What is it with this romanticism?
Will it follow me to the grave?
Will I be afflicted with it in the afterlife?
I’m well past the procreative years.
Why does this romanticism linger?
Is it imprinted in the soul forever,
Or stamped on my DNA to never go away?
It is said in death one has no voice box
And surely no reproductive organs,
But I think one has a spiritual heart.
Is that where romanticism starts
And remains eternally in some?
But not in womanless sages
Who might transcend the need,
Who might not have the imprint,
Who might be rare anomalies
Unlike terminally romantic me.

Bob Boyd

At any given moment your life can be thrown in chaos.
Something as random as a falling tree in a park,
Or rocks hurled off a bridge by juvenile delinquents.
In New York a shove into an ongoing subway.
But worse things that these can happen,
An agonizing, prolonged death by a disease
That the pain makes you wish for death.
If you’re kind of lucky, it’s not life threatening,
A breakup, a divorce, the loss of a job.
Nonetheless, this is an unpredictable life.

Bob Boyd

She disappeared ten years ago
Never found, no traces of her,
One of many unsolved cases.
Where do these people go?
Alien abductions, serial killers
Human traffickers, death?
She has been seen in dreams
By me and others, but no clue.
She’s smiling in these dreams,
But just stands and says nothing.
I don’t know what that means.
A psychic said she’s in heaven
I guess I’ll go with that for now.
It’s better than awful speculations.

Bob Boyd

Saw you last night in a delightful dream.
You looked as adorable and petite as ever.
Gave you a book, don’t know why.
Hadn’t been thinking of you.
Were you trying to get my attention?

Bob Boyd

Praying mantis aliens
Insectoids 10 feet tall
Intellectually superior
Some claim it’s true
Imagine if hostiles
Coming for us
With anal probes
And surgical tools
Humans examined
Weaknesses sought
For final solution
To the human problem

Bob Boyd

Robins in the trees and on the ground
Flying on branches, hopping on grass.
Worms surfacing unaware of robin beaks everywhere.
Not unlike human life with Death’s beaks always everywhere.
Worms and humans limited life forms both prey every single day.
More obvious with the unaware worms than with the oblivious humans.

Bob Boyd

Time racing by faster and faster
Getting older and older and older
The years passing at warp speed
Death getting nearer and nearer
Closer and closer way too soon
I can almost see the coffin
Being built for dead me
And feel the grass above me
When I’m lying underground
And the me today is
Gone forever tomorrow

Bob Boyd

We came from different backgrounds
Her rich. Me poor.
I was too young to know about the rigid class system.
She didn’t know about it either, being a teenager too.
Her father and mother hated me.
I was unworthy scum to them. She deserved better.
My family didn’t have enough stuff, working class nobodies.
My father was a janitor, my mother a maid in a hotel.
Though I was just a kid, I knew it all came down to stuff.
Who had the most of if. Who had the least of it.
And it was all just nonsense. Nothing more.
But I was a dreamer blind to the class system,
And so was she.
So we eloped when we turned 18,
And you’d have thought I’d committed a crime.
Her family blamed me for their daughter’s disobedience,
And the better life she deserved rather than being with me
Her father sent two burly thugs after me.
They beat me up and nearly killed me.
And demanded I sign divorce papers.
I resisted until they started torturing me.
The pain became so extreme dying would have been better.
The pain too much to bear, I finally gave in and took the bribe,
A job at another state far away with great pay,
And the promise I’d never contact her again.
I could have tried to fight it legally later,
But I couldn’t afford the justice
Her father’s legal team could.
And I never saw her again.
I stayed in my own class after that,
And married a good, decent woman,
Who like my mother is a hotel maid,
Whose family thought highly of me
And didn’t care about how much stuff I didn’t have.

Bob Boyd

Though I’m okay with expletives
I never put them in poems

Agreed they can add more than shock value
To the dramatic impact of a poem

But I just don’t feel the need
To use them in my writings

Unlike in my younger years when
I used them unsparingly

And maybe I’d offend someone
Who abhors expletives unlike me

Bob Boyd

Born a natural beauty everybody said
Blonde hair cornflower blue eyes
Popular cheerleader in high school
Eyed and pursued by many boys
Didn’t want to get tied down
Bigger dreams than just a wife
After high school graduation
Won a local beauty pageant
Seeking stardom moved to Hollywood
Wanted fame on the silver screen
Took many acting classes
Thought I could became a star like Hepburn
After many auditions got only bit parts
Worked odd jobs in between the roles
Married a famous talent agent
Said he’d make me a star like Hepburn
Got me only more bit parts
None open the door to stardom
Divorced the talent agent
Cheated on me with many women
Years flew by my chances dimmed
I got older and less alluring
A director said my shot was over
Nobody wants to sleep with you
Unable to live with lost looks
And being an undesirable failure
Drank too much booze
Got chronically depressed
Killed myself by jumping
Off the Golden Gate Bridge

Bob Boyd

Having heard the title Richard the Lionhearted
John secretly adopted the title for himself
Like a power mantra to make himself stronger
To make himself a braver, fearless warrior

To strengthen himself and his new image
He took steroids and got bigger and stronger
Became like a newborn undefeatable hulk
Drunk one night in a bar, roaring like a lion

He started a fight with a big off duty cop
Roid rage empowered and warrior crazed
Put him in a headlock and crushed his skull
Now John the Lionhearted is caged in a cell

Bob Boyd

So nice chatting with you last night
Who knew love would bloom
Like flowers in a verdant field
Like sunshine rising at dawn
Like the sweet scents of spring
When nature returns to life
When everything is brand new
Like it is with me and you

Bob Boyd

Cool night spring time
You and me together
Making memories of
Our new great love
Riding in my old ford
Throughout town
Parking at the pond
Sharing hugs, kisses
In the innocence of
Our teenage love

Bob Boyd

Ectopistes Migratorius how amazing you must have been
Flying in massive flocks that could block out the sun
Reaching speeds of sixty miles an hour
With an array of sounds audible for miles
How sad, how tragic you were hunted out of existence

Bob Boyd

You say you’re just a disabled woman,
but Anne there’s no one as uniquely wonderful as you.
At age fifty you think you’re looks are gone,
but Anne there’s no one as beautiful as you.
You dream of all the things you could have done,
but Anne you did more than enough, and
no one could ever be as loving as you.
And I must have been favored by angels in heaven
on the day I met beautiful, wonderful you.

Bob Boyd