Poems by Bob Boyd

They were the beautiful flowers
in the celluloid Hollywood fields.
Actresses I saw in so many movies
and all the time on television screens.

It seemed they’d be eternally beautiful
and young and lovely forever.
Now some of them are dead.
Now all of them are old.

And the beautiful flowers
in the celluloid Hollywood fields
have wilted into nondescript
elderly women whose looks
have faded away so much
you would never know how
amazingly beautiful they were
when they bloomed in the movies
and on the television screens.

Though the demise of their beauty
is just the natural effects of aging
and all flowers eventually fade,
it saddens me just the same.

Bob Boyd

Met Monica on a dating site. She made the
BS claim that she was Dracula’s daughter,
though she did have the required
Romanian accent or she was good at
faking it, and she wore the requisite
black cape.

And her canines did seem a bit too protruded.

As she talked dribble in a real or fake Romanian
accent, I was getting bored, had to leave

Just when I was trying to find an excuse to split,
my work friend Mark, who brags about
bedding 100 women, strolled over to the table
where I was sitting with Monica.

The way he was eyeballing her with what he
calls “his bedroom eyes”, I knew he wanted
her for number 101.

To my relief, he charmed Monica and didn’t
seem bothered when she told him
she was Dracula’s daughter. As the saying
goes, he was “keeping his eye on the prize”
and wasn’t distracted by her nonsense.

I took that opportunity to make my escape.

The next day Mark turned up dead, two
punctures wounds in his neck.

Not vampiric, the coroner deduced. He reported
Mark had been stabbed twice in the neck
with a poisoned needle.

Monica had vanished after that, maybe to eerie
Erie, PA, where she’d fit in, given her peculiar
propensities.

Days after Mark was waked and buried in
Green Hill Cemetery here in Greensboro, NC –

I saw him weird-eyed and hovering in the air
outside my second floor apartment bedroom
window minutes before the sun rose,
his canines a bit too protruded.

The sun rose and Mark was gone. Maybe I
was dreaming or seeing things, but I bought
some Vampire Off Spray at Ace Hardware,
just in case.

Bob Boyd

Rougarou, what happened to you?
Why do you attack Catholics?
And those naughty little kids too.
What is with those biased tactics?
Why can’t you do some social good?
Like a champion avenger
And be considered for sainthood
As a crime victim’s avenger.

Bob Boyd

Clouds rumbling
Lightning booming
Skies inflaming
Deadly winds blowing
Animals
Birds
Insects
Dying
Planet Earth flaming
Humans scattering
Screaming
Cars crashing
Buildings crumbling
The world dying
Alien Apocalypse destroying

Bob Boyd

When I listen to
the Capital Children’s Choir singing Viva la Vida,
in the YouTube video
embedded
to the right
of this paragraph

for reasons
I cannot fathom,
listening to them
singing makes
me teary-eyed.

And when the older girls
hit those higher notes
at 1:50 minutes,
to me, it sounds
like angels
singing in the heavens.

Bob Boyd

Though being alone can be lonely
without a love to share your life with,
whether you’re seventeen or seventy
or ever older, someone to love and
care about you through the highs and
lows of your life —

but for me being alone was advantageous
when a blood cancer tried to kill me three
years ago, and for reasons unknown to me,
I just didn’t care about the cancer or dying
and never had a day when I was sad about it.

If I’d had a girlfriend or a wife during that
year of cancer and many treatments and
the real possibility that the cancer was going
to kill me, I would have been worried about
the effects my cancer was having on her
and the real possibility of leaving her,
my love, forever, alone and without me.

But since I was alone, the thought that I could
die from the nefarious cancer did not bother me.
If death came, it was easy to let go when
I had no one who would be worried about me or I
would be worried about leaving.

One could think it would have been comforting
to have a girlfriend or a wife for support during
those times, but as you may have deduced by
the previous paragraphs, my answer is a
resounding no. It was easier for me to face that
unexpected cancer fate alone.

The only sadness I had was when I saw young
women in their twenties at the cancer center,
who at such a young age were stricken with
cancers.

And I imagined how horrifying it must have
been to be a young woman at essentially the
beginning of her life not knowing if she were
going to live or die, to live a full life, or
possibly be dead before she lived thirty
years of life. That to me was heartbreakingly
sad and so painfully tragic.

Bob Boyd

Dedicated earth angels helping the sick
Despite hard hours remaining angelic
Compassionately saving lives from dying
Never giving up on you, always trying
To heal your body with saintlike tenderness
Using precision, care, and benevolence
As surely as there is a number seven
There’s a special place for nurses in heaven.

Bob Boyd

There was a time when he feared
if death were an obliteration
and what was you ended forever.

Then he had an epiphany. If what
were me were ended forever,
there’d be no me to worry about it.

Though he read and listened to many
near death experiences, NDEs, in
books and in YouTube videos,
and saw common threads and
validations of life beyond this
existence

for reasons unknown to him,
he reached a place where if all
those NDEs were illusionary and
untrue, he didn’t care if what was
him would be obliterated and
gone forever.

Perhaps with age and living a
longer life filled with many experiences
and places, an equanimity, a Zenlike
acceptance, emerged into his
consciousness, and he realized that
if death were the end of him forever,
he just didn’t care about the possibility
of being obliterated any longer.

Bob Boyd

flying fiends
winged humanoids
malevolent and
terrifying monsters
with wings
like flying demons

Ozark Mountains
alleged to be
among their
haunts particularly
at Turkey Creek

they swoop down
from the sky
in a moment
and allegedly
it feels like
death is coming
from above

I find it hard to
believe in these
humanoid monsters

but many people
who seem sincere
and believable
attest to having
seen or experienced

these flying fiends
these terrifying
winged horrors

and I find accounts
of cryptids, monsters
and aliens fascinating
whether or not
they are merely
conspiracy theories

Bob Boyd

When I was a young man, I read about a guy
who toppled over his motorcycle in an accident
and landed on his head.

A doctor told him if he hadn’t developed his neck
muscles he could have been paralyzed for life.

Amazed at how neck muscles could be so
protective in accidents, falls or fights

I’ve been doing neck exercises for my neck
muscles dutifully for decades.

I also wanted an imposing, muscled up neck
like wrestlers have but ….

despite my decades of exercises and techniques,
it was non-respondent to my diehard attempts.

As a 6’ 1” slender ectomorph my genetics refused
to cooperate with my big neck-building ambitions.

At least my neck muscles are still strong, maybe
strong enough to survive a deadly impact

and despite my genetic limitations, I see progress in that,
and I’m satisfied my decades of efforts were not in vain.

Bob Boyd