Alexandra was 17, and she came out of money,
which made her a stuck-up snob in high school,

who had no time for working class wise guys like me
and my friends that always got in trouble in high school.

To worsen matters, she was torridly hot and, of course,
she knew it.

And always dressed in expensive clothes, she
looked like a model on the cover of a fashion magazine.

I don’t know what happened to her after high school;
I suspect she went to an ivy league university,

had a great career and probably a rich guy for
a lucky husband.

And, of course, she was too good for troublemakers
like me and my friends. And she wasn’t really a snob;

she was just too smart to pay any attention to losers like
we had been, who clearly were unworthy of her.

Bob Boyd

I was working as a repair tech for a company
with a two man one room repair center

in Saint Petersburg Florida. We repaired the
tubes used in probing medical instruments.

My boss was a good guy, who liked going
to strip clubs and charming strippers,

why I never knew, and I don’t know if he
ever scored with any of them.

I do know one day he didn’t show up
for work or call in sick.

He didn’t show up the next day or
ever again, and

nobody found out what happened to him;
he just vanished

and left no clues as to what happened
to him.

I could be wrong, but I believe his disappearance
was connected to his visits to strip clubs.

Maybe he scored with a stripper who had
a jealous gangster for a boyfriend, and he was

murdered with his bullet-ridden body buried
under the foundation of a newly built building.

Bob Boyd

Milly posted her solo camping trips on YouTube,
and she was highly skilled.

But as a friend of hers who wasn’t into camping
and worried about her being alone in forests,

I said to her you might be putting yourself in
danger, camping all alone.

She said she had no worries and that she was
always alert and careful.

But one night her confidence was crushed when
a serial killer had secretly stalked her

and broke into her tent while she slept, seized
her and dragged her out of her tent,

but fortune was with her as she screamed that
terrifying night.

A deep guttural growl stopped the serial killer
who looked behind himself just as a bigfoot

grabbed him, and he was the one screaming
seconds before his wicked life was crushed out of him.

Milly had run off shocked and terrified she’d also
be slaughtered by the Bigfoot

until she heard the Bigfoot’s voice inside her head,
assuring her he was only there to protect her,

and as she looked back at him, he smiled warmly and
then vanished.

Milly thinks Bigfoot protected her that night because
she’s a fan of his with a lot of Bigfoot memorabilia.

Perhaps she was right, but in case she was wrong,
she never solo camped again.

Bob Boyd

Like a werewolf, Phil went crazy on full moon nights seeking fights. He prowled bars, hard-eyeing male patrons, goading them into anything-goes fistfights, 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

I don’t know who she was,
but she looked like a composite
of dark-haired women I’ve been
with in my life.

I only knew her for a minute,
but oh, what a minute it was.

In that beautiful minute,
she kissed me four times.

And her kisses were the
sweetest kisses I ever had,
and I knew she loved me
as much as I loved her.

All in a mere minute in
a wonderful dream.

If only it could have
been more than a dream,

If only those kisses
could have lasted longer
than a minute.

Bob Boyd

I remember in high school
A galaxy away
When a high school girl
Would secretly harbor a crush
On a high school boy
And he’d be oblivious
Unfortunately.
I know I missed out on
Some of those sweet
High School girl crushes.
I remember being told
So and so had a
Wicked crush on me
After the fact and
After she had a
Lucky boyfriend.
If only I’d known.

Bob Boyd

Some people get old too fast;
They should have fun while they last;
Far too soon will their days pass.
Happy times they should amass
Before Death knocks at their doors,
And they vanish like vapors.
 
Bob Boyd

Body wearing down, arthritis setting in, joints and muscles straining.
Balance out of whack, muscles weakening, wrinkling.
Skin screwed, wrinkles and ugly aging spots everywhere.
If you’re lucky, you’ll still have your hair and your teeth.
Senior discounts only serve to validate what may not be clear to you.
Sleep, waking in the night, risks of falls if meandering to the bathroom.
Blood tests show many problems; a godawful cancer might be one of them.
Examined and poked by gerontologists like a nonentity lab specimen.
More doctors than ever, appointment after appointment after appointment.
The memory firing on only five cylinders, days of senior moments, maybe dementia.
The voice sounds weak or hoarse unless you’re lucky or genetically blessed.
Once youthful looks, often pretty, now lost; new roles as nondescript grannies.
Once handsome young men, now like Paradise Lost, looks gone forever.
Friends and generational icons dying, depressing reminders that nothing lasts.
You wonder when you’ll be next, your immortality forsaken, your mortality waning.
If unbearably sick, or in unbearable pain, or dying in a nursing home…
You might pray you are next.

Bob Boyd

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—were accused of witchcraft.

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

Click here to Return to the Selection of Poems

Just as I find it sad that
a woman’s looks fade
I find it sad that flowers
fade and die
and I wonder if flowers
just die
as surely many assume
but I’d like it more
if flowers went to
a flower heaven
to bloom again
and forever.

Bob Boyd

I hear the song birds
singing merrily
outside my apartment
seeming happy
they won’t live as
long as I will
and it’s likely
they will be killed
by a predator
unlike human me
but in a way
I think they might
have a better life
than I have
less stress
less frustrations
less heartaches
less worries
and as they
grow older
and weaker
they won’t have
the increasing
medical problems
the doctor visits
the pills
the medical bills
so in some ways
maybe being
a song bird
is better than
being a human

Bob Boyd

Cruelty that knows
no bounds.
Delight in torturing
and killing people
Demonic human beings
Surely crated in a hell
Sadists every one
The bigger question is
why do we have to have
these monsters in this world?

Bob Boyd

Supposedly yeasts were used “to turn plastics and other waste into edible proteins, fats and flavourings.”

“Plastic is carbon and food is carbon, so why not look
into food,” a Dr Lihiru Jayacody said.

And with a 3D printer, disc-shaped cookies were created
that in no way look appetizing.

I don’t know about you, but to me, food, plastic and waste
do not go together.

Besides, according to the latest reports, we have plenty of
microplastics in us already. So no thanks to more plastics

in the form of crappy, plastic cookies.

Bob Boyd

I saw a documentary once where three men had
sex dolls they said were their girlfriends.

A fourth said his sex doll was his wife, and he
treated the doll with tenderness as one would a wife.

To my surprise, I didn’t find any of these men weird,
and I could tell they legitimately loved the dolls.

I even found the men likable in spite of their
unusual choices for a girlfriend or a wife.

And I could see the benefits, if one were imaginative
enough. No arguments, no jealously, no cheating, no

broken hearts, always there for you, totally agreeable,
guaranteed shared interests, and no unkind words.

And because I believe human to human romantic love
is designed by Nature solely for procreation, in my

opinion, it doesn’t matter if a person finds romantic love
in a sex doll or an AI as long as it works for that person.

Besides, far as we know, romantic love is temporary;
it ends with a break up or when Death ends it.

And in a way, I wish I could have the imagination to
have a doll for a girlfriend or a wife; it sure would

have made my romantic involvements easier, less
painful and far more lasting. But, alas, no doll, no

AI girlfriend, in my mind and in my heart, could
ever take the place of a lovely flesh and blood

enchanting, human woman. No way.

Bob Boyd

I haven’t had a drink in 50 years, but … in my misspent
youth, I drank to insane excesses. Back in 1966 or so,

I was in a bar in Zweibruecken, Germany getting drunk
on my keister, and a young German woman, unappealing

and crazy acting to me, kept trying to get my indifferent
attention until, about six beers later, she began looking

beautiful to me, and I bought her a drink and walked
her home, thinking I was going to get lucky, but

when we got near where she lived, a woman started
shouting at her, and that shout somehow sobered me

up enough that I realized I had been deceived by the
beers, and I didn’t want to be with this woman. And I

definitely didn’t want to wake up in the morning with
her, so I fled in the night and saved myself from a

horrible morning, and I never saw that curious woman again.

Bob Boyd

Suppose what the people who have been
clinically, temporarily, dead say is true.

Suppose when we die we go up the white light
tunnel like a passageway between this life and the next.

Suppose after that we go somewhere where we
have a life review and see the good and the

not so good things we did in this life and have God
or someone angelic with us without any punishment:

the purpose being to help us grow more spiritually.
Then, if we’re lucky or blessed, we experience

Source, also known as God, and the unconditional
love beyond conditional love, beyond imagination,

and beyond words. And a place that you know is
your real home, a home you never want to leave.

And say that all is true – despite Science claiming
it’s only illusions, separate and shared, when

the brain is shutting down as a person is dying
and dead is just dead and nothing more –

what I wonder is, where do all the millions,
probably zillions or more, of spirits stay

disembodied in the afterlife?

Bob Boyd

In the mid-sixties they graduated from high school
and decided they wanted to become bad-asses,

so Mark and Andy joined the US Marines and
looked forward to returning home as tougher guys.

Mark got kicked out of boot camp; he wasn’t
tough enough to hack it.

Andy got through boot camp, but was sent to the
far east, where unknown to him before he enlisted,

the Vietnam war was heating up, and he hadn’t
signed up to go to war.

But, worse than that, though he’d been a hero in the
war, he came home dead in a body bag.

Bob Boyd

I met her in college.
She was cute and
fun. It seemed like
we had something
until a friend gave
us a ride one day
and she said who
is your friend? and
I saw the writing on
the wall then and
knew she was too
flighty for me. As I
anticipated my so-
called friend took
her out, and that
was the last of me
and flighty her. And
she didn’t last with
him either, probably
moved on to some
other guy, and I was
glad to be rid of her.
And I expect my so-
called friend was too.

Bob Boyd

Ben dabbled in the paranormal, Ouija boards,
tarot cards, seances, divining et cetera.

He claimed he became a medium and was
conversant with spirits in the ether.

People came to Ben for messages from the dead;
he told them all sorts of phony tales.

A black magic witch, incognito, visited him and asked
him to contact her dead son named Amon.

When Ben began his fake spirits contact ritual, his face
turned ashen, blood poured out of his eyes and ears.

The witch cackled, and Ben fell to the floor stone dead
with his face frozen stiff in horror.

Bob Boyd

I see in you more
than the stars in the sky
more than the planets
spinning in the cosmos
I see in you
everything I’ve
always wanted
always needed

Bob Boyd