Poems by Bob Boyd

When I had cancer about 3 years ago,
I had to have my blood drawn by phlebotomists
every week for blood tests.

The phlebotomists were always females,
and they marveled over my veins, as if my
veins were visual pheromones that were
magnetically intoxicating to
phlebotomists of the female persuasion.

Had I only known that when I was younger,
I wouldn’t have wasted money on fancy
men’s colognes like Paco Rabanne.

I would have made it a point to hang out
where female phlebotomists did.

I would have worn short sleeve shirts,
or long sleeve shirts rolled up to my elbows,
to advantageously show off my alluring veins
as a surefire way of wooing them for their love.

Bob Boyd

I’m listening to an old love song where a guy is singing
about how he “can’t fight this feeling” about falling in love.

I’m thinking just go for it Man. Tell her you love her,
for God’s sake. Don’t be a damn wuss.

Then I have a reversal of my thinking. Maybe
this guy is just off a relationship where a woman
crushed his heart to pieces and he is gun shy
about jumping into what could be another train wreck.

I’m feeling empathy about his hesitation, and, maybe,
I’ve been there, though I cannot recall if I have.

But as I listen to the song further along, I can see
he’s already lost the battle to safeguard his heart
just by the fact that he has to make a big deal
out of his denial for a good three minutes in a song.

And I’m back to the starting point of just telling him
to get on with it and tell her what she already knows.

Bob Boyd

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
the saddest are these: “It might have been.”

~ John Greenleaf Whitter

I heard that saying as a child and came to
experience the full meaning of it in terms of
missed opportunities with women.

Sometimes I’ve thought about these
women and wonder what might have
been.

Like the beautiful red-haired teenage
girl I danced with at a YMCA teenage
dance and was too shy to talk to
because I was tongue-tied by her beauty.

Like the lovely blonde-haired woman
who kept talking to me at an
outdoor event and I was too dumb to
realize she was into me. I wonder
what might have been with her too.

Like after I went on a double date
with a friend and his date, and
my date wasn’t interested in me,
and years later when I’d returned
home from the Air Force I found out
his date had had a crush on me, but
she was married, and it was too late
to find out what might have been.

I’ve had too many miss opportunities,
what might have beens. If only I could
do a rewind and start all over again.

Bob Boyd

Chris Hartonas, 40, and Raymond Vakili, 48,
well equipped mountaineers with years of
experience and considered two of the best,
vanished climbing Mount Rainier in Washington.
a mountain they’d climbed many times before.

Despite extensive searches by park rangers,
Rainier Mountaineering Guides, search dogs,
volunteers and friends of the men, and US
Army Reserve and helicopters, the men
to this day have never been found, as if they
vanished without a trace.

Another inexplicable 411 missing case.
Hunters, trackers, seasoned hikers have
gone missing under mysterious
circumstances too along with hundreds
of thousands of other 411 cases.

Some believe supernatural forces are
at play, and I can understand that,
given all the 411s with no logical
explanations about how they
went permanently missing.

Bob Boyd

Because of robberies, assaults on employees and trashing of their stores,
Dunkin Donuts stores are now encased in bullet proof glass.
Unbelievable it came to that, something you never heard of in the past.
It seems too many donut eaters in shy town have become more unruly and dangerous
than in genteel times of the past when a company didn’t need bullet proof glass to sell a donut in Chicago.

Bob Boyd

I like the saying expect the unexpected.
To me it’s great and practical advice.
It’s easy to get lulled into feeling
as if good times will always be good,
or as if everything will go along predictably.
I feel an awareness about how things can
change in a millisecond for the best or the
worst that you never expected is a good
awareness to cultivate, like the saying expect
the best but be prepared for the worst.
And the unexpected could be an auspicious
occurrence, like a new love coming into your life,
or having a deadly cancer that goes into remission.
The unexpected is different for me now, good or bad.
I see it as something new and exciting in my life,
regardless of the good or bad it can bring into it.
An old life can be that boring where any change
is an antidote to the less exciting elderly years
when the dreams are over and memories are
all you have left of them.

Bob Boyd

I once talked to an elderly woman who grew up in the country who spoke of older relatives who had passed away long ago.
She said they knew all about the herbs in the forest and the many remedies they were for and that this knowledge used to be handed down from generation to generation. But she said today that knowledge is forgotten.

I was impressed with her story and amazed that people in her family once had that kind of knowledge about the natural world.
I wondered how extensive that knowledge was and how far back in her family it has been known and how effective it was.
Her story reminded me of the cunning folk of the Middle Ages, and I would have liked to have learned that kind of knowledge or had lived at a time when I could have seen it in practice.

Bob Boyd

An eccentric, his name was Henry Cope.
He lived in northeast Hampshire, England
and had an obsession with the color green
and only ate green vegetables and fruits.

He dressed in green impeccably and his
apartment was painted green as well as
having a green sofa, green chairs,
green tables, a green bed and green curtains.

His two-wheeled carriage was also green
along with his riding gloves and whips.
Around his neck, he sported a green
cravat.

He was said to have lost his wits from too
much studying or from his rejection by
a beautiful woman he loved.

He is thought to have died in 1810 in
St Luke’s Hospital in Old Street London,
a hospital for “incurable pauper lunatics,”
though other theories about his death abound.

Now he is one of 12-15 ghosts alleged to
haunt Bramshill House in Hampshire, England.

Bob Boyd

The days have gotten warmer.
The sun is shining brighter.
It’s too hot to leave the windows
closed and insulated.

After I free the windows of
the insulation, open them,
and pull down the screens,
the rooms begin to breath in
the invigorating fresh air, and
my skin and mind revel in
that fresh air feeling that
I had almost forgotten about.

Bob Boyd

Her name is Claire.
She runs a YouTube
channel about
the morbid, the
mysterious and
the macabre
called Don’t Scare
Claire.

She’s English, blonde
beautiful, intelligent
and articulate.

Her Queen’s English
accent is a delight
to listen to.

Her angelic looks
seem a contradiction
to the subject
material of
her often
scary videos.

But damn she does
them so good and
her research and
presentations are
impeccable.

Watch Don’t Scare Clair,
if you dare.

Bob Boyd