, which I will always love and never tire of, no matter how many times I hear it.
Listening to it now. Love grows….
Bob Boyd
When I die there’s a chance
I might dissolve into the cosmos.
I’ve been close to that place before,
but I chose not to enter it.
I was too frightened, fearing I’d lose
everything near and dear to me.
I felt all that would be obliterated
completely out of my world.
When I die, I’ll have no choice to
enter or not enter.
I believe I just might melt into the
eternal bliss consciousness.
Of course, I could be wrong and
what is me might just perish.
No more me, dead forever, rotting
in the cold ground.
If that is the case, I’m totally okay
with that real possibility.
No me, no problems, a kind of
imperturbable peace.
Bob Boyd
I used to be a Bear Whisperer, one of the best
I charmed bears from coast to coast
Just a well-timed whisper or two
And like lions lying down with lambs
Ferocious Bears became teddy bears.
My fame reached almost everywhere;
On radio and TV shows a regular guest.
Became a traveling international celeb
Even tamed exotic Scandinavian bears
In Siberia whispered to Russian ones.
And I never met a bear I couldn’t subdue
with a whisper or two until one near fatal day.
A Ursus americanus in the Rocky Mountains
Growled, charged, and like a wrestling pro
Clotheslined me to the hard mountain ground
Nearly made me his bear whispering dinner.
A park ranger’s warning shot and he sped.
Wasn’t a rookie near-fatal fault on my part.
My whispering technique should have worked.
But the bear was hearing impaired and
I couldn’t whisper sign language.
Bob Boyd
He’s outlived many people.
Friends and icons gone.
He yearns to join them,
To be freed of his old body.
Some say he’s delusional.
Death is just death.
No invisible worlds where
One is united with friends.
No gods. No angelic beings.
When you’re dead, you’re dead.
You and everything no more.
The doubters may be correct.
As insects are thought to
have no blissful heavens,
It may be the same for humans.
He’s completely okay with that.
If oblivion is what death offers,
He will have no awareness of it
When he takes his final breath.
Bob Boyd
The Hare Krishna’s say Krishnaloka is where you
Need to go after you die, if you can get there.
It takes a lot of chanting Hare Krishna’s to get there
And probably the right incarnation and the right karma.
Christians say heaven with Jesus is where you
Need to go after you die, if you can get there,
If you can avoid the snares of Satan’s hell
And probably pray enough and be good enough.
Muslims believe you go to a Muslim heaven
called jannah if you have lived righteously
according to their teachings.
Imagine if they were all right. Imagine if
There were multiple afterlife paradises
Depending on what religion or path you followed.
Imagine if the non-dualists were right, and
You had to get beyond all these dualities
And merge into the infinite Oneness.
Bob Boyd
When night cloaks Greensboro Park
During foreboding full moon phases
The park grows eerie and silent
Before the terrors happen
Werewolves emerge and howl
Aliens and cryptids scatter
Silent trees gasp and quiver
Flowers awaken and panic
Spring grass lays low and shudders
Sedate rocks moan and tremble
Teens getting drunk in the park
Scream and try to run away
All of them caught and slaughtered
All of them werewolf prey.
Bob Boyd
After he got bitten by a werewolf and became a raging moonlit
beast, in his fleeting moments of near normalcy, he believed
God would send him to hell despite becoming a killing monstrosity against his will.
He pondered this horrible thought incessantly, went to church every Sunday, prayed daily to have the supernatural curse expunged and save him from an earthly and unearthly hell.
None of his attempts at redemption and a release from his cyclical
howling slaughters healed him from his fears of hell, removed his damnable curse or altered his bloody full moon rampages.
In the end he decided to kill himself to save countless lives, hoping God would credit him for that and spare him eternal horrors in hell.
Bob Boyd
How did we come to this?
Done with each other?
What happened to that
falling in love elation,
the love of our lives,
the soulmates forever?
Were we fooling each other
initially, playing parts we
were not, hiding our authentic
selves? How did we go from
loving to hating each other?
You done with me.
Me done with you.
Why did true love
become so untrue?
Bob Boyd