Poems by Bob Boyd

he was born on the bad side of town
where trouble knocked at every door
he committed his first crime at age 5
stole a bag of candy from a store
to his mother it was an innocent thing
but in his life it was the beginning
of a career of theft and criminality
that progressed into killing people
and becoming a notorious hitman
in the end he had 30 dead bodies
under his expansive hitman belt
ghosts that came back to haunt him
in his final horrifying hell-bound days

Bob Boyd

he hunted in national parks
invisible, undetectable, stealthful
he moved in and out of dimensions
with unimaginable speed and ease
he easily nabbed people hiking
who never saw him until caught
killed them in less than a second
consumed them seconds later
ceased when he was sated
for an entire well fed week
then resumed his weekly hunts
for more unsuspecting prey
who became the 411s

Bob Boyd

She loved the high life
hung out with all the celebs
she had a twenty year run
wallowed in dissipation
partied nearly every night
had many notable boyfriends
and a few famous husbands
which resulted in divorces
on a fortuitous night in May
she had an unexpected
reversal in her high life
gave it all up for God
and she became a nun.

Bob Boyd

She’d been adopted by a pharmacist
and blessed with exceptional looks
and an exceptional figure as well.
She got good grades in high school.
Her future seemed shiny and bright
until her senior year when she began
to spin into a whirlwind of darkness.
She fell in with the wrong people,
wild nights of sex, alcohol and drugs.
After high school her life got worse
hooked on drugs and degeneracy,
became extremely overweight,
her looks and perfect body gone,
as well as her once pristine morality.
I often wondered if her downfall
was a genetic predestination
from a mother who gave her up.

Bob Boyd

When I go downstairs from my second
floor apartment to check my mail
sometimes I hear meow, meow, meow
meow, meow, meow, meow ….

I look down to my right and see
under the blinds and through
the panes in the glass door
a black cat calling me,
his paws stretching against the glass.

I smile and I say, “Hi kitty,” and
put my hands against the glass on
the other side, as if touching
his stretched out paws.

He only does this when his owner
is not at home. I think that black cat
is an extrovert who gets lonely
when he is all alone.

And I enjoy his once in awhile
greetings. They are serendipitous
to me.

Bob Boyd

I heard a term today
that I hadn’t heard before,
Foxhole Prayers.

I knew immediately
what it meant.

Years ago, no decades
ago, I heard it referenced
in the expression, “There
are no atheists in foxholes,”
referring to the terrors of
possibly dying from an
enemy bomb or bullet
while hunkered down
in a fox hole during a war.

It also brought to mind,
the near death experiences
of some atheists I read about.

In their NDEs they felt they
were in hell. And their
descriptions of demons
and people screaming and
crying and trapped in hell forever
were exactly like one would
think hell would be like.

I can’t say if their experiences
were absolute proof of a hell.
I can say they
prayed foxhole prayers,
and Christ appeared to them
in Light or in Spirit and
whooshed them out of
those hellish experiences.

Bob Boyd

In the yard across the street
Pink dogwood tree petals are falling,
Ordinary a beautiful sight.
Tonight they sadden me
Remembering the last time I saw them
When you said you were leaving me.
Now like the pink tree petals
Tears are falling from my eyes.

Bob Boyd

She was a lovely woman
and a veterinarian.

She met a bad man
who was a doctor and
a shyster.

He was an egotist
and thought
he was a godsend to women.

At first the veterinarian saw
through him, but surprisingly
she eventually ignored
his many red flags
and fell in love with him.

The doctor had a court date
for stalking and harassing
an ex-girlfriend.

The veterinarian had a
court date with an ex-husband
for the custody of
their two daughters.

Somehow, inexplicably,
the doctor convinced the
veterinarian to hire a hitman
to kill her husband and
his girlfriend.

They lined up a hitman
and met with him. Fortunately,
he was an undercover cop,
and they both got arrested.

When the veterinarian got out
on bail, she took an elevator
to the top of a tall building
and jumped off it to her death.

I believe if that evil doctor
never came into her life
she would never have
considered killing anyone
and would be alive today.

Sometimes you have to be
so careful about who
you let into your life.

They usually won’t try to get
you to kill someone,
but they can be toxic
to your wellbeing
and your life.

Bob Boyd

Some old men want a wife
just to take care of them
if they get unable to
take care of themselves.

I have to wonder where
is the love in that, and
what would happen if
he had to take care of her.

And, frankly, I’d rather
take care of myself.

And that’s how I’ve been for
ten years and probably
for the rest of my life.

But were I to get married,
I wouldn’t want her just
to take care of me.
I’d rather have her,
and her have me,
for genuine, true love
and take care of her
if, God forbid, she
got so ill she needed
me to take care of her.

Bob Boyd

It happened in Erie, Pennsylvania
where sometimes eerie and crazy
things happened to that PA populace.
Mr. and Mrs. Abrams argued daily
about Mr. Abrams’ negligence in
always leaving the toilet seat lid up.

One day it reached a horrendous
crescendo and wild chaos ensued.
Sick of Mrs. Abrams nagging
about his toilet seat nonconformity,
Mr. Abrams went off like a raging bull.
He busted the toilet seat with a hammer,
the pieces shattered on the floor.

Mrs. Abrams heard the awful racket,
went totally nuts to add to the insanity.
She screeched when she saw what
Mr. Abrams had done to the toilet seat,
picked up a chair, lifted it over her head
and busted Mr. Abrams’ head with it.

Mr. Abrams went to the local hospital
to get his head examined and bandaged.
Mrs. Abrams almost got assault charges,
but the police wrote it off as a domestic.
After a long week apart from each other,
somehow they put the pieces of the toilet
and their relationship back together.
She kissed him and he kissed her,
and he never left the toilet seat lid up again.

Bob Boyd