Poems by Bob Boyd

Until I began researching dragons
of different cultures
days ago, I never knew Native
Americans had dragons in their
culture.

And that some of the symbolism
relates to Protection, Power,
Transformation, and Traversing
Realms.

This is why I have a Native
American woman with a multi colored
dragon at the top of this blog now.

I’m kind of hoping it’s my final
banner or maybe I’ll have a rotating
banner with two or three other
rotating banners.

But I’m kind of hooked on this
Native American banner; I like
Native American things, and I
really like how that banner looks.

Been to powwows, listened to
a Native American storyteller
long ago in faraway Vermont,
visited a Native American museum,
and did a presentation on
resources for the aging at a
Native American seniors group
here in Greensboro years ago.

And I feel it’s critical to keep
the Native American culture alive,
to never let it die.

Bob Boyd

Peace isn’t luck.
For six years stand facing a silent wall,
Until the ‘you’ of your face,
Melts like a candle.

Ikkyu

The “you” of my face has never melted like a candle.
I’ve never become ONE with the universe.
But my heart has melted a number of times
when I fell in love with the one, a new love.

That said, I know what Ikkyu is meaning.
Your little self melts into the bigger Self
and your mind is blown beyond the
dualities into the eternal ONENESS.

And the way he is describing is the Zen
Zazen where you Zen meditate earnestly
with the goal of melting into the cosmos.

And the melting reminds me of a song where
a singer sings elatedly that he’s going
to melt with a woman.

Now that may sound sexual, but I like
thinking about it romantically like the “you”
of your heart melting with the “you” of
her heart – heart to heart romantically
united in the euphoria, the incomparable
ecstasy of high-flying, airborne true love.

Bob Boyd

In her twenties
out out on weekends
partying at the clubs
beautiful and popular
enjoying life

But serious, studious about
her education
graduated from college
magna cum laude

In middle age a great career
selling prime real estate
to wealthy buyers
and still beautiful
and popular with
her social set

But she didn’t let her
success, her money,
her beauty or her popularity
make her feel she was
superior to those who
had less advantages
and little money

She donated fortunes
to causes that helped
the poor, the sick,
the elderly and
the disabled

When she retired
she devoted her
life to the sick and the dying
volunteering at hospice
five days a week

A life well lived
gifted, successful, humble,
kind and caring

Bob Boyd

When he died, he didn’t know he had lived.
Just liked when he lived he didn’t know he
had come from the afterlife before he lived.
Why this sort of intended amnesia is a
mystery known only by the self realized sage,
who has found the keys to unlock the door
to liberation, escaping the revolving doors of
death and life, knower of the hidden mysteries.

Bob Boyd

When they fell in love,
he promised here
he’d never leave her

The hugs, the kisses,
the caresses, the hands
held, a romance like heaven

Three years past, a love
that would last until she
contracted a chronic

disease that rendered her
unable to walk and the man
who vowed to never leave her

who promised he’d love her
forever, exited her life just
when she needed him most

Bob Boyd

He ran 45 minutes every other night
and felt the runner’s highs
in all of the nightly runs.

He liked the coolness of the night,
the fewer cars on the roads he
ran on.

But then during one of his hundreds
of runs in his thirties, he heard a
snapping in his right knee

and he limped all the way home,
and saw a doctor the next day
who said his knee would be okay

after an arthroscopy a few days
later, and he’d be able to run again
just like he had for years.

The operation done, the rest, and
the rehab over, he started a new run
with his healed knee.

But after only a few minutes, pain
in his knee and his running
ended forever

with no guarantees another operation
would fix the knee completely
and could make it worse.

Bob Boyd

Life is bursting in the trees outside my apartment
with a chorus of birds singing merrily in them
who were silent during the colder months.

It’s as if the end of the month of April has brought
them all to life with a symphony of separate songs,
as if each bird is playing a different instrument.

And for the first time in the eleven years I’ve lived here,
I’m really hearing the birds and their many melodies.

Bob Boyd

I have been to Rag Rock in Woburn, Mass
As a child I found an arrowhead there.
Knew little of its Native American origins.
I’d heard Native Americans lived there once.
I wish I had visited it as an adult and
Read signs there proclaiming its history.
Although it would have made me sad
If the former inhabitants and their culture
Were driven out of there and possibly
Had broken treaties and their own tears.
As a child I had no idea of their history
Nor of how Native Americans were treated.
All I knew was they were called indians
And were the bad guys in cowboy and
Indians movies and TV shows. Sad how
Distorted it all was, and maybe it’s
Better I didn’t visit Rag Rock as an adult
It might have made me sad and angry.

Bob Boyd

The teenage twins had been nice,
happy guys, always a smile, always fun
when they lived in the small city
of Woburn, Massachusetts where
I lived too.

Their family moved to a larger city,
Arlington, Massachusetts.

And the twins morphed into something
unimagined, unbelievable.

I and a friend met them a year later
in Arlington, and they had hardened.

They spoke of gang fighting, kicking
ass and using high kicks to win fights
by kicking guys in their heads.

They even looked different, like
hardcore hoodlums with hard eyes.

On the night we were with them
in Arlington, they invited us to a
gang war with some preppy
guys

which started just as we wisely
hightailed it back to Woburn.

I will never forget how a mere
move to another city changed
those twins for the worst.

And thinking about them, I
wonder if they ever changed
back to the nice guys they
were, or did some crazy
criminal things and went
to jail for years or for life.

Bob Boyd

Babies born disabled physically or mentally.
Babies born with cancer and other life threatening diseases.
Children raped, sex trafficked, and murdered.
Children beaten to death by parents and sometimes by others.
Children dying of all manner of things and never getting a chance to live full lives.
Young people dying of all manner of things, even cancer now, just when they are starting their lives.
Serial killers, murderers, rapists, pedophiles, evil people.
People born predisposed to severe mental health conditions.
Men who physically abuse or murder their girlfriends or wives.
People predisposed to be incurable, insufferable jerks.
Evil people who write or say kill yourself to others.
People who dream of seeing politicians killed and encourage it.
And true love that turns out to be untrue and wrecks the fairy tale versions.

These are most of the things that bother me about this life, and, if a loving God exists, as opposed to an impersonal God devoid of love, or no God, I cannot understand how these terrible things are allowed to happen by a loving God.

On a lighter note, if when I die I could run the universe for even a week, as a temp Divinity, I’ll abolish those blights upon *humankind and the suffering they cause so many.

I will transform ice cream, chocolate, cookies and pastries
into super foods that will guarantee perfect mental and physical health, freedom from diseases, and long fulfilling lifespans.

And nobody will have to worry about putting on too much weight from eating those sweet health foods.

I will end wars forever, and people will be gentle instead of violent or abrasive.

Broken hearts will never happen.

Everybody will be born beautiful and equally intelligent with IQs through the roof.

Everyone will be loving and compassionate and wake up happy every morning.

And as a blue light special bonus, I’ll ironclad guarantee everyone will find their soulmates no later than age 18. And I’ll damn sure tweak those fairy tale ever afters to really be ever afters forever.

So if you are alive when I die and those things happen, you’re welcome, Kemosabe

Bob Boyd

* Saw a YouTube video where a woman corrected a man for saying mankind instead of humankind, and the guy who made the video was annoyed at the woman for saying that.

But I agree with her and though I’m not about wokery and PC, I feel humankind is more inclusive and fairer to women. And I’ll bet the guy who got annoyed at humankind wouldn’t have liked it if all of us were described as womankind.