Poems by Bob Boyd

He sits at his computer reading, writing and
editing, getting higher and higher.

He’s slightly spaced out, but not enough to
affect his behavior or his writing.

No he’s not on drugs or drinking alcohol. The
kundalini energy in him keeps rising up his

spine from all the concentration and reading
he’s doing, and he wonders if this time

his kundalini energy is going to expand beyond
his body and his room: cosmic consciousness.

Bob Boyd

Amanda was so happy. She met a doctor
on a dating app.

He told her he’d make dinner at his apartment
for their first meeting,

just a friendly get together to see if they were
compatible with each other.

Amanda vanished after that night, and no one
knew what happened to her.

The police contacted the doctor who said they
had dinner together, and he hadn’t seen her since.

The doctor became the primary suspect, since the
The police didn’t have any other clues.

Unknown to them, Amanda was kidnapped by a
serial killer after she got out of her car at the

secluded parking space behind her apartment,
and so far Amanda is still

a missing person, and the doctor remains
the primary suspect.

Bob Boyd

I had a girlfriend once who had three tarantula spiders
for pets.

Her spiders creeped me out, but she was so beautiful
and sweet

that in spite of how weird it was to me that she had
spiders as pets,

I just couldn’t leave her, and I was with her until she
started acting crazy and accused me of seeing

other women behind her back no matter how many
times I told her I wouldn’t do that to her.

And she began talking and cooing to those goddamn
spiders as if they were her babies.

So one day, exasperated with her, I said screw it
and told her we were through.

She went crazy, called me a cheating piece of shit,
and kept trying to hit me as I backed away from her

until I got to her front door and dashed out of it and
jumped in my car and sped away.

Mercifully, I didn’t hear from her after that, though
I thought for sure she’d stalk me.

But a month later when I went to bed I felt something
bite me just as I got under the sheet,

a black widow spider that I killed with a shoe, but after
that I had trouble breathing and my body was shaking,

and I had to go to the hospital ER to get treatment,
a shot of a drug called antivenin and was monitored

by a doctor for twelve days to make sure I didn’t get
any severe side effects from the drug.

I can’t prove that my spider-loving ex girlfriend put
that black widow spider in my bed, but I’m sure

somehow she did, and now I carefully check my bed
every night before I get in it and hope she is

satisfied that her black widow revenge was enough
to insanely get even with me.

Bob Boyd

Brandon was so enamored with Carmilla that he couldn’t wait
to give her the beautiful red roses he bought for her.

But when Carmilla saw the roses, she hissed like a cat
and backed away from them and fell into a chair.

Brandon rushed to help her with the roses in hand, and
he touched her with the roses by mistake.

The roses caught fire and crumbled into ashes, just as
fangs appeared in Carmilla’s mouth and she passed out.

Brandon ran out of her house just as the sun coming up
and never saw Carmilla again

but heard of her death when townspeople killed her
with a stake through her heart.

Bob Boyd

When he died he had a surprise.
He didn’t die like most people do.
He flowed up out of the crown of
his head and merged with the
cosmos into eternal bliss. He
was surprised because he had
felt he’d go to heaven or to hell.
Yet there he was in a state of
consciousness beyond heaven
and beyond hell, and he knew
that infinite, eternal place was
the apex of spiritual evolution,
and the destiny of all humans.
And that he had come home.

Bob Boyd

I read that plants can recognize their relatives,
and that sounded bizarre to me

because I know plants don’t possess a
consciousness,

so how can they possibility have an awareness
of family members?

And does that mean they have sisters, brothers,
aunts, uncles and grandparents?

It all seems so absurd and unbelievable to me,
yet I just read plants can recognize relatives

by “chemical cues released by their roots,” and
can distinguish their relatives that way.

Now I wonder if plants have family picnics
and family get togethers?

Bob Boyd

She was quiet in high school
and a nice girl who never
got in any trouble.

So I was surprised to see
her one night in Boston’s
seedy Combat Zone by
herself.

When I and some friends
said hi to her, she looked
embarrassed and acted like
she didn’t know us.

The fact she was alone
on the streets of strippers
and hookers, suggested
she was into bad stuff.

And I don’t know what
happened to that quiet
well behaved girl back
in high school

that led her to the streets
of strippers and hookers
in Boston’s Combat Zone.

Bob Boyd

My friend, Rory, that lucky
bastard, won the mega lottery.
after taxes about $60 million.
Somehow Rory blew it all in
six years of wild spending,
and he got hooked on drugs.
Last time I saw him he was
homeless in the streets and
had lost his once keen mind.
I tried to help him, but he
wouldn’t accept my help or
help from social services.
Now people say he looks
like a walking dead zombie.
Sometimes good luck can
become the worst luck.

Bob Boyd

A Lot of Noise in Preston, Lancashire, UK.
Jubilant, young lads carousing the streets.
At an age when they’re full of extra energy
that they burn off with shouts in the streets,
some get a little too rowdy, and there’s a
price to pay, police restraining them and
taking them away, maybe some jail time.
I’m glad I’m not one of them tonight. On
the ground with police all over them. And
too much noise for me in those streets.
Glad I’m in Greensboro, NC US tonight
instead of noisy Preston, Lancashire UK.

Bob Boyd

I remember how hot she was in high school
and how I would have loved to have been with her.

But now sixty two years later if I saw her I’d
never recognize her,

and she probably wouldn’t recognize me. And
if I’d been with her, it probably wouldn’t have

lasted anyway, and if it did and we married
and she died before me, my heart would have

been broken in a million pieces and just like
Humpty Dumpty I’d never be able to put those

pieces back together again. So maybe it’s
better I never got with her sixty two years ago.

Bob Boyd

On a news video I saw a hippo lunge
out of the water and with his mouth

wide open tip over a silver fishing boat
with a shocked and frightened man in it.

The man emerged and grabbed onto
the tipped over boat and climbed on it,

and I thought for sure the hippo was
going to resurface and kill him,

but on a boat nearby two men had
rifles shouldered,

and the hippo just vanished under
the water.

Maybe he tipped over the boat just
for a prank,

or maybe he saw the men with the rifles
and swam away hidden underwater.

Bob Boyd

I used to walk her home when I was in grade school,
third or fourth grade.

I didn’t know what romantic love was all about then
but I remember it felt good talking to her.

I lost touch with her after grade school, and now
I barely remember her.

I think her first name was Susan, and I wish I had
gotten to know her better when I was older, and

I wonder where she is now, how her life went, and
I hope Susan’s life went well.

Bob Boyd

I remember the day some guys I didn’t know well
were getting more and more spaced out on weed.

Another guy not spaced out on weed, began to
talk about some serious problems he had.

But the spaced out guys on weed didn’t care. They
said don’t bring us down,

meaning fuck you and your whining we’re too high
to listen to your petty problems.

The guy, rejected, walked to his car, got in, looked out
his car window, and shouted to the spaced out guys …

“Fuck you too!”

Bob Boyd

I remember how you were a bully when you were
twelve years old.

All the little boys in your neighborhood were
frightened of you.

But I wasn’t when you pushed your bike into
my bike and I pushed mine into yours.

You left me alone after that until you became
a beautiful teenage girl

and talked me into coming into your grandmother’s
house when she wasn’t there.

And you kissed me oh so deliciously and began to
seduce me, but I got a freak bloody nose,

and that ended what might have been an afternoon
of my first taste of carnal pleasures.

Because you had some kind of a bad reputation
my parents forbid me to see you again.

And you disappeared from my life except for one
day when I saw you in high school with some guys.

I never saw you again after that, but now I wish
I could have found out more about you,

like why you only lived with your grandmother
without a mother and a father, and if I had maybe

I could have helped you to be a better person without
a bad reputation.

Bob Boyd

Andy and Renee trekked to their favorite camping site,
got there just before dark.

Pitched their tent, lit a fire, and they got ready to turn
in for the night.

Darkness covered the camping site and an unusual
quiet permeated the forest.

Then they heard a loud baying in the forest coming
closer to their tent.

Andy peered out the tent while Renee stayed in her
sleeping bag shaking.

The forest lit up with bright red light and something
blew Andy out of the tent.

Two red light flashes followed along with the baying
and the tent and Renee vanished.

And neither Andy nor the police ever found out what
happened to her.

Bob Boyd

He started stealing at age six,
a candy bar from a candy store.

By twelve he was a pro, never
got caught

and graduated to clothes and
pick pocketing wallets

and stealing purses, but at sixteen
he got caught pick pocketing a

Mafioso’s wallet, and nobody’s
seen Freddy since.

They say he’s buried under a new
bank in the heart of the city.

If so, I imagine Freddy would like
being buried under all that cash.

Bob Boyd

But she looked like a Mary,
which wasn’t a good start for
a woman after my heart.
But it didn’t matter in the end.
She hooked up with my friend, Alvin,
and along with his heart, she
stole his prized Chevy convertible
and hasn’t been seen since.
Now I’m thinking she probably
was a Marcy.

Bob Boyd

One month ago tonight the cops were
having a field day in Liverpool.

Hundreds of young guys in the streets
loaded up on alcohol

and causing trouble in Liverpool,
getting nabbed and arrested by the cops.

One’s a baby-faced lad with six cops
around him, but he doesn’t look six

cops bad to warrant all the police attention.
They let him go, so I must have been right.

And there are plenty of other lads raising
hell in the streets,

making one month ago tonight a field day
for the Liverpool police.

Bob Boyd

After seven dates, she told
him she loved him.

He told her he loved her too,
but a week later,

as though the fun was done,
the love no longer new,

she said she’d been confused,
and she left him for another.

But that was her modus operandi –
love them and leave them.

Bob Boyd

In his late teens he learned he
had a knack for playing a guitar
and singing rock songs.

He formed a rock band with two
high school friends, and after
high school they played in local
bars and wrote their own music.

A year later, they had a hit record
and toured the country, playing
before thousands of cheering fans.

He was high on the fame, the fans,
and the women, but after a couple
of years and no more hit records,
the fame high waned, and he got
tired of always being on the road.

He quit the band and went to work,
managing one of his father’s pet stores,
never missed his semi-rockstar fame.

Bob Boyd