Poems by Bob Boyd

Never imagined innocent, beautiful butterflies Would ever have predators.

To my dismay, learned butterflies are on many predator’s hit lists:

Warblers, sparrows, parrots, blue jays northern mockingbirds black-headed grosbeaks, whatever those are.

Insects are also complicit in the slaughter of butterflies:

Ants, flies, wasps, praying mantises, dragonflies and more.

God Almighty, why couldn’t beautiful butterflies that dance in the air and kill nothing live in peace?

Why couldn’t these gentle creatures that survive on flower nectar and decaying fruit and are so adorably colorful and seemingly sweet be spared lives without being constantly hunted and killed by malicious predators?

Maybe it’s foolishness, maybe I’m being over sensitive, but it disturbs me deeply that gentle and beautiful butterflies have so many predators that mercilessly kill them.

Bob Boyd

Gave me a ride to school one day
when I was thumbing a ride at age 16.
I recall remembering what a nice guy
he was.
Not long after that he shot a salesman
to death in a store robbery.
In prison he got a degree, became a poet
and seemed a model prisoner
until he escaped with another prisoner
and a guard was killed, not sure if he did it.
He wasn’t found till twenty years later.
He’d been living in the open in Chicago
doing poetry readings with a poetry group,
and his poetry was quite good.
He attended a church, did volunteer work for it.
His twenty year escape ended when he won
poet of the month at the Chicago poetry group,
and a police officer saw his photo in the news.
He died not long ago on a medical parole,
and I will never understand how my cousin
Norman Porter could have had the soul of
a poet and the darkness of a killer.

Bob Boyd

I’ve never understood how anyone
could hunt and kill deer.
Such beautiful, gentle creatures
that only eat leaves, twigs, fruits
and nuts.

For some it’s a sport to hunt and
kill them. For me it would be worse
than killing some humans, like serial
killers.

I see them as gentle animal souls
that harm no other animals and
pass their lives adding beauty
and grace to the natural world.

Bob Boyd

Temporarily clinically dead, a car accident
Above his body witnessed, heard everything
Before the scene vanished and his spirit
Went through the panoramic life review
Like passing movie scenes of his life events
Realized life and afterlife spiritual schools
Graduation permanence in the Realm of Bliss
Swept through the tunnel of radiant White Light
Glimpse of the inexpressible abode of Love and Light
Awed and humbled by encounter with the Absolute
Unconditional Love beyond words, source of everything
Unimaginable, inexpressible eternal unending bliss
His earthly life lackluster, unreal and dreamlike
Wanted to stay in his true home forever and ever
Told he had to go back and be more loving.
Came to in the ICU disappointed and saddened
To be back in the impermanence, longing
to return to where he was born to be eternally.

Bob Boyd

A Muslim and mother of three children.
A good mother, a devoted wife, and a personal fitness trainer.
She lived in Farmington Hills, Michigan.
Her husband felt she was Americanizing their three
children.
Taking them away from their Syrian, Islamic roots.
He argued with her often about it.
The arguments and the marriage ended when he threw her down a stairs.
During the middle of their divorce, Nada died of suffocation and blunt force trauma to the head, and her body was pushed out of a second floor window.
Murdered by her 16-year old son who sided with his father about the Americanization of his sisters and hated his mother for it.
The son got sentenced to 60 years in prison.
It was believed the father put him up to it
But definite proof was never found.
Religion can be of comfort to countless people,
but sometimes it turns people into mindless fanatics and diabolical murderers.
RIP to Nada Huranieh who was a beautiful woman and a good and caring person.

Bob Boyd

I get emails from Roses Discount Store
nearly everyday.

Some would call that spamming, but
at my age I call it socialization. 🙂

And because I’m so high on Roses Discount Store
I enjoy seeing their email advertisements.

And it’s kinda nice to receive a daily
email from Rose’s, like from a faithful friend.

Bob Boyd

I remember you little, six-legged buggers,
and I can clearly see why some of your annoying
species are called piss ants.

With your overwhelming numbers, you invaded every
apartment, every house I lived in in the Philippines.

You came up from the floors, down from the roofs,
though the walls, the windows and the doors.

You got in my cabinets, my closets, my bed, my food,
and my towels. Twice you bit the hell out of me.

You made me come after you like the scorched earth
tyrannical Stalin purges

with a Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius
indifference to your deserved and more than justified deaths.

And I know if you have post offices in your underground hideouts, there are pictures of me, ant public enemy number one, hanging on those post office walls.

Bob Boyd

All you hear about is Dogman.
You hear about sightings of him
in Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio,
Illinois and Minnesota and
other states across the U S of A.
Blah. Blah. Blah. What an exhibitionist.

But never a peep about Dogwoman.
Where’s the inclusivity? Where’s the fairness?
Maybe my thinking is off, but would we have
a Dogman without a Dogwoman at some point?
So why no news about her?

Is there Dogwoman misogyny at play?
Or maybe unlike the flamboyant, self-serving
attention-seeking Dogman, she’s not a
flaming egotist who goes out of his way
to exhibit himself in all those states across
the U S of A.

Bob Boyd

Behold one of the darkest arts of
Government: Eminent Domain
Reminiscent of stolen Native American lands
Some cases underpaid for the seizures
Some cases of removals at gunpoint
How is it in what some politicians claim
is the greatest country in the world
we have a government perpetrating
intrusive, insensitive land grabs
And while I’m on this insidious topic,
Here’s what eminent means
“Well-known and respected, especially
for achievement in a particular field.”
I see nothing respectful
I see no achievement
I see only a particular field of stolen lands
watered with the tears of people
those lands were seized from
I see a disgraceful well-known
diabolical practice by a government
in cases not by the people but
against the people
I see broken hearts of families
who owned lands for generations
robbed regardless of forced
compensations
Eminent Domain, a
Goddamn shame.

Bob Boyd

His friends told him he could do better
than his current seemingly lackluster girlfriend.
She wasn’t anywhere as good looking
as him, and he had done better in the past
with women his friends said were “hot as hell.”

But they were seduced by the superficial
and could not see what he saw,
the incomparable beauty in her heart,
the incredibly delightful personality
in her head.
And no other woman had been so loving
to him in every possible way.

She was a woman far beyond appearances
and didn’t care about painting her face with
globs of makeup to make herself more
artificially attractive.

She was much more than hot as hell for
a discerning man with the vision to see
the priceless unmatched treasures within her.

Bob Boyd