Poems by Bob Boyd

After the doctors revived him from being
clinically dead, he was disturbingly different.

His appearance changed from friendly and harmless
to unfriendly and ominous,

as if he spent some time in hell,
and brought a bit of hell back with him.

Whatever the case, shortly after he came
back to the world of the living,

he shot his wife dead and took his own
life as well,

perhaps he was destined to go back to hell.

Bob Boyd

I read people close to dying often see dead people
in dreams,

people they had known in this life when alive.

I believe sometimes dreams are more than dreams,
and these dying people are seeing people in dreams

they will see in the afterlife when they die.

Bob Boyd

She seemed uncommonly nice and admirably modest
until one looked at her Instagram account

chock full of photos of herself, as if she
were self obsessed.

I’ve seen that trend with other women,
instagram pages blown up with photos of themselves.

I don’t understand why they post so many of those photos,
and I don’t think it’s because they’re in love with themselves.

Maybe, like women with applying makeup to their faces
all over the world,

it’s just a natural, female thing.

Bob Boyd

I wonder how many people died
because they felt that

bad things only happen to other people.

I imagine graveyards are full of those people,
but lucky are those who thought that

and never died young or got murdered.

I remember how I was like that when
I was a young man who felt

bad things would never happen to him

until I became an old man and bad things
started happening to me.

Bob Boyd

She told him she was a white witch,
no black magic, no evil spells.

A child of nature, incapable of evil,
only white magic, benevolent spells.

But when he left her for another woman
he lost his hair, and his teeth fell out.

Bob Boyd

If I had the brain of an ant,
I’d have no cares about politics,

corrupt politicians, open borders,
ceaseless crime, the cost of living,

the threat of health problems,
insufferable people, break ups,

divorces, random mass murders,
looming wars, and far more.

Had I the tiny brain of an ant,
I wouldn’t worry about any of that.

Bob Boyd

He learned what he didn’t want
to know about her back in 1982,

his lovely neighbor who sold
her body for money.

She was sweet and nice to
everyone, didn’t seem the type

to engage in selling her body
along with the dangerous risks.

She was murdered in 1983,
a customer who was a serial killer.

Bob Boyd

Once in a while I use to write love poems,
but not with any woman in mind.

I thought I wrote them because it seemed obligatory
to write some love poems as one who writes poetry.

But maybe as a song birds sings songs seeking a mate,
I was writing love poems for the same reason.

Now I don’t write love poems anymore, maybe
because I’m not seeking love anymore.

Bob Boyd

I’m watching actors in a 30s movie,
doubtlessly dead, all of them.

Lives once bursting with excitement,
dreams and ambitions.

Careers lighting up the silver screen,
some famous in their days.

Now all dead, the excitement, dreams
and ambitions

obliterated and gone to dust.

Bob Boyd

Little bird trapped in a tiny cage,
and born in one,

does a part of you ever yearn
for the freedom you never knew?

Is there a primordial collective
memory inside of you that

beckons back something more
than being trapped till you die

in a tiny cage?

And do you sing your songs
daily for the sweetheart
you never knew

and who will never hear
your beautiful songs?

Maybe like you, I’m trapped
in a tiny cage too.

Bob Boyd