They seemed like
normal young men,
the Benton brothers

church going, charitable,
and affable

they fooled everyone
when it was discovered

they earned their living
secretly

digging up the dead
illegally obtaining
cadavers

for doctors and
medical schools
in the 1800s

but after 10 years
their employment
ended

when the father
of a deceased daughter
whose body they dug up
and sold to a medical
college

shot them both dead

Bob Boyd

This poem is fictional. As I was thinking about which way it would turn out, it occurred to me that a relative of one of the people whose body the grave robbers had desecrated, could seek lethal revenge.

I had struggled to find an apartment
to rent in a city during the start
of a college season

After a frustrating and
relentless search with
few available apartments

I finally found one that
I rented from two lovely women
who were lesbians

when my ex saw the apartment
it wasn’t good enough for her
and she didn’t like the idea
of renting from lesbians

she left pissed off and went
back to live with her parents

I called her twice to try to
work things out

but each time her mother
claimed she wasn’t home

I said to her mother, “well
I guess that’s that,” and
that was the end of a
quarrelsome relationship.

Bob Boyd

This is based on a true story. It shows how a single flare up sometimes can end a relationship, especially when the man had tried his utmost to find an apartment at a time when apartments were scarce only to have his girlfriend make a scene about it. Worse, for three days she refused to answer his calls until, exasperated and angry, he said, screw it, and the relationship was over.

I knew it was risky
getting involved with her

but damn! she was so hot
I couldn’t help myself

I should have been more
circumspect

I should have been far
wiser

and I paid a high price
for my indiscretion

my wallet and my
beloved red Volkswagen convertible –

stolen

Bob Boyd

This is a Fiction piece, but such things happen in this unpredictable world, and many have gotten seduced by beauty and burned by it. Worse, people can’t always see what they are getting into in the throes of first loves or infatuations. The absolute worst is when this happens to a woman with a charmer who turns out to be an abuser.

Jennifer was a Wiccan
I was a believer in Christ
but somehow we
made our love work

we met in the middle
of a crossroad
of mutual respect
and love

until an evil warlock
used his dark arts
to steal Jennifer
away from me

and though I prayed
hundreds of prayers
petitioned scores
of saints

sought the powers of
white magic wiccans
exorcists and healers

I never got Jennifer back

Bob Boyd

Another fiction piece that started as a kernel of an idea and blossomed into a story with an unhappy ending, and the good guy left hanging unable to get his love back. It reminded me of cases where a nice girl leaves a good guy for a bad boy, sometimes with no end of suffering for her, and the nice guy vowing to treat women like shit instead of like the nice guy he is. And probably won’t be able to be an SOB to a woman ever.

I had a job once hauling building
foundation forms

I liked the exercise
but it wasn’t the right job for me

I worked some construction too
but that was a worse fit

the worse fit of all was stocking
shelves in a grocery store

too mindlessly repetitive for me
found zero satisfaction it in

worked once part time as an
office building cleaner

wasn’t the right fit for me
either but I liked the work

the best fit for me
that took fifty years to find out

was working helping others

Bob Boyd

This poem is about my struggles to find a job that was the right fit for me, and sometimes, perhaps often, getting stop gap jobs until I found the right fit. I didn’t find that right fit until age 50. I was working in retail jewelry and came to a crossroads where I felt compelled to find a job where I could make a difference in this world by helping people for a living.

With no experience or education in Human Services, I got a state job as a Veteran’s Rep that I later parlayed into a job with a nonprofit helping the elderly for a living. And that was the perfect fit, which I worked at for over 20 years until I retired.

The sex was wonderful
he couldn’t get enough
of it

she couldn’t either
but it wasn’t sufficient

to keep their marriage
and them together

she had become
an incurable extrovert

had to be out with her
girlfriends nearly every night

leaving him alone at home
lonelier and lonelier

until despite the great sex
and the once good times
he had to leave her

but decades later
once in a while he remembers

how good the lovemaking was
and how great their love was

until she became
so much of an extrovert
that she neglected him
night after night

and wanted him back
when he left her
forever

Bob Boyd

I’m sure this is a common tale that many others have experienced. Despite when the bloom is on the rose and everything is heavenly, and the sex is mind-blowing, when things start to go south even the best sex in the world is not the glue that holds a ill fated relationship together.

Mikey ignored the rumors
that the old lady

who lived in the
old Gothic house
secluded on the
edge of a forest

was a witch

though he had
to admit

she looked like one

his friends dared him
to throw a rock
though one of

the windows in her house

not one to chicken out
he snuck up on
the old lady’s house

in the dark of night
when all the lights
were out in her house

and he heaved a rock
through a second floor
window
and sprinted away
so he wouldn’t
get caught

but that night in
his bed
he saw and heard
the old lady

cackling like a witch
in a nightmare …

right before his body
exploded in flames

and smoldering burnt ashes
were
his only remains

Bob Boyd

Sometimes I like writing dark poems. I loved horror movies when I was far younger. But I didn’t like the slasher movies or the gore-fests. Hammer Films was my favorite with real stories that had a lot of substance and good scares. I rarely watch movies nowadays, but I like writing horror-like poems sometimes. Sometimes with humor or absurdities in them.

He grew older
and older
and kept
wrinkling away

lost his muscle mass
his youthful strength
his stallion virility

in his muscled up youth
he never
believed he’d get
weak and scrawny
one day

but at least he
kept working out

without the pump
without the gains

he had in his muscular
younger years

he resigned himself
to the muscle
and strength losses

by knowing soon
he’d die
and believing
in the afterlife

he’d be strong
and muscled up
again

Bob Boyd

This is all me. Man, how I hate how age has reduced the muscle mass that I used to have. I wasn’t bodybuilder muscled up being an ectomorph. But I had decent muscles for my body frame without resorting to chemicals. And I didn’t wear clothes to try accentuate my modest muscularity compared to that of the mesomorphs.

And as a slender guy in regular clothes it wasn’t obvious I worked out. Now as an old man who still works out but with bands and dumbbells for curls, I don’t look like I ever worked out, lol. But, despite age reducing my muscles and me making no gains anymore, I still benefit immensely from working out and feel more alive and mellowed out.

he thinks or says things
like wow
nice legs

holy moly she’s
so hot

and I wonder if
the female bettle

has beauty enhancements
like perfumes and
lipsticks

or if unlike human
females

she’s born with those
enhancements installed

and has no need to
improve upon her
natural beauty

Bob Boyd

I’m kidding around here. I write poems about many things, even insects sometimes. And I lie giving insects human like behaviors in some of my poems about them. For example:

Stink Bug on My Computer

A stink bug just flew on my computer screen.
though they’re grotesque looking, I like them.
but I must admit the first time I saw one
It looked so bizarre it startled me,
wondering if it was harmful and would sting or bite.

Rarely had I seen a weirder looking bug.
It had kind of a threatening don’t touch me look.
We don’t have them where I’m originally from,
just outside of Boston, MA in the milder burbs.

Despite not knowing if it was harmful,
I couldn’t kill it, just coaxed it onto a tissue
and walked it outside my apartment
into the freedom of a warm summer’s night.

After I learned stink bugs were harmless,
I grew to like them, as I like the one
that just soared off my computer, tiny wings flapping,
airborne for a few seconds in lamp lit skies,
and it landed on a runway somewhere behind me.
In a little while he might land on me.

Maybe he’ll sit on my shoulder like a best pal
and watch YouTube videos with me and listen to 30s music
and tearfully tell me how he can’t meet any female stink bugs online.
I’ll say I feel your pain, been there with female women. Never going back.

Maybe after he pours out his love life miseries
and cries for a while on my supportive shoulder,
I’ll tell him he’s a handsome enough stink bug
to find a decent and beautiful female stink bug
who will be his true love and treat him like a prince among stink bugs.

And maybe I’ll adopt him as an exotic pet.
I wouldn’t tether him to a restraining leash
or stick him in a four-sided oppressive aquarium,
or imprison him in a soul crushing, miniature cage;
that is if stink bugs have souls, which I imagine they do.

But mercy me I don’t know what I’d feed him,
and I doubt I’d find stink bug food at PetSmart.
I could probably find him some food on Amazon,
hopefully with a five gold stars rating
and next day shipping between 4 and 8 am.

I hate that it has such an undignified, unfitting name.
I would have jazzed the name up with some Latin,
like Incredibilis Insectum or maybe something more relatable
like Super Cool Bug or Bug That Only Stinks If You Mess With It.

And by the way, stink bugs only stink If you
harm or try to crush them to death,
as if harmed or dead they get the final say.

Bob Boyd

Some people aren’t happy
unless they’re making
trouble for others

they’re psychology has
to be terminally
screwed up

they seem to confuse
being happy with

being unhappy

piling woe upon woe
upon themselves

but mostly on others

and God forbid if ever
you get tangled up

with one of them

pray you can get out of
their sticky webs

before you can dragged
into more

trouble and sorrows
than you ever

could have imagined.

Bob Boyd

This poem is about people who have annoyed the hell out of me and others. People who seem to live and breathe to make trouble, as if that were the sole purpose of their lives.

I even saw/experience this with an elderly couple me and my agency tried to help. No matter how hard you tried to help them it was never appreciated, and they always were trouble with every agency they sought help from. And they badmouthed all the agencies that tried to help them.

My thinking for them was even if you’re a miserable, mean and trouble-making, SOB, at least fake being halfway decent when you come to an agency seeking help.

So nice to travel by train,
compared to by plane,

seeing the scenary
leisurely instead of

high in the sky
with barely a view.

No airpockets, no fears
of falling from
the sky.

I’ll take traveling
by train

over by plane

any day.

Bob Boyd

Alas, this used to be my dream, traveling cross country in a train, sleeping on it over night, and dining in it on the way. The best would be watching the scenery passing by all the way across the U S of A.

I won’t do this because at my age I now longer desire to travel, and I don’t have the money for a cross country trip, and I won’t use my savings. And if I had the money, I wouldn’t spend it on a train trip. But it was a nice enough dream to write a short poem about.

Were I to see directly
and in person

the way
chickens are
slaughtered

I’d probably
become a

vegetarian.

But I’ll never
see that
undoubtedly

terrible sight

because I
like eating

chicken too much.

Bob Boyd

At first

the petals
are closed

but ever so
gradually

they softly begin
to open

and once they
are fully opened

in full nonresistant
blooming glory

a season of
ecstasies.

Bob Boyd

after years of abductions
and probes

and attempts to rewire
and rehab

the human race

the aliens packed up
their belongings

and abandoned
their bases

in the mountains
under the ground

and deep in the sea

they concluded the
human race

was impossible
to warbreak

and abandoning
all hope

they flew back
to their planets

and left the
human race to

its doomsday fate

Bob Boyd

they were married
for seven years

attended church
together

didn’t have children
but had six dogs

they rescued from
an animal shelter

to friends and
neighbors

they were a happy
couple

and looked perfect
together

both exceptionally
attractive

but unknown to
those who knew
them

they were cheating
on each other

and in their unseen
future

one would murder
the other

Bob Boyd

The great mountain began crumbling.
Mud slides began sliding.
A roar issued out of the mounatin.
Trees, boulders, rocks roll in the
river of the great mountain’s roar.
In the midst of all that chaos
with humans safe on high ground,
a tiny dog runs in front of it all
barely ahead of the falling death.
Maybe he escaped with his life
but nobody knows for sure.

Bob Boyd

At the
pet store
he spied
a beautiful
fancy goldfish
staring at him,
like it was
beckoning him
to buy it.

Even though he
already had
two fancies,

he bought the
compelling,
fancy goldfish
and placed it
into his
40 gallon tank
with his two
fancy goldfish.

The next
morning one of
his two fancies
was dead,

which seemed
premature
to him, but
he shrugged
it off, thinking
sometimes
fish and
people die
unexpectedly.

A day later,
the other
fancy died.

He checked the
water in the tank;

it was okay.

He checked to
see if any
fish diseases
were in the tank.

None.

That night he
saw the new
fancy goldfish
in a nightmare(?)
sitting on his
chest,

(it’s eyes
demonic red),

psychically
sucking
his life force
out of him

until he
gasped,
trembled
and died,
a horrified
look frozen
on his
pale face.

Its infamy
finished,
the new
fancy goldfish
swam back to
its terrifying
astral abode,

a godforsaken,
fiery hell.

Bob Boyd

Everything was
wonderful
at first.

And she
looked so
incredibly
beautiful to him.

But after
about six months
the wonderful
began
to wane

and her
beauty wasn’t
as mind-blowing.

But it was
still good and
he wanted to
keep it alive.

Unknown to
him, she was
feeling the
same way.

But unlike
with him,
she had
gotten bored.

And left him
for the highs
of a
brand new
love.

Bob Boyd

When you’re young
and good looking,
it seems like
your looks
will last forever.

But you start
seeing the
fault lines
in the bedrock
of your belief
as you get
dragged into
your thirties.

But not quite.

The forties hammer
it home a little
more,

but, if you’re lucky,
you still might
look good.

Barely.

Past fifty the
loss is way too
apparent, even if
you go under
the knife.

So disappointing.

If you make it
past seventy
and you look
in the mirror,
you’ll have
a hard time
believing you
are that
old woman
looking
back at you.

Those good looks
gone –
forever.

Bob Boyd

I always knew you’d
come here someday

mature woman,
youthful, old soul,
hair of gray,
lovely in
countless ways.

And I knew I’d be
thinking if only
we met

when we both
were younger

and had enough
time to spend
a lifetime together,
soulmates through
the years
and the seasons,

maybe even forever.

But, alas, I know
I was just
imagining you,

but it gave an
imaginative old man
some sweet
and pleasant
thoughts and

another fanciful
might have been.

Bob Boyd