The Oxford Martyrs

In England in 1555 three men went on trial
At University Church of St Mary the Virgin
And burnt at the stake for different beliefs
In America in 2024 they shout down conservatives speakers
At Ivy League colleges for different beliefs
Sometimes the colleges refuse to let them speak
I’m surprised none have been burnt at the stake
Not much has changed.

Bob Boyd

What Matters to Me

I don’t care how rich you are
Riches are a negative to me
I don’t care how degreed you are
You might think you’re better than me
I don’t care how successful and important you are
You might be too self-centered and have no time for me
I do care about how, humble, compassionate, and kind you are
Those are the things that matter to me.

Bob Boyd

I Wonder Where You Are Today

16, beautiful, always nicely dressed
Worked at a drugstore in Burlington, MA
All the guys wanted to be with you
Dream girl, few could compare
I believed you’d always be true
If some lucky day I could be with you
But crossing the street one rainy day
Your life and beautiful you ended
By a careless teenage driver
One of the worst tragedies of
My wayward teenage years
I wonder where you are today

Bob Boyd

Tsutomu Yamaguchi, Survivor of Two Atomic Bombs

On business in Hiroshima on August 6th 1945 at 8:15 AM,
Tsutomu Yamaguchi heard an aircraft and thought he saw a parachute in the sky
Atomic bomb, Little Boy, 15 kilotons of TNT, exploded 2,000 feet above the city
80,000 people burned alive immediately. Tsutomu Yamaguchi saw the blast in the sky
Light brighter than the blazing sun shocked and temporarily blinded him.
The sound of the booming blast ruptured his eardrums, radiation burned his body.
Returned to his work in Nagasaki, able to work, air raid alarms sounded in the city;
Atomic bomb, Fat Boy, 21 kilotons of TNT, devastated Nagasaki on August 9th, 11AM,
Instantly killed 40,000 people. Miraculously Tsutomu survived that atomic bomb too,
High fever and vomiting for a week, became an advocate for nuclear disarmament.
Suffered from radiation-related ailments all his life, died at age 92, stomach cancer.
Today nuclear bombs have 455 and 800 kilotons of TNT. I pray never comes the doomsday
When those are dropped on any country, and so sad Tsutomu experienced such devastation.
And tragic over a hundred thousand people died in those explosions and more in the aftermath.
And wars still go on.

Bob Boyd

Missing 411

A full moon rises tonight. Oh God how that worries me.
My body sweats profusely, my heart beats louder;
I feel the changes in my body from mild man to terrifying beast,
Cracking sounds and hair sprouting all over me.
My canines turning into fangs, my height increasing to ten feet.
I feel inhumanly strong and invincibly unstoppable.
A howl I cannot suppress bursts out of my enlarged lungs
Before I run into the night seeking my frightened prey.
And if you don’t believe werewolves are real,
Pray you never see me on a full moon night.
You ask, “How come I’m not in the news?”
Because I’m a reluctant government experiment since 1973
Government contractors clean up the bloody messes
And keep my hundreds of kills out of the news,
No traces of the carnage, bodies never found.
Ever hear of Missing 411? Google it and you will see.

Bob Boyd

Oh How I Wonder About Being With You

Sometimes I think I’d love to be with you
Sometimes I think it would be like sticking
My hands into the flames of red hot fire
At the heartrending risk of getting burnt again
At other times I remember the wonders I see in you
Your inner beauty vastly beyond any outer beauty
Your captivating lightness of being, your joyfulness
And ponder if you’d be the love beyond loves
But wonder if because I’m a deep thinking man
Mystically spiritual and never ending philosophical
Ever questing new and fascinating knowledge
If our minds could ever meet in an Elysian Fields
Of ambrosial, mythical, epical immortal love
That would soar our hearts into the heavens
Oh how I wonder about being with you

Bob Boyd

I Don’t Know About You

I know about things like
Consciousness expansions
Bliss beyond measure
Peace unimaginable
White Light like the sun
Permanent kundalini energy
Palpable spiritual radiance
Amazing synchronicities
Spiritual dreams
Love without limits
Loving kindness
Compassion in action
But I don’t know about you
I can’t fathom
I can’t divine
I can’t prophesize
If I could trust you
If you’d be true
If you’d be there
If ever I needed you
If I could depend on you
And I’m thinking
I’m too old
My heart too
Battle hardened
From too many
Wars of Roses
To ever throw
The dice again.

Bob Boyd

1600s Superstar Witch Hunter

Matthew Hopkins 1600s Witch Hunter
Proclaimed Witch Hunter General
Superstar status sending scores of
Innocent man and women to the gallows
Using forbidden torture and heinous trickery
Turned witch hunting into lucrative enterprise
Incentivized to find and hang more innocents
The elderly often easy marks and easy money
People in towns and villages didn’t mind the killings
Social cleansing of those they didn’t like or need
Eventually the costs became Hopkins undoing
Taxes raised too high to pay for his infamy
Demand for his costly skills evaporated
1647 the Witch Hunter General died
Probably of a disease like tuberculosis
Never taken to task for the deaths
Of 100 innocent people. More’s the pity.

Bob Boyd

An Appalling Level of Casual Brutality

Essex England, 1600s, witches everywhere
Elizabeth Clark, elderly with only one leg
Hair cut off, body searched, roughly treated
By three women searching for Devil’s mark
Later tied to a chair, denied sleep for days
Forced to confess by Witch Finder General
Matthew Hopkins, fantical, cruel, evil
Proudly broke the 80-year-old woman
Who lied to stop the sleep-deprived torture
Confessed to being a witch and claimed
Other women in her village witches too
Her life ended with 15 other women
Condemned as witches, hung on the gallows
At Chelmsford Market Square in 1645.

Bob Boyd

Helen Duncan and the 1735 Witchcraft Act in Britain

I’m Helen Duncan, clairvoyant, psychic and reputable medium
Born in Scotland, lived from 1897 to 1956. In 1941 during WW2
Unjustly accused of, and condemned for, being the last witch in Britain.
Arrested under the nonsense 1735 Witchcraft Act.
My crime, Duckies, being too bloody good at what I did.
In 1941 channeled a dead, drowned sailor who had a secret,
And the authorities locked me up, claimed I was a bloody spy.
Nonsense! Rubbish! The spirit of the deceased sailor revealed
to people at the seance a British naval ship, HMS Barham, had been sunk.
Through no fault of mine, the news was supposed to be Top Secret.
The skeptical authorities didn’t listen to the facts and sentenced
Me to nine months in jail for my indisputable spirit summoning skills,
Like the daft people who believe the moon is made of cheese.

Bob Boyd

We Had It All

Like the song Key Largo said, we had it all
Until you got involved with that crazy cult
Abandoned me and our true love
For a fake Avatar in Goa, India
Who promised full enlightenment
In a single lifetime by obeying him
Sad you fell for his impossible con
Heart broken and screwed up
I vowed never another woman
Became like a bona fide monk
Three years later, you came home
A disheveled, babbling crazy women
Used and abused by the bogus holy man
You got delivered by an Exorcist
Died a year later in Harvard Square
Drug overdose, no coming back
I placed flowers and tears on your grave

Bob Boyd.

Dream of a Powerful Medicine Man

Read Black Elk Speaks by John G Neihardt
Back in the Age of Aquarius nineteen seventies.
Black Elk, powerful Medicine Man, mystic too.
Parts of the book trails of tears, sorrowful times
Sadden me what Black Elk went through.
At the end of the book Black Elk did a rain dance
And the rains fall, according to John G Neihardt.
Night I finished the book had a mystical dream.
On the top of a street lived near in my youth
Trouble making teenagers gathered wild and rambunctious.
Black Elk appears looking old, decrepit, weak and helpless.
Teenagers yell, “Make it rain, make it rain, Black Elk!”
Knowing he couldn’t do it, taunting, disrespecting him.
He starts unsteady powwow dance steps, chants weakly
Teenagers laugh and keep making fun of him.
I say, “Don’t, don’t,” at what they’re doing to ancient-looking Black Elk
Black Elk keeps dancing and chanting, feeble attempts.
Teenagers keep laughing hysterically, fall to the ground holding their stomachs.
Suddenly massive dark clouds roll in from the four corners of the world, shocking sight.
Teenagers scream in terror, as if death is coming, end of their lives.
Smiling, I gaze at Black Elk. Seconds later I’m standing in the center of the universe
Beholding endless planets and stars. Woke up, mind blown, knew it was more than a dream,
Genuine contact with a powerful Medicine Man. I think because of empathy.

Bob Boyd

When Dan’s Wife Died

When his wife, Jessica,
A stabilizing influence on him, died
Dan returned to the wild ways of his youth
Drugs, alcohol, badass attitude
Robbed a liquor store in Stoneham, MA
Shot the clerk and got away
Drove to Abilene, TX the next day
Stopped at a convenience store
In Canton, OH to rob it on a whim
Lazy-eyed teenage girl at the counter
Quick drawed a gun and shot dan dead
Teenage girl behind the counter
Psychopathic pretty in pink killer
Who shot the real counter guy
And posed as easy prey employee.
If only Dan’s wife hadn’t died.

Bob Boyd

Hannibal

In 218 BC, I crossed the alps with my
Famous North African War Elephants.
I brought burning hell to Rome
Winning scores of victories
In battles at the Battle of Ticinus,
Trebia, Lake Trasimene and Cannae.
The arrogant Romans felt their
defenses were impregnable.
They’d never met the likes of me.
Nor could they believe I’d taken
Those magnificent beasts across
The treacherous Alps.
But fifteen years later at the
Battle of Zuma, the Romans
Defeated me and I fled.
I was on the run for years
Until at the court of Bithynia,
I was handed over to the Romans
And poisoned myself to death,
Rather than let the Romans
Torture and execute me.

Bob Boyd

Madam Wei

I enjoyed a high reputation as a great
poetess in China in the 11th century.
My poems were considered as good
As the famous poet Li Quingzao’s
Celebrated masterpiece poems.
Though some nearsighted critics
Disagreed (No doubt because
I was a woman, and they were men).
Had I been a man, they would
Have raved about my poems
And hailed me as the
greatest poet in all of China.
I’m sad to say time wasn’t kind
To my best selling published collection
Madame Wei’s Works, that made
The China Times best seller list
For ten years. I suspect Misogynist
Male critics burned them after I died.

Bob Boyd

Lenora

At age seven, my sister Lenora
Developed an obsession with ants.
If you accidentally stepped on one
She would scold you for a week.
When my parents bought me an
Ant Farm one joyous Christmas,
As soon as I received the ants
Through the postal service,
I remember the stormy day,
Lenora went maniacally psycho
And smashed the farm to bits,
And set all the bewildered ants free
When a teenager, her obsession worsened;
She vowed to set all the ants free
At what she called the ant gulag,
The ant farm factory in Pittsburg, PA.
I worried she’d become a loopy
My suspicions confirmed when
She broke into the factory,
Somehow set numberless ants free
And tried to burn the factory down.
Now she’s spent fifty years
In a psychiatric hospital composing
Crazy paeans to ants while I write
Weird poems about stink bugs
Obsessively and dream about
Inventing a Stink Bug Farm
And selling it to the world.

Bob Boyd

Girolamo Savonarola

You might never have heard of me
That’s why I’m here
A 15th century pope tried to
Erase me from history
Because I was opposed
To the sinful excesses
In 15th Century Florence, Italy
I fought the good fight with
My bonfire of the vanities burning
Objects denounced as occasions of sin
Vanity items, mirrors, dresses,
Cosmetics, musical instruments
And more that tempted one to sin.
For my pure and Christian efforts
And my justified defiance of
Licentious Pope Alexander the VI
I was excommunicated and
Hanged to death, my body
Burned to ashes in
Florence Square.

Bob Boyd

One of the Saddest Days in Davao, Philippines

I couldn’t watch when they lowered your little coffin
In the ground at that Philippines cemetery in Davao
I couldn’t watch your six years of challenged life ended that way.
I just couldn’t bear it. I was holding back a thousand tears.
My heart was breaking with the worst heartaches of my life.
I had to stay in the background on that saddest of sad days.
I couldn’t get up close and watch that coffin lowered in the ground
With you such a little child, who never had a chance in life, dead in it.
Your mother was able to stand there and watch
God bless her, I don’t know how.
Born with water on the brain, you never had a chance.
No playgrounds, no schools, no friends, no high school
No girlfriends, no proms, no jobs, no love life, nothing.
You couldn’t walk or talk and your six years spent helpless in a bed,
Seemingly oblivious to the world and your surroundings.
How my heart grieved for you, even though you weren’t my son.
I hope to see you in the afterlife, healed, happy and walking and talking.
And I hope you got a reward in the higher life for how
Shortchanged you were in this life.
Breaks my heart you didn’t have a better life.

Bob Boyd

Dream Woman

Saw you in a dream last night.
Dark-skinned Nubian beauty,
Radiant brown eyes
Never saw a woman
More beautiful than you
Siren-like, I felt the lure
Kissed me in the dream
And the kiss, the kiss …
Unlike any ever
I wanted more
But the dream ended
And you haven’t been
In any of my dreams since
Were you real or imaginary
Some astral angel
Did our dreams intersect
Most pleasurably
Come back and
Let’s kiss again

Bob Boyd

5 O’clock Somewhere

I’m wondering what Jimmy Buffet is doing in the afterlife.
Is he singing and doing concerts for all those people in the Great Beyond?
And does his music and vocals sound better there?
Is he getting drunk on heavenly bliss in some kind of ecstatic Margaritaville?
Is he living on a beach next to an ocean of unconditional love and eternal bliss?
Is he able to get any of those Golden-era guitars he collected there?
Are there legions of parrot heads and even angel fans in his neck of the afterlife?
And is it 5 O’clock somewhere there or is time nonexistent?
Or is it 5 O’clock everywhere on some ethereal, eternal clock?
Tell me true if you’re a psychic, a medium, or a seer.

Bob Boyd

White Light

We’re all just people trying to make out way through this world
Some of us don’t get too far, dead before we barely start
Some of us meet terrible fates, wounded, murdered, debilitated
Some of us have twisted terrible lives, harder challenges
I was one of those people with a twisted terrible life
Undeservedly, a stroke of grace, a powerful spiritual experience
Lit the way for me to find a better way through this world
Now that my life is almost done, I’m looking forward to
Making my way through the higher, greater life
That white light spiritual experience remade me for.

Bob Boyd

Sound of It

In a tranquil field
Flowers and weeds
Locked in mortal combat
On the serengeti plans
Lions
Hunting prey
In the cosmos
Black holes
Devouring stars
In a junkyard
In Kentucky
A mechanic
Dismembering cars
Sitting at my computer
In Greensboro, NC
I don’t know what
This poem means
I just like the
Sound of it

Bob Boyd

I’ve Got to Stop Listening to 30s Music

30s music romantic lyrics, so good, so sublime
Sometimes they start to get to me like
When a crooner sings about meeting
His love of a lifetime under a blue moon
Or another sings it had to be you
When he finally meets his dream lady
Then another sings about saying good night
To his sweetheart and how they’ll meet tomorrow.
And some women with a sweet enchanting voice
Sings she’s got a feeling she’s falling in love with me
And I start remembering what it feels like to fall in love
When I get elated, romantic feelings I’ve just about forgotten
And that woman becomes the most beautiful woman in the world
Making all over women lackluster by comparison
Making my emotions enlivened with unending love for her
Longing for her incomparable company every single day
Thinking about her incessantly, remembering things she said.
And I start feeling like bringing an imaginary woman dozens of roses
And writing incredibly romantic love poems to her
And forgetting I’m kind of a don’t need no woman monk,
But oh how I love those 30s music lyrics, so good, so sublime.
And I love that music and those lyrics so much
That I’ll never stop listening to 30s romantic music.
I’ll just have to stay strong and forget about women …
Forget about women … forget about women ….

Bob Boyd

Stink Bug on My Computer

A stink bug just flew on my computer screen.
Though they’re grotesque looking, I like them.
But I must admit the first time I saw one
It looked so bizarre it startled me,
Wondering if it was harmful and would sting or bite.
Rarely had I seen a weirder looking bug.
It had kind of a threatening don’t touch me look.
We don’t have them where I’m originally from
Just outside of Boston, MA in the suburbs.
Despite not knowing if it was harmful,
I couldn’t kill it, just coaxed it onto a tissue
And walked it outside my apartment
Into the freedom of a warm summer’s night.
After I learned stink bugs were harmless,
I grew to like them, as I like the one
That just soared off my computer, tiny wings flapping,
Airborne for a few seconds in lamp lit skies,
And landing on a runway somewhere behind me.
In a little while he might land on me.
Maybe he’ll sit on my shoulder like a best pal
And watch YouTube videos with me.
And tell me how he can’t meet any stink bug women online,
I’ll say I feel your pain, been there with human women.
Maybe after he pours out his love life miseries,
And cries for a while on my shoulder,
He’ll give me some ideas for this poem, like a muse.
Maybe I’ll adopt him as an exotic pet.
I wouldn’t tether him to a restraining leash
Or stick him in a four-sided, oppressive aquarium,
Or imprison him in a soul crushing miniature cage,
That is if stink bugs have souls.
Or dress him up like dogs with sissy sweaters.
But mercy me I don’t know what I’d feed him,
And I doubt I’d find stink bug food at Petsmart.
I could probably find him some food on Amazon,
Hopefully with a five gold stars rating
And next day shipping between 4 and 8am.
I hate that it has such an undignified name.
I would have named it unique looking cool bug.
And by the way, stink bugs only stink if you crush them,
as if dead they get the final say.

Bob Boyd

Country Living

Thought I’d love country living
Breathing clean country air every day
Avoiding congested city traffic and crazy drivers
Observing deer, a variety of birds, and other animals
Strolling down quiet, peaceful country roads at night
Living a carefree low pollution serene life
Enjoying a refreshing country living dream
Woke up from the dream after a about a week
Stores shut down at 9 PM every night
Nothing nearby for a late night smack
Or a craving for some pizza and a cola
Nearest grocery store like a continent away
Strolling down country roads perilous at night
No sidewalks, risks of rabid animals, narrow roads
Locals drove like maniacs down those narrow roads
Like nearsighted drivers racing in the Indy 500 at night
Good luck to you if you were taking that nightly stroll
Was relieved when I packed up and returned to the city.

Bob Boyd

Guppies

Maybe the Hindus have it right. Maybe we reincarnate,
starting as the lowest lifeforms and evolving up to
human births and eventually attain enlightenment
where we get off the wheel of rebirths and attain the
Sat Chit Ananda, the Eternal Bliss Consciousness.
I’m thinking about this because as I look at the guppies
in my aquariums swimming about merrily, I’m wondering
do they just die into nothingness, and that’s it? Oblivion,
and it’s over for them? Or maybe they die into the tunnel
of White Light and emerge into a guppy heaven. A celestial
world freed from oppressive fish tanks and whatever cares
earthbound guppies have, swimming and playing ecstatically
in bliss-laden bodies of water, vast as oceans with no predators
to annihilate their joyous lives in an eternal, aquatic paradise.

Bob Boyd

Bishop Bonner, The Devil’s Dancing Bear (1500-1569)

Bishop Bonner did the Devil’s work
Under Queen Mary the First in 1555
Torturing hundreds of Protestants
To renounce their faiths,
And become Catholics
In the Tower of London.
Breaking many on the rack,
Burning many at the stake.
Supposedly a man of God,
He had the modus operandi of
A cruel, murderous psychopath.
But when Queen Elizabeth
Ascended to the throne in 1558.
Bishop Bonner was thrown
In jail and died there in 1569,
His legacy of infamy the only
remnant of him remaining.
Would liked to have been an
Observer in the afterlife,
To see where he went,
Perhaps indeterminately
Broken on the rack and
Burned at the stake.

Bob Boyd

A 1612 Lancaster County Atrocity

As innocent as a fresh born babe and with a deformed face, my left eye lower than my right, accused of being a witch, I denied the claims of witchcraft at the August 1612 Witches Trial in Lancaster County, England.
Wrongfully convicted, sentenced to death, I couldn’t believe I’d come to this.
Shocked by the thought of my life ending so soon, I passed out before being dragged to my cell.
Days later, I stood below a hanging noose tied to a thick branch of a tree, my heart trembling, tears falling from my downcast eyes.
About to be hung to death, through my tears I spied my nine-year-old daughter, Elizabeth Device, watching from afar in a field, whose false testimony brought me here.
And I screamed, “God save me!” before I left this unjust world.

Bob Boyd

A Long Ago Fairy Tale Love

Summer days on the shores of a picturesque pond
His head on her lap blissfully gazing up at her
The most beautiful woman he’d ever seen
The backdrop of a beaming summer sun,
Enhancing her radiant blonde hair,
her incredible, goddess-like looks.
Knew they had a fairy tale love forever.
Though they lived states away and only saw
Each other during teenage summers,
He never knew love could be so wonderful,
So consuming, so blissful beyond anything
he’d ever experienced or could ever have imagined.
But like Icarus who flew too close to the sun
When she cheated on him and ruined everything,
His wings of love singed, he crashed to the ground.
Days turned into dark nights of dead dreams.
A saddened sun sobbed behind consoling clouds.
A melancholic moon cried in a lovelorn night.
And rivers of tears fell from his eyes
Over the loss of a fairy tale love.

Bob Boyd

Maximum Gratitude Beyond Measure

This may sound kinda contrary, but I’m grateful I got cancer, no regrets. It vanquished my whitecoatitis; It liberated me from medical fears. It gave me admiration for the medical profession. It abolished my hate of hospitals; now I love what they do, though I still don’t want to be stranded in them, and I hate those freakin’ unwieldy hospital gowns. I’ve become like the phoenix out of the ashes, more inwardly powerful, my character enhanced. I’m grateful for the knowledge of cancer I gained and for all the wonderful infusion room nurses who like angels on earth helped save my life. I like how “I’ve been there,” kinda like street cred and can connect, commiserate, and relate with others with cancer so easily. It made my presentations ten times more powerful, my kinda like street cred makes me more legit. The worst thing happening, the dreaded C gave me the calmness of a Zen Master, something I never had even with years of attempts to reach that elevated state. And if I have to face cancer again, I’m game. And if it kills me I’m good with that too. The way I see it, I get to go to my real home, the abode of unconditional love and eternal bliss. You may doubt that, but I’m as sure as you are a living, breathing human being reading this that that’s where I’m going. I base that on extensive research into the land of NDES, shared death experiences, deathbed visions, a mystical experience I’ve had for over 50 years and having experienced bliss beyond description and the peace beyond understanding many times in the past and an unwavering faith in the Ruler of Time and Space despite His name being taboo in many quarters now. And this is a stream of consciousness poem.

Bob Boyd

The Birdman of Stirling Castle

In the Autumn of 1507 in Stirling, Scotland
an Italian-born abbot, John Damian de Falcuis
Studied birds in flight and believed he could fly.
He fashioned the feathers of eagles into wings
He wore on his arms. Clad in the makeshift
Flying machine, he leaped off Stirling Castle.
For a moment, he hovered in the sky
As if, like a bird he really could fly;
Then plummeted seventy feet to
The unwelcoming ground. Miraculously,
he survived, woke up in a doctor’s urgent care,
Many injuries and a shattered thigh bone.
He never could walk properly after that
And he stayed out of the sky.

Bob Boyd

Imagine if You Were Born to be Fish Food

Imagine if you were born fated to be fish food. Imagine knowing your demise was only a purchase away. And since you couldn’t go to church and no proselytizers would be knocking on the door of your plastic container to save your soul, you wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hades of getting to heaven.
You’d probably be hoping that death was a Hindu thing where you could come back at a higher birth.
Maybe living the good life as one of the privileged, high born fish who ate the fish food. If your karma had been even better, maybe you’d come back living the dream as one of the customers buying the fish food.

Bob Boyd

Thailand’s Sak Yant Tattoo Festival

An hour west of Bangkok
Sak Yant animal spirit tattoos
Administered by Buddhist Monks.
Tranced devotees run like crazed animals,
Growling and gesturing, newborn beasts
Through crowds of thousands upon thousands
To the front of the astonished crowds
Captured, restrained by handlers
Stabilized by the Buddhist monks.
Is it as claimed the cleansing of Karma
Manifesting as spirit animals
Or crazed imaginations run wild?
Whatever the reason, it’s a bizarre sight.
You will never forget once you’ve seen it.

Bob Boyd

Two Summers and a Fairy Tale

I knew you for two summers, met you at a teenage dance.
We danced to the song Sixteen Candles, and with each step
We became more enamored, knew we’d be a couple.
Teenagers we fell in love, planned to marry when older,
Vowed we’d be together forever, prince and princess, the fairy tale.
I loved you so much it was like I was living in a heavenly dream 24/7.
But when when the two summers became chilled by ill-fated fall winds,
You were untrue, and the heavenly dream became a heartbreaking reality.
The sun hid its tears behind darkening clouds.
The moon turned blue in the dismal night.
And I, heart-wounded prince, whose vow of love ever true
Couldn’t believe the princess killed the fairy tale,
And I could no longer be with you.

Bob Boyd

Four Young Girls from Birmingham

September 15, 1963 bombed to death in the 16th Street Baptist Church In Birmingham:
Addie Mae Collins (14), Cynthia Wesley (14), Carole Robertson (14) Carol Denise McNair (11).
I’ve seen their photos, read their stories – long ago,
Bright futures awaited those innocent, young girls.
Reading about them, tears fell. It was all so heartbreakingly sad.
Soulless monsters, the killers didn’t seem to care;
They didn’t seem contrite and ashamed, as they should have been.
Wondered how God could have let that happen, and in the sanctity of a church.
The only way I can reconcile their awful, unjust fates
Is that surely God must have needed four more angels in heaven.
Never forget those four young girls from Birmingham.

Bob Boyd

The Wooing of an Inscrutable Woman

What is it going to take to woo this inscrutable woman?
Am I going to have to crawl over a hundred miles of broken glass?
Or swim the seven seas seventeen times?
Or like a gladiator of old, fight off hundreds of lions in a coliseum?
Or scale Mount Everest ten thousand times?
Good God in heaven, what on earth is it going to take?
In an attempt to make her favor sweeter,
I think I’ll start with some chocolate mousse from Harris Teeter.

Bob Boyd

8th Century Chinese Poetry

I love 8th century Chinese poetry.
I even like their poets’ names like Li Po and Wang Wei.
They sound so cool and so exotic to me.
Those poets liked things like jade — in abundance;
They seemed to like it more than we like gold.
They liked oriole birds, and if you see one, you’ll know why
And there are eight species in the US and in Canada.
They loved the word crystalline, as in crystalline water.
In many ways their poetry is close to peerless,
Their use of imagery is phenomenal and sublime.
All of this amazes me because it was written so long ago.
And by that way, I’m not talking reading these poems
In Chinese. I know nothing of Mandarin, and I can’t
Speak Cantonese. Nor any of the hundreds of
dialects that are considered Chinese.

Bob Boyd

Coming and Going

Some come into this world suffering
all manner of medical conditions
out of the womb.

Most go out of this world suffering
dementia, cancers, other medical
conditions into the grave.

Why all this suffering? Where’s the love?
I swear by heaven above, if I were in
charge of the here and now, the

comings and goings, nobody
would ever suffer on the way in
or the way out.

Bob Boyd

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