Some of My Favorite Poems I’ve Written

Dear Ruth

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Sitting here remembering you
Your pretty long brown hair
Your captivating sunshine smile
That lit up lives everywhere
And attracted me to you

I’m remember all those years
We spent together in love
And how everyone loved you
Even my mother loved you
Pity it didn’t work out

Decades later I saw you died
In an online obituary
Saddened my heart you died young
I figured it was the smoking

Sometimes I wonder where you are
And how you are in the afterlife
If you can feel and read this poem
I’m so sorry you didn’t live a long life

You deserved the best in all ways
And should have had longer days
Filled with sun, fun and a truer love
Never thought you’d be gone before me

And consider this poem like a prayer
For you with the sincerest hope
You are living a higher better life
Than you ever could of here

Bob Boyd

Resurrection

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A hard-bitten bar fighter,
He got old and began losing fights,
A hardcore street thug,
His last fight left him
Clinically dead on a city street.
He felt his soul leave his body
And descend to Hell.
He saw demons and the pit.
He screamed and screamed,
As the doctors brought
His body back to life.
He swore he’d change
Got religion, became a preacher,
Died with a Bible in his hand
And escaped the fires of Hell.

Bob Boyd

Love Beyond the Grave

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He saw her photo in the news
35 and dead
In an auto accident
Something about her
Captured his heart
A nameless
Undefinable thing
He found the location of her grave
Visited her with flowers
He placed at her grave
Felt compelled to keep visiting her grave
It was an afterlife infatuation
That grew and grew and grew
Two months later she began appearing in his dreams
Every night a dream date
Now he knows for sure
He’ll be with her when he dies

Bob Boyd

Soulmates

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I dreamed we rode giant butterflies in rapturous delight
Through radiant astral planes with luminous blue skies,
Through glittering gold clouds that showered us with bliss.

Choirs of angels heralded us with voices more melodious
Than any we’d ever heard in the denser earth plane.

When we landed in a meadow and dismounted
Translucent flowers blossomed upon seeing us
Transmitting silent blessings in honor of our love
Beyond all loves, soulmates forever in eternity.

Bob Boyd

Hail Caesar Bob!

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I step out of the apartment building I live in.
Giant bees swarm and buzz around me
As if I’m an intruder in their territory.
I see two of them mating on a step
Unconcerned about who is watching.
What the hell, have they no modesty?
Chidingly, jokingly I say, “Get a room.”

The other bees fly nearer paying no attention
To the indecent couple publicly copulating.
They buzz louder, fly closer to me,
Trying to intimidate me with their bluster.
Do they not know they are the intruders
Upon the previous bee-free doorway?

You might be wondering why I’m not freaking out,
Frightened about getting stung by those angry bees
flying like bomber planes around me.
It’s because I’m the apex predator here.
They don’t sting, and with a few sprays
I could take them all out like bomber planes
tail spinning to the ground in flames.

But like the Hindu Jains, today
I’m practicing ahimsa (nonviolence).
And despite their frenzied bravado,
Their madly buzzing fake attacks
Their puny intimidation attempts,
Like a deified, Roman emperor
In the stands of a coliseum arena
Making a decision to kill or spare
A defeated gladiator with
a sword poised at his head,
I give them a thumb up and
Spare their annoying lives.
Hail Caesar Bob!

Bob Boyd

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Missing 411

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A full moon rises tonight. Oh God how that worries me.
My body sweats profusely, my heart beats louder;
I feel the changes in my body from mild man to terrifying beast,
Cracking sounds and hair sprouting all over me.
My canines turning into fangs, my height increasing to ten feet.
I feel inhumanly strong and invincibly unstoppable.
A howl I cannot suppress bursts out of my enlarged lungs
Before I run into the night seeking my frightened prey.
And if you don’t believe werewolves are real,
Pray you never see me on a full moon night.
You ask, “How come I’m not in the news?”
Because I’m a reluctant government experiment since 1973
Government contractors clean up the bloody messes
And keep my hundreds of kills out of the news,
No traces of the carnage, bodies never found.
Ever hear of Missing 411? Google it and you will see.

Bob Boyd

Eminent Domain

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Behold one of the darkest arts of
Government: Eminent Domain
Reminiscent of stolen Native American lands
Some cases underpaid for the seizures
Some cases of removals at gunpoint
How is it in what some politicians claim
is the greatest country in the world
we have a government perpetrating
intrusive, insensitive land grabs
And while I’m on this insidious topic,
Here’s what eminent means
“Well-known and respected, especially
for achievement in a particular field.”
I see nothing respectful
I see no achievement
I see only a particular field of stolen lands
watered with the tears of people
those lands were seized from
I see a disgraceful well-known
diabolical practice by a government
in cases not by the people but
against the people
I see broken hearts of families
who owned lands for generations
robbed regardless of forced
compensations
Eminent Domain, a
Goddamn shame.

Bob Boyd

A Confused Mix

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Creation is a confused mix to me.
Dinosaurs before humans?
And dinosaurs had to die,
and humans 66 million years
later? Why, why, why?

Why not humans first omitting
what might have been an impressive
but earthly mistake? Dinos, a
gargantuan mistake erased and
replaced with fresh start primitive
grunting homo sapiens?

With untold numbers and species
of dinos canceled like Creator’s
temporary humongous Tonka Toys,
boring compared to more bells and
whistles humans with greater growth
potential.

Yet still less fun weird prehistoric-
looking stuff floating around ocean’s floor.
and boring single-celled Protozoa.
What’s the point of the single-celled?
And some can mess with the health
of humans. Think about it. What the
hell’s the point of that and them?

And damn Sam illiterate humans
like Cro-Magnons before Christ
became the only ticket to escape
this confused mix and not go
somewhere worse when expired.
Were the Cro-Magnons divinely
screwed evaporating into
nothingness with the dinos?

Or too early born fated to reincarnate
exhaustively over and over and over
endless roulette wheel of coming and
going spins until by luck or merit they
win the prize of saving grace?

Maybe Buddha and Krishna had it
right? Dinos, humans, and everything
in the weird mix reincarnating until enough
evolved rebirth free super liberated humans
like Buddha, Krishna, and Christ. Maybe
all a bunch of random hooey. Out of
nothing back into nothing, and
that’s the wrap.

Bob Boyd

Full Moon Night Fights

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Like a werewolf, Phil went crazy
on full moon nights seeking fights
he prowled bars hard eying male patrons
goading them into anything goes fist fights,
which he always won, as if the powered up
moonbeams made him unstoppable, like a
lycanthropic creature of the night.

Foolishly, a humped back old man,
bent with age, picked a fight with Phil,
who told the foolish, probably drunk,
geezer he’d get killed fighting him,
a younger, stronger man who never lost
a fight. The old man insanely confident
or with a death wish, called Phil a
lowlife coward. With that insult, Phil
had no choice but to set the old fogey
straight and show him the folly of
fighting an unbeatable foe half his age.

The cocky old man set the terms; in the
alley behind the bar they were to fight
under the moon’s full bright light.
Seconds after they strode into the
alley, an unmanly scream shrieked
through the night, preceding an eerie
silence. Then an unholy howl sounding like
something out of hell, echoed in
the alley and shattered the silence,
terrifying all who heard it. And Phil
never made it out of that alley,
his corpse bloodied and in shreds.

Bob Boyd

Teenagers Working Out In 1962

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New 200 lbs set of weights
A barn to work out in
Skinny kids pumping up
Presses, curls, squats
Eating soy protein pills
Big muscles guaranteed
Getting stronger
Working out longer
To look like Steve Reeves
Played Hercules in movies
Had the envied physique
Only had to follow
Steve’s workout routine
To get as big and as
Muscular as him
We didn’t know about
Genetics back then.

Bob Boyd

Satguru

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Monklike saffron robed
seated full lotus position
sandalwood incense steaming
after pranayamas
and mantra chants
contemplating cosmos
seeking nirvana
basking in transcendental
bliss and peace profound
alleged saint among saints
sinless, renown Satguru
except for hidden dalliances
with adoring female disciples
obeying his every utterance
catering to his every whim
conned into believing tawdry
tantra sex sessions erase
mountains of bad karma
guarantee full liberation
from the wheel of rebirth
in their lifetimes.

Bob Boyd

A Psychopathic Murderer

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The many days a psychopathic murderer
spent time in solitary imaging he
was floating on a boat to exotic shores
sailed him away from the deleterious effects
of the dark and dank Isolation.

But his sailing didn’t erase his crime
of murder he got away with in 1983
in a small city, Woburn, Massachusetts,
under the cover of a moonless night
when he slew a solid citizen, a do the
right thing young man, in an impending case
against a quasi hometown gang of
Mafia wannabes accused of grand theft.

During that time, a better killer than
a thief, the psychopath got five years
in prison for a botched armed robbery
and did time in solitary for bludgeoning
another prisoner’s face in, with a
makeshift iron club.

Ironically a day after he was released
from prison, under the cover
of a moonless night, an angry-eyed
mother of the young man he killed
blew his life away in a vengeful shotgun
blast in downtown Woburn, Massachusetts.

Surprisingly, perhaps justifiably,
never a suspect in the homicide,
not even a person of interest
a sunday school teacher,
prim and proper wife of a judge,
sailed away scot free and uncharged.

Bob Boyd

Uncertainty

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Ever think of how uncertain your life is?
Consider how in a millisecond it could end
The death strike of a deadly medical condition that kills you slowly, cruelly
A drug infested, cell phone talking driver mows you down crossing a street
A roaring tornado rips up your home and kills you in a deadly whirl
A fanatical death wish tyrant drops a nuke on your country and ends you
A giant asteroid obliterates your city, you, and possibly the human race
The earth unexpectedly, implausibly, spins out of orbit canceling everything
Maybe the hedonists have the right idea, live for today
Party away your fears in mindless nights, don’t think about tomorrows
Or the uncertainty of this fragile existence and your tenuous, temporary life.

Bob Boyd

The Infamous Torsaker, Sweden Witch Trials 1675

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The largest witch trials in Sweden by Godly men,
1675 in Torsaker Sweden. Thanks to the dark arts
of these zealous men of God 71 innocent Swedes,
65 women, 6 men accused of witchcraft.

But the fun had just begun. Shortly after the trail the 71
beheaded and burned on the stake, a banner day for
the Lord’s work in the twisted minds of more
Satanic than Godly men, more sadistic than holy.

A blight upon religion to be sure. No angels, no saints, no infinite
God intervened. The falsely accused went up in the fiery smoke,
headless and betrayed by the leaders of their flocks, a fine day
for dark forces, if they exist.

Were I the Supreme Being back then, I would have smote the
religious desecrators of the faith with a thousand lightning bolts
and maybe some locusts and plagues just to smite them more.
And I would have welcomed the 71 into heaven evermore.

Bob Boyd

When The Love of My Life Died at Age 18

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My love, sweet Marella, died in 1962; a savage colon cancer took her out.
Only 18, just beginning life to be my forever wife ended.
The day she died I think subconsciously I wanted to drink myself to death.

That mournful night I drank beer, whisky, wine, and other drinks I can’t remember.
I passed out, when I don’t know, woke up in the Emergency Room and was doing okay under the critical circumstances until I remembered Marella was dead.

Perhaps because I was little more than a lamenting, lifeless corpse full of booze crying uncontrollable tears, I died of a broken heart when my ticker stopped ticking and I was clinically dead.

Above my body watching doctors frantically trying to save me, I didn’t want to go back to my devastated life without Marella, my sweet Marella.

As if she read my thoughts, Marella appeared before me in spirit, dressed in a white glowing gown looking more beautiful and more radiant than she ever did on earth.
Transmitting thoughts, reading each others minds, talking was impossible, we swore a love allegiance, and Marella told me as surely as the stars lit up the night sky we’d be together again and forever.

Cruelly, at that glorious, unforgettable moment I was slammed back into my body, a doctor pounding paddles on my chest, the feel of my body heavy and uncomfortable after being in my light, ethereal body.

Now each night I meet Marella in dreams, and a dream wife is good enough for me, my love for her strong enough to wait until I really die and I’m reunited with my sweet Marella forever.

Bob Boyd

A Quick And Easy Death

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All I want is a quick and easy death.

Not a protracted nursing home death
where I’d probably get dementia
before I died years later with
an obliterated mind and wasted body.

Not a lingering painful death
in chronic pain for months or years.

Not a miserable drawn-out death
where I’m supposed to be dead
in months but it drags on for years.

Not an expensive death that
costs me thousands before I die
and creditors come after me
on my deathbed.

Not a brought back to live death
that might bring me back worse
then when I was supposed to
be permanently dead.

Not a dramatic ICU death
with all that noise,
machinery and clamor or
a doctor slamming those
paddles on my chest
merely delaying my death.

I want a death like a massive
dead-in-a-second heart attack,
too quick for pain or fear
too quick for being helpless
and aware of the indignity
of being stuffed
in an ambulance.

Too quick for the painful
realization that my once
healthy body is doomed to
unhealthiness for the remainder
of my waning life ….
under the harsh lights and
frenzied ministrations
in the ER or the ICU.