Poems by Bob Boyd

She was an attractive, single woman
who lived in her house alone.

Crime and break ins had risen
in her city

that prompted her to buy
a gun for protection.

Her friends, opposed to guns,
thought she was being paranoid.

One night she heard someone
breaking into her house.

She grabbed and loaded her gun
and yelled I’ve got a gun.

The man trying to break into her
apartment yelled I’ve got one too.

The air exploded with gunfire
and the smell of gun powder.

When the shots died down,
one of them was dead,

a serial killer who planned on
raping, torturing and killing her.

Bob Boyd

he prowled the city streets hunting
for prey

he beat his many victims nearly
to death

he robbed them of their money
stole their watches and jewelry

made a good criminal living off all
the easy prey

until he tried to rob a petite woman
who had attained a special skill

and as he was about to strike her
she shot him dead.

Bob Boyd

To all the women and girls named
Karen who never act inappropriately
or crazy,

I hate how your name has become
synonymously when women who do.

I hate how fate and chance have put
that stigma on innocent you.

The curses of Medusa upon the cad
who put that unfair curse on you.

I pine for the day when the Karen fad
will pass,

and you can return to a normalized life
without your name

defamed and linked to deranged
behavior.

Bob Boyd

I recall Taoist Masters writing about meditating
near trees.
They claimed a peaceful energy emanated from
the trees.
I believe they probably were right; it does seem
more peaceful spending time near trees.
I remember the Taoist even have a meditation
method tied to trees, standing like a tree.
Having tried it decades ago, I found it was
an effective, potent method.
You stood with your knees bent and you arms
positioned as if holding a giant ball.
I know that treelike stance would give one
the peace of a steady tree.
I believe with years of standing like a tree
you would become One with the Tao.

Bob Boyd

When it’s good
It’s good
When it’s bad
It’s draining
And can’t be
Good for
Your mental health

You feel lonely
You think another
Will fill the emptiness
In your desolate life

But when You get
Another
You have To adapt
You have to
Compromise

You may not
Get along
After the
Newness
Of each
Other
Wears off
And You
End up
Sacrificing
Your privacy
Your life
And always
Keyed up
You begin
Missing
Those peaceful
Happier days
When you
Were alone

Bob Boyd

Friends, acquaintances, and icons dying.
Times and things you grew up with fading
or faded away, as if they never happened.
Drive In Theatres, Studebakers, Phone Booths,
Typewriters, Transistor Radios, TV Dinners,
Martin Luther King, Aldous Huxley,
Ernest Hemingway, Sharon Tate, Farah Fawcett.
You’re fading away too.
Body older, weaker, balance not as good, mind
not as sharp, health problems, minor and/or major,
bones may be brittle too.
What’s a body to do?
Acceptance. Acceptance. Acceptance.
There’s not much else you can do.
You’re fading away too.

Bob Boyd

He was a good kid
and an excellent swimmer.
On a summer’s day, he
went missing.
A search ensued.
Eventually after searching
his known haunts,
his body was found
drowned in a pool
in a sand pit.
Never found out why
this good kid
excellent swimmer
died in that pool.
It made no sense.
I read of a phenomena,
shallow water blackout,
sadly that may have
happened to him.

Bob Boyd

As the town grew
crime grew, murders
too, till the town was no
longer the peaceful place
it used to be, till the town
became so crime ridden
people began leaving it.
The exodus kept growing
and growing and growing.
Stores went out of business.
Office buildings emptied
till the entire town was
boarded up and abandoned.
And even the criminals left
the town that became a ghost town.

Bob Boyd

I believe there’s some luck in love,
especially when meeting the right one
is a random affair.
It’s not like you meet the perfect person for you
unless you are uncannily lucky.
To me, it seems by chance, by luck, you
meet the near perfect person for you.
Of course exceptions exist, some people
sabotage love.
Some are inherently hard to get along with.
But, overall, I feel you need some luck in love.

Bob Boyd

He thought she loved him,
his wife forever.
But she had other ambitions.
Tired of never having enough,
she longed for a man with more.
Unknown to her loving husband,
she was on the hunt for a
monied man.
While he thought she was out
for evenings with a girlfriends,
she was hobnobbing at events
attended by the rich.
When she finally found her
monied man and told him she
was leaving him, it hit him like
a gun blast to the heart.
She went on to bask in opulence;
he died of a broken heart.

Bob Boyd