Beware! Watch out!
He’s got his eye on you.
From the day you are born.
He’s hunting you.
Don’t slip up.
Don’t take dangerous risks.
He’s always watching
He’s always stalking.
Who is he?
Who is this ghoul?
His first name is Grim.
His last name is Reaper.

Bob Boyd

According to many people who have
been clinically dead and came back, NDEers

when you die, aside from the tunnel of whte light,
there’s a life review

kind of like watching a movie, and maybe like acting
in it at the same time

you view all the good and not so good things you
did in your lifetime

but, take heart, it’s not punitive; God or a higher being
is there with you

not to condemn you for the not so good, but to help you
grow spiritually from the viewing

I don’t know exactly how the viewing helps you grow
spiritually, but if the NDE accounts are true

at least you don’t get sent to hell, but a small percentage of NDEers, felt they were in hell

what I really don’t know is – what happens if you’re permanently dead, the end of you or a new beginning

though I believe despite our not so goods, no matter how bad,
no matter how heinous

like rivers flowing in an ocean, we all eventually get to what the
Hindus call Sat Chit Ananda Eternal Bliss Consciousness

the degree, the speed of getting there, a matter of either
many incarnations on the wheel aka rebirths

or, hopefully, growing spiritually up a ladder of different levels,
in the afterlife; for example, a Hitler beginning at the lowest rung

but gradually, he begins to ascend up the ladder and
after near timeless penance and spiritual growth

some scientists think the NDEs are illusionary, even the common
ones, and they make good scientific arguments

in simple terms, despite all the beliefs and NDE experiences,
when you’re dead, you’re dead

if they’re right, I’m okay with that, and I’d be unaware of being completely erased – no me to be concerned.

Bob Boyd

Will AI take over everything?
Painting the pictures
Writing the stories
Taking all the jobs
Rendering humans
Unnecessary
Obsolete
Inferior
Useless
Extinct.

Bob Boyd

I’d been on sixteen ghosts hunts
But never saw any real ghosts like Midnight Mary.
In fact, I never really saw a ghost before Mary.
Sure my equipment suggested ghost activity,
But that’s not as spooky as coming face to face
With a real, dead spirit roaming the earth.

I’d heard about a ghost named Midnight Mary,
At the old, abandoned Bradmore Hotel.
I even saw an alleged photo of her ghostly face.
The photo looked fake, bogus urban legend stuff.
Supposedly people died messing with Mary.
Inside the Bradmore heard a scary rustling near me.
Shined my flashlight in the direction of the sound
Rats dashed away to their hiding places.
Searched the entire hotel, saw no sign of Mary.

Just more nonsense I mumbled to myself.
Drove to a motel, disappointed, another fake lead.
Retired for the night, fell into a dreamless sleep.
Heard an eerie sound fill the room, thought it was a dream,
One minute like a witch’s cackle, the next a ghostly wail.
Felt hands clutching my throat choking me to death,
Frightened, opened my eyes: Midnight Mary!
Died of shock in that old motel bed, my face frozen in fear.
Sometimes when you hunt ghosts, they hunt you.
Now as if I were bitten by a vampire, I’m a ghost too,
Every night I haunt this motel.

Bob Boyd

Passing women in this brief life,
what’s the point? Procreation
of the species? Or are these
parades of princesses merely
random encounters, some, one,
or none, that stick to a man’s
millisecond life in the timeless
eternity and make him happy,
miserable or nonplussed. And
why is the nearly irrepressible
need for a female’s endearments
and addictive charms ingrained
in a man’s DNA to his dying day?
And how is it some monk men
seem immune to this persistent
need? At times, eight years strong,
I have been one of those monk men –
almost, not quite. Yet sometimes
stirring amore undercurrents still
well up in me breathing unguarded,
old man foolish longings into my
weathered heart. Occasionally
I ponder will death rid me of
this resurfacing need, that
I repress and try to negate, my
resistance borne of too many
disappointments and painful
heartaches, or unite me with
a bona fide, eternal soulmate,
disappointments and heartaches
nevermore.

Bob Boyd

I remember …
I remember
when you were
young, funny
bright and
beautiful

when you
were so
joyously alive

and I was yours
and you were mine

sad how time
and some
gnawing
incompatibilties

erased our
unlasting love

sad how now
all the wonderful
that you were

a cancer
unexpectedly
erased and

you’re buried
like a sacrilege
deep in
the brown dirt.

Bob Boyd

I’m ever reminded on the news
China and Russia are
enemies of my country
I’ve met Chinese people
and seen many on Youtube videos
I’ve met Russian people
and seen many on Youtube videos
I don’t think of them as enemies
I see them essentially like me
people who just want to live
peaceful and happy lives
if only enemies who rule countries
could see each other the same way.

Bob Boyd

Since 2024, 340 have died on that mountain
more than 200 left there frozen in the snow

but despite the risks of dying
many still take the risk

that costs thousands of dollars
for everything needed to make the climb

included permits, a sherpa, gear, etc
on average, over $60,000

an exorbitant cost for the risk of losing
your life on a dangerous mountain

and were I a monied mountain climber, the sight of
one or more frozen dead bodies on the way up

would give me reservations about making the climb
along with the exorbitant cost for risking my life.

Bob Boyd

Her name was Rebekah
twenty-four and beautiful
kind and caring
mother of a little boy
religious, went to church
every chance she could
worked in retail management
liked by everyone
didn’t make it to work
on October 31st
her body found
in a woods near her home
murdered and probably raped
by her mother’s boyfriend
a church preacher
sentenced to eighty-five
years in prison
killed himself
in his cell.

Bob Boyd

Canonized in 2010
thousands of healings
he lies in a coffin
in a church high on a hill
a sacred shrine
two million pilgrims
visited yearly
the shrine is in
Saint Joseph’s Oratory
Montreal, Canada
the saint is
brother Andre
who went to heaven
in 1937.

Bob Boyd

A thinking man had a wife
exotically beautiful
but incompatibly incurious
only interested in superficialities
disinterested in deeper matters
small talk her modus operandi
deep conservations her nemesis
no meeting of the minds
never shared ponderings
it’s no wonder they were ill fated
being so mentally incompatible
that not even her exotic beauty
could fill that forlorn abyss.

Bob Boyd

Your life, my life, suspended by a thread
one day we are alive, next day we are dead
we go through this life as if dying never
until all that we were is gone forever
except for our lifeless corpses by death bound
to rot away in the smothering ground

Bob Boyd

Brad went on a 3 month meditation retreat
meditating up to 12 times daily
after 2 months, he had to leave the retreat
called me from a hospital emergency room
said he had attained cosmic consciousness
and could look into my eyes and take me there
as he talked on his words became disconnected
his voice sounded more than a little creepy
and he began talking about crazy things
I could tell he had overdosed on meditation
and had a severe, mental breakdown
instead of attaining cosmic consciousness
he spent the rest of the time I knew him
bouncing in and out of psychiatric wards
all from a single overdose of meditation.

Bob Boyd

To humans I’m a cute bird that seems to have the life,
Chirping merrily and flying ever so freely, like a free spirit.
But believe me that free spirit stuff is kind of an act.
I’m anything but free with many predators after me,
Hovering hawks, night owls, jays and magpies in the air,
Foxes, snakes, weasels, cats and raccoons on the ground.
Despite my free spirit bravado and the happy songs I sing,
I’m little more than a predator’s next feathered meal.
And always in a state of paranoia with death in pursuit.

Bob Boyd

Never go to doctors
They’ll find something wrong with you
Stay away and you won’t get sick or die
For example
My granny was the healthiest granny on the planet
Bench pressed 200 pounds, repeatedly
Squatted with 300 pounds, easily
Ran triathlon marathons, effortlessly
Kicked the crap out of a psycho subway pusher in NYC

All that, until she saw a geriatrics quack
A wacko psycho doctor of death
He diagnosed her with the big C
Placebo screwed her with a BS death knell
Stage 4, three months to live, he claimed sadistically

Three anxiety-driven, brainwashed months later
granny couldn’t bench or squat a mere 100 pounds
or even run twenty yards

Then granny was stone cold expired,
waked and buried at Bellevue Cemetery
Don’t ask me about the costs

In denial about my sweet granny’s passing,
vowed to find a way to bring her back.
Prayed to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
and Catholic saints of impossible causes
Didn’t work

Because Jesus came back successfully,
thought maybe he’d share
his secret resurrection formula
and give a dead granny some love
Didn’t work

Granny remained unresurrected
Exasperated and driven to near madness
I robbed granny out of her grave
and tried to Frankenstein her back to life
Bound her to a metal table
Rigged a lightning rod to it
A thunderstorm raged and rumbled
Lightning flashed and crackled
Struck her corpse, made it sizzle
Didn’t work

Lightning only barbecued her body
Or cooked it, not sure which
Brainstormed a better idea
Jump started her like a dead car battery
Problem solved, kinda
Granny is up and running
and chasing me around my house
alive and electrically zombified.

Bob Boyd