Poems by Bob Boyd

My days are passing by faster,
winter almost gone in a flash,
days, weeks, months, years
all racing by.

I think Time’s acceleration is
determined to quicken my one
way ticket to the grave.

What Time doesn’t know is I’m
good with this acceleration and
looking forward to what mysteries
Death holds.

I’ve experienced enough of this life
the ups and downs of it, and I’m
free of any ties binding me to this
world.

And I firmly believe a better world
than this unpredictable one replete
with too much evil and suffering
awaits me in the afterlife.

But if I’m mistaken, and my one
way ticket is only to the grave
I’m perfectly fine with that too.

Bob Boyd

The earth keeps spinning.
My heart keeps beating,
though not as well as when
I was young.

And when my heart stops beating
and the earth will still be spinning,
my remains will be more a part of it
buried in the ground,

maybe in someway benefitting it,
like fertilizer benefiting plants and
vegetables in the ground.

Bob Boyd

In a dream last night I moved with some people somewhere else for more opportunities and I think for love.

Then everything went awry, and I was unemployed and running out of money with the love unfound.

And the people I moved somewhere with were going separate ways and abandoning me for their own interests.

I was alone and worried about running out of money, and no way to make any more money somewhere where jobs were scarce
especially for an old man like me.

Then I woke up in the familiar, comforting bedroom of my apartment instead of somewhere with my life coming apart with no money and no work, relieved that my distress was only in a dream.

Bob Boyd

I hear the black preacher
talking on the am radio station
the way some black folks talk
smooth and natural
without using perfect grammar
or big, showy words
his inventive use of grammar
his natural sounding words
go straight to my heart
better than those preachers
with PhDs.

Bob Boyd

Everything is going
great for you
couldn’t be better
the right job
the right lover
perfect health
but then one
or more of
the unexpected:
a job loss
right lover gone
health problems

like an apple cart
turned over with
apples running all
over the ground
are the many problems
in your turned upside
down once perfect life.

Bob Boyd

Amazing how, the right woman
can have such an effect on you
a look from her eyes, near ecstasy
the touch of her hand, heavenly
to hold her, like holding an angel
oh how I miss those days
days that for me are gone
as are my youthful years
but maybe, in the afterlife
I’ll be with the right woman again.

Bob Boyd

I don’t like spiders
maybe you do
they creeped me out
from day one
it’s as if they have
a knack for that
creeping others out too
but those tiny jumping
spiders are kinda cute
don’t ask me
about tarantulas.

Bob Boyd

He went on a lion safari
in South Africa
to get some photos of
those magnificent beasts
he got out of his jeep
and got twenty meters
close to the peaceful lions
for an optimal photo
the lions began stirring
even better he mused
but he failed to realise
his fatal error when
a roaring lion traversed
the twenty meters in
three terrifying seconds
too late for him to escape.

Bob Boyd

Does romantic love endure
or even exist
in the unknowable afterlife?

Is romantic love transient
like this earthly life is?

Is romantic love forever
two hearts eternally
united, soulmates
and love ever after?

Or as it seems to be with
all the other species
is romantic love merely
for procreation and the
advancement of our
human species?

God only knows.

Bob Boyd

He sits at his computer
remembering past loves.
But he can’t pine over
any of them, as if they
never happened at all.
Like everything else,
the love he once had
for each of them
has been swept away
in the tides of time.

Bob Boyd