Drunk, Phil got in a bar fight with a troublemaker.
They both threw a punch at the same time.
Though the troublemaker mostly blocked Phil’s punch,
and it struck him without much force,
the troublemaker fell to the floor, died of a heartattack.
The trouble maker’s punch was blocked by Phil,
but his death sent Phil up to prison, fifteen years
for manslaughter, his job as an Accountant gone.
His wife to be no longer there for him, after a year
couldn’t wait for him, found another guy.
And sitting in his prison cell, Phil often thinks
if only … if only … if only I hadn’t punched that guy.

Bob Boyd

You’ll know your body is like a machine
when it gets old and like an old machine
begins breaking down.

And after repair after repair one day
it will break completely down.

And you might be happy to be
free of it at last … at last.

I know I will.

Bob Boyd

Self determined, nobody influencing
you in ways they think are best for you.

No unnecessary arguments or
insulting criticisms.

Plenty of free time to accomplish more
and get things done.

No compromising and doing things
you really don’t want to do

just to go along with another’s
agenda.

Free to be you and not what another
feels you should be.

Total peace, like a serene lake
with no ripples or tumultuous waves.

Bob Boyd

She slithered into his life
mesmerized him

fooled him with her
deceptive persona

injected her venom
into him

destroyed his peace
made him miserable

disrespected him with
verbal abuse

until she grew bored
and found a new victim

and left him broken.

Bob Boyd

He has an ex wife in the afterlife,
died in her fifties.
A smoker, cancer probably
ended her life too soon.
She was an exceptionally
nice, fun and pretty woman.
Sometimes he wonders if
he’ll see her when he dies.
And maybe get married to
her again in the afterlife
with their love lasting there,
unlike how it ended here.

Bob Boyd

Amazing how the earth keeps spinning,
and we don’t feel it spinning.
Amazing how it never spins out of orbit,
somehow stays suspended in space.
Imagine if it ever stopped spinning or
spun out of orbit, the chaos,
the horror that would follow.
It seems a delicate balance that
somehow always stays in check.
A cosmic happening beyond most
human’s understanding.

Bob Boyd

Like Mother Teresa helped the sick and the poor,
Dr. Ruth and her daughter help the worn and the torn.
Teddy Bears and Stuffed Animals.
The hospital, in Vancouver and Maple Ridge, BC Canada.
Thousands of operations performed, corrective surgery
for broken joints, fur grafts, face lifts, stuffing replacements,
paw pad replacements and more.
A Teddy Bear, headless, armless, stomach torn,
resurrected with surgeries like brand new,
thanks to Dr. Ruth’s skilled doctoring and tender care.
See the hospital’s website at https://bearlanddesigns.com.

Bob Boyd

Beneath the skin of
The one we fondle today,
There is a skeleton,
Propping up the flesh.

Ikkyu

I love this poem, but it disturbs me deeply. The image of a woman I am holding in my arms being a skeleton one day is almost unbearable. But it radically reminds me of the nature of this impermanence we temporarily live it.

After Brad’s girlfriend broke up with him,
he said she broke his heart in so many pieces
that like Humpty Dumpty’s pieces,
his heart could never be put back together again.

He said he’d become like the Tinman
without a heart and better to be without a heart
than with a heart that can be broken.

He always said that when he got drunk,
when he tried to forget the woman
who broke his heart beyond repair.

Bob Boyd

Supposedly the earthbound disembodied
aka ghosts

have lost their ways to the Light.

I’m proposing a GPS system for them,
so instead of haunting dusty old houses

they can find their way to the Light.

Bob Boyd