Poems by Bob Boyd

I look outside my apartment
and see the leaves on the trees
like never before

and I marvel at how green the
reborn leaves have become
this month of April.

Before I was retired, I never
noticed these wonders of
nature. I was so consumed
with my job, I paid no
attention to them.

Now I see them as though
my senses have become
alive beyond belief,

as though I have new eyes
that have opened to nature’s
seasonal splendors with
greater clarity and sight.

And I see the beautiful blue of the sky
and the greening of the lush grass
that surrounds my apartment.

Now I appreciate the greening
of April like never before.

Bob Boyd

I’ve lived 80 years of life, have lived in many places,
many states and Europe and the Philippines.

I’ve had a reasonably full life with many adventures
and have no need for more earthly adventures.

I see death as the greatest adventure ever.

I see death as a shedding of earthly cares and
a temporary body with it’s vulnerabilities to
aging, disabilities and diseases that one is
rid of when newly born young and fresh
in the afterlife.

And I am in a position with no attachments,
so I can easily let go when death comes.

If I had a girlfriend or a wife, my heart would
break at even the thought of leaving her.
I would not want to let go unless we could
go together.

I’d fight to stay alive with every iota of my
being to stay with her and not leave her
behind while I ascended into what I see as
a greater, wonderous world.

But because I’m so accepting of dying,
and because I feel so incredibly good,
still working out, exercising daily,
as if I were nearly indestructible,
I’ll probably be here for many more years,
more than I want to be.

And as you can never say never, maybe
one day I’ll be blissfully anchored
to this world with a girlfriend or a wife
and unable to let go when death comes.

Or maybe like sometimes happens,
we’d go out together or each would
die within days of the other.

In the meantime, come Death
take me home to what I believe
is my true home.

And though I’m not a fundamentalist
Christian but a devout believer in Christ
in a non-churched mystical fashion,
maybe Jesus will meet me at the doorway
to death and take me to paradise.

Or maybe I’ll merge with the cosmos,
become post life enlightened and live
forever in the eternal bliss consciousness.

Whatever the outcome, I look forward to dying
though not in a suicidal sense.

Bob Boyd

don’t always make good romantic partners
one is content staying home most of the time
the other has to get out all of the time
though some seem to make it work
I read Dolly Parton and her husband did
God bless them I don’t know how
but Dolly must be an exceptional person
to stay faithful with all the temptations
she could have had as an entertainer
I have alway been mostly a homebody
though in my wild youth I was out all the time
when I had a romantic partner I preferred
to stay home most of the time and to
go out occasionally unlike some women
I’d been with who had to get out all the time
with a wife like that I was terribly lonely
and remember an old country song
isn’t it lonely together and eventually
I had to leave her even though she
surprisingly begged me to stay despite the
homebody social butterfly incompatibility.

bob boyd

Consider all these people who go missing
without a clue of what happened to them

except maybe their shoes the only thing
found with no traces, and even search and

rescue dogs can’t pick up a scent of them.

Supposedly their numbers are in the thousands
and no one knows what happened to them.

Not a trace of the vanishings and no logical
explanations for their disappearances.

Speculations vary: portals, aliens, Bigfoot,
Dogman, or something else supernatural
and unknown.

I’ve listened to cases where allegedly people
have experienced bizarre beings that appeared
to them via other dimensions.

For example, something quasi formless that
morphs into bizarre forms and beckons them
while everything gets quiet all around them,
or a form that emits a vibration that
vibrates everything around that a person,
even that person’s keys in his pocket.

As crazy as it sounds and may be, imagine if
beings from other dimensions were instantly
manifesting in this dimension and snatching
these people into those dimensions for
whatever reasons.

A chilling thought indeed. And, in my opinion,
as good a guess as any other explanation.

As for me, I’m open to the theory these
inexplicable 411 missing cases could be
kidnappings by aliens with the ability to
move with ease in and out of dimensions.

But, of course, that could be utter nonsense,
and nobody knows for sure the fate of the 411s.

Bob Boyd

Wouldn’t want to be a ghost hunter
if ghosts are real

Imagine if they are real and you
encountered one

and it decided to follow you home
to haunt and terrify you

and you couldn’t protect yourself
from what you could not strike or stop

Imagine if it pervaded your dreams
and every part of your life

as if it had totally possessed you
like a demon from hell

Unless you were made of sterner stuff
that haunting possession

might drive you full blown crazy

And there’s this saying when you go
looking for the paranormal
the paranormal comes looking for you

But when you see ghost hunters
on TV none of them seem to have
this happen to them

But that’s TV and you can’t always
believe what you see on TV

Whatever the case ghost hunting
would never be for me

Bob Boyd

I can’t believe people who go through horrific things in this life were bad people in past lives who are getting their due.

I think if karma is factual it’s more complicated than that. I think there is randomness in the equation.

For example, a while back in the news it was reported a woman in New York was walking through a park and a large tree branch fell on her and killed her.

I see that as randomness and not some karmic payback.

Personally, I don’t like the idea of karma. I don’t like the idea of assigning a person’s bad behavior in a former life to bad karma when they are going through something horrendous like a terminal brain cancer or the loss of their legs.

I do believe in action and reaction in this life. A person commits a crime and usually imprisonment is the reaction, but in my belief that’s not past life or this life bad karma.

But karma is based on belief and speculation, and I choose to believe there’s more than karma involved when it comes to a person’s suffering.

Bob Boyd

Last night I dreamed about bombs
beginning to fall, and braced for
the impending explosions,
but woke up before the bombs fell.

Though a dream, the feeling was
as real as if I were in a country
where bombs were always
about to fall.

I woke up relieved the falling bombs
were only a dream, and wondered
what that dream was really about

or what I’d seen or read about
during the day that might have
manifested in that dream.

Now I’m imagining how horrifying it
must be to live, or have lived, in a country
where bombs are always about to fall.

Bob Boyd

Sitting at my computer in front of a window
with the moonlight coming through,
I find myself thinking about you.

And I’m remembering how nice it was
being with you.

And what a wonderful part of my life those
seven years were.

Though our love ended when you got sick
and didn’t want to burden me

and left despite my forever vow to be there
always for you, I’m okay with our lost love now.

And though alone and over twenty years older,
I’ll go to my grave remembering you
and how much you meant to me.

Bob Boyd

A few weeks ago, I entered a donut shop
called Duck Donuts.

Though I rarely eat donuts and unlike
Häagen-Dazs ice cream, I have no
addiction to them.

But I was intrigued by the name, perhaps
partly because I like ducks.

I tried a plain donut to sort of test the taste
in its purer form instead of a donut with
all the bits and extras.

The donut was the best plain donut I ever
tasted, and I wondered if any other
donut shops had plain donuts as good
or better.

I like to experiment, so my plan was to
try plain donuts in other donut shops in
Greensboro, NC where I live.

I did a search with Yelp and saw donut shops
like Dunkin Donuts, Krispy Kreme, and Donut World

To my surprise, days later I got an email from
Yelp, “How was Donut World?”

Now I know Yelp isn’t psychic, so clearly it was
stalking me, but it’s stalking was faulty as
a fake psychic’s guesses, and I’ve not been
to Donut World so far.

Bob Boyd

I’m reading a poetry book beginning at the
end of it. but, trust me, I’m not a half wit.

What! You say that sounds odd. I have to agree,
trying to be an objective critic of me.

But hear me out and you might see the method
in my oddness is far from insanity.

I began by reading the book from the start,
but felt the poems had no heart.

So to in an attempt to put my dislike in the past,
I thought maybe the best were saved for last.

Now maybe that was crazy and my thinking was
hazy.

But like a crescendo, and I write this with no
innuendo, the poems at the ending were
better, more heartrending and mind bending.

Bob Boyd