A thinking man had a wife
exotically beautiful
but incompatibly incurious
only interested in superficialities
disinterested in deeper matters
small talk her modus operandi
deep conservations her nemesis
no meeting of the minds
never shared ponderings
it’s no wonder they were ill fated
being so mentally incompatible
that not even her exotic beauty
could fill that forlorn abyss.
Bob Boyd
Your life, my life, suspended by a thread
one day we are alive, next day we are dead
we go through this life as if dying never
until all that we were is gone forever
except for our lifeless corpses by death bound
to rot away in the smothering ground
Bob Boyd
Brad went on a 3 month meditation retreat
meditating up to 12 times daily
after 2 months, he had to leave the retreat
called me from a hospital emergency room
said he had attained cosmic consciousness
and could look into my eyes and take me there
as he talked on his words became disconnected
his voice sounded more than a little creepy
and he began talking about crazy things
I could tell he had overdosed on meditation
and had a severe, mental breakdown
instead of attaining cosmic consciousness
he spent the rest of the time I knew him
bouncing in and out of psychiatric wards
all from a single overdose of meditation.
Bob Boyd
To humans I’m a cute bird that seems to have the life,
Chirping merrily and flying ever so freely, like a free spirit.
But believe me that free spirit stuff is kind of an act.
I’m anything but free with many predators after me,
Hovering hawks, night owls, jays and magpies in the air,
Foxes, snakes, weasels, cats and raccoons on the ground.
Despite my free spirit bravado and the happy songs I sing,
I’m little more than a predator’s next feathered meal.
And always in a state of paranoia with death in pursuit.
Bob Boyd
Never go to doctors
They’ll find something wrong with you
Stay away and you won’t get sick or die
For example
My granny was the healthiest granny on the planet
Bench pressed 200 pounds, repeatedly
Squatted with 300 pounds, easily
Ran triathlon marathons, effortlessly
Kicked the crap out of a psycho subway pusher in NYC
All that, until she saw a geriatrics quack
A wacko psycho doctor of death
He diagnosed her with the big C
Placebo screwed her with a BS death knell
Stage 4, three months to live, he claimed sadistically
Three anxiety-driven, brainwashed months later
granny couldn’t bench or squat a mere 100 pounds
or even run twenty yards
Then granny was stone cold expired,
waked and buried at Bellevue Cemetery
Don’t ask me about the costs
In denial about my sweet granny’s passing,
vowed to find a way to bring her back.
Prayed to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
and Catholic saints of impossible causes
Didn’t work
Because Jesus came back successfully,
thought maybe he’d share
his secret resurrection formula
and give a dead granny some love
Didn’t work
Granny remained unresurrected
Exasperated and driven to near madness
I robbed granny out of her grave
and tried to Frankenstein her back to life
Bound her to a metal table
Rigged a lightning rod to it
A thunderstorm raged and rumbled
Lightning flashed and crackled
Struck her corpse, made it sizzle
Didn’t work
Lightning only barbecued her body
Or cooked it, not sure which
Brainstormed a better idea
Jump started her like a dead car battery
Problem solved, kinda
Granny is up and running
and chasing me around my house
alive and electrically zombified.
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
I write a lot of fiction poems
but this one is true
about two hooligans I knew
in my tumultuous teen years
bullies, immoral, bone bad
was certain they were
fated as future criminals
headed for long prisons stays
increasing criminality
instead they became members
of the local police force
bad boys in blue.
Bob Boyd
Nelly Craig lived in the 1800s
got pregnant and abandoned
by a heartless philanderer
scorned by the society of that day
refused respectable employment
impoverished, desperate,
turned to prostitution to survive
her only means of making money
because of the stigma of being
a disgraced, fallen women
a pariah nobody would hire
some back then would have
deemed Nelly a hell-bound sinner
I see her as a causality of
less enlightened times
that no loving Creator
would ever eternally damn.
Bob Boyd
I used to pay no attention to the fleeting nature
of this impermanent world
I just walked and talked in it, as if it were forever
unmindful that in this world forever is never
the worst part of impermanence to me is
romantic love dies in it
no matter how wonderful, no matter how close
to perfect a love is
no matter if it lasts a lifetime
it’s doomed to extinction, like the dinosaurs of old
when death cruelly ends it
I find that disheartening
I find that disturbing and a bit depressing
but maybe, just maybe, romantic love lives on
in the unseen world beyond this impermanent one
where soulmates are reunited or found in a permanent
and blissful forever
am I dreaming here, am I overly optimistic?
probably, lol.
Bob Boyd
No need for fear when Death arrives
To take us to the eternity of Love and Light
Relocation to a higher, brighter world
Freed from the uncertainties of this impermanence
Passing illusion, clung to as if our lives go on here forever
Except for occasional reminders of our mortality
Death of loved ones, killer diseases, and more
World on edge with ever-present threats of nuclear holocaust
Murders, wars, atrocities, and injustice across the planet
Tenuous existence, we are like flickering candle flames
Soon to burn out as numberless ones before us
But mercifully saved by Death,
Usher To the eternity of Love and Light.
Bob Boyd
People are dying all around me
At work, in my neighborhood, and in the news
Old, middle-aged, young, and babies too.
It’s like the Reaper has been loosened
In my semi-immediate vicinity
Killing people with a dogged impunity.
Worries me about my own mortality
If I’m next on Grim’s hit list
Or in some invisible warzone
With unseeable stealth bombs
Leaving no booms or residues
Quietly taken hordes of people out.
Maybe it’s just the usual suspect
Beelzebub up to his usual MO
Doing his cloven hoofed Devil’s work.
Bob Boyd
Sometimes
I wonder about
romantic love.
Is it real or
Nature’s ploy
to propagate
our species.
If that is
the case
what’s the point
of all of it?
Why the endless
streams of
humans flowing
In and out of
existence?
Maybe it’s
merely a
game of
bored gods
With little
better to do.
Bob Boyd
Amazingly nimble in trees
and on telephone lines.
Dangerously awkward on streets
and at dodging cars.
Squirrel, aerial acrobat,
what’s wrong with you?
In the trees and on telephone lines
none are your equal.
Yet in the streets and in front of cars
you fall apart.
Given you dodge predators in
the air and on the ground.
One would think streets and cars
would be cakewalks by comparison.
Yet thousands of your species
end as roadkill every day.
Maybe the panic I’d feel
seeing a 72 foot brontosaurus
Is the same panic you feel
when you see a giant car.
And you freak out and die
under those killer tires.
Bob Boyd
Clarence said he understood
the language of chirping cicadas
and could read the minds of ants.
He said he knew what birds were thinking
and could predict their futures as they flew.
See that sparrow flying overhead, he said.
in a week it will be in the stomach of a hawk.
I almost believed him, as confident as he was
until he said he knew what my dog Bo was thinking,
could easily read his every dumb dog thought.
Curious and a little offended by his insulting Bo,
I said, what the hell is my dumb dog thinking?
He’s blown away by how well I can read his mind.
You know how dogs can hear things we can’t?
Dogs can know when a psychic reads their minds.
Bo looked at Clarence and let out a howl
as if in agreement with what Clarence said.
Then Bo growled and jumped up curved sideways
suspended in the air like a professional athlete
and with a spectacular airborne twisting move
bit that soothsaying Clarence on the butt.
Bo never did like BS artists.
Bob Boyd
Hewn into rock hills in Lalibela
sacred second Jerusalem
stands in Ethiopia.
Place of pilgrimage
sacred site where
pilgrims come to pray.
For over a thousand years
infused with the prayers
of millions.
A giant etched cross
adorns the top sealed
with a promise of heaven.
Stone shrine conferring
blessings, the magnificent
Church of Saint George.
Bob Boyd
Ancient Greeks died
buried with coins
under their tongues,
their safe passage
to the underworld
where Charon,
bearded Ferryman
dressed in a tunic
and conical hat,
ferried the dead
across a river to
Hades, land of the dead
The obol coin, the
cost of admission.
Bob Boyd
In 1984, Satan possessed a toaster.
The story spread fast like a speeding roller coaster.
On one piece of burnt toast, the Devil wrote Satan Lives.
The nerve of Beelzebub; it makes you wonder what gives.
It was even claimed that through the toaster Satan spoke
As for me, I think it was just a devilish joke.
Bob Boyd
In Lake Champlain Vermont
lives an elusive sea monster
named Champ first seen
in 1609 and 299 times
after that reputedly.
Like many cryptids Champ
is a champion at hiding;
Many alleged sightings
But no proof.
Wouldn’t it be amazing
if one day Champ made his
debut and wowed the world
as a throwback to
prehistoric times.
And since no mate
has been seen
Champ must be
centuries old with an
anti-aging formula
as yet unknown.
I’d like it if Champ
came out of the lake
and declared his
authenticity to the world.
But somehow I suspect
from watching many
monster movies
that day would be
a bad day For Champ.
So I can understand him
staying out of the media
glare, being reclusive.
Because I’m reclusive too
and wouldn’t want all that
annoying paparazzi attention.
Bob Boyd
On my back I felt a soft tap
I turned around and saw cute you
I was six I think you were too
I remember your red hair
So pretty in the summer air
You smiled at me and ran away
But I never forgot that day
In over seventy long years
Though happy times and times of tears
If only I had talked to you
Under that summer sky so blue
It could have led to something new
And maybe true love as we grew
But alas the moment went by
I write that with a forlorn sigh
Maybe in the life beyond this
Older, true love we will not miss.
Bob Boyd
Mongolian Death Worm King of Worms
Hidden in the Gopi sands unfindable
Humble and possessing great wisdom
You seek not the fame you could have.
You know it’s a fickle fading light
You know if you made a world debut
Like King Kong, they’d cage and debase you
Like King Kong, they’d exhibit and destroy you
Because you are so different, so wondrous
And so uniquely beautiful.
Hail Mongolian Death Worm
King of Worms!
Bob Boyd