Loved the way you moved on the dance floor
When we were in our energetic twenties.
So young. So in love. So invincible. So forever.
There was nothing we couldn’t do,
No dreams we couldn’t dream.
We were going to stay young forever.
The dancing, the illusions and the dreams
All died when we turned a dismal seventy-two.
A terrible cancer took you away from me,
And I went out of my aged mind and died inside.
Bob Boyd
Married 30 years,
Different political affiliations.
Her a Democrat. Him a Republican.
All was well until she became woke
And was okay with open borders.
He tried to explain to her the evils
Of the open borders:
Sex trafficking many victims.
Fentanyl killing Americans.
South American gangs coming in
And causing widespread trouble.
Americans being raped and murdered.
Easy access for enemies of America.
He told her of all these infamous things.
Yet she refused to relinquish her support
For the cause of all these evils,
Too woke, too uncaring, and in denial.
He had to turn out the lights and say good night
To her and their marriage.
Bob Boyd
An old flame called him unexpectedly
40 years after they’d been together.
They were both 65 years old then.
Surprised and delighted to hear from her,
Hoping to rekindle that yesteryear love,
He excitedly agreed to meet her.
They met at a Brennen’s coffee shop,
Reminisced about good old times.
After they finished their coffees
And all the fond shared memories,
They left the coffee shop disappointed
And sadly went their separate ways.
The flames extinguished forever.
Different people from so long ago.
Bob Boyd
Sold gold at sixteen-years-old
All the kids wanted to be like him
Coolest guy ever in high school
All the girls wanted to be with him
Suffered from severe depression
Hung himself to death in the gym
Thirteen classmates followed him
Couldn’t live with most popular
Guy ever in high school gone
Bob Boyd
He stumbled out of her apartment, heartbroken.
She said she found a new love, and they were done.
He left her apartment, went to a corner bar teary-eyed.
Drank himself into oblivion, wished he were dead.
Too drunk to drive, too out of it to care, barely aware,
He staggered down English street at 2 am, almost fell.
An old friend saw him, took him in for the night,
So he could sober up and get himself right.
When he woke up at his friends apartment
The next morning, the sun shining through the blinds.
Over fresh brewed coffee, the friend apologized
For stealing the woman he thought was his forever love.
He didn’t take the news well, told his friend to go to hell.
Left his ex-friend’s place in a huff, vowed to never love again.
Bob Boyd
Those crazy days and nights with you
He’s so glad they’re over
You seemed sane and caring
In the romantic beginning
Before he got snared into your
Twisted, insane dramas
He endured years of your torments
That sucked the life out of him
Until your departure for another
Freed him from your toxicity
His rehab from your debilitating ways
A sane and caring new love
Bob Boyd
Endless chatter fills the air
Sounds of billions of voices
All across the vast planet
Big talk and small talk
Important, unimportant
All rendered insignificant
With their terminations
And their sounds erased
Bob Boyd
The sun uncovers the sky
Birds herald the morning
With a medley of songs
All of nature awakens
The world begins anew
Bob Boyd
Over a
Hundred people.
Murdered in
His quiet
Small town
By a single
Killer
Shocking
Unexpected
Devastating
The killer’s
Name
COVID.
Bob Boyd
Houses, cities, farms and cows passing by,
the view from the train window.
Rivers, lakes, forests, and trees passing by,
the view from the train window.
The train derails, people screaming,
inside the train lives passing away.
Bob Boyd
A tree falls on a women in New York
and ends her life.
A bridge collapses in Baltimore
and 342 people die.
An elderly woman takes a walk
And a pitbull kills her.
A homeless man in Chicago finds a lottery ticket
And wins a million dollars.
Bob Boyd
When I was a child, I thought priests had a certain mystique,
a kind of holy aura about them.
How shocked I was when I grew older and read about
priests molesting children.
How outraged I was when I read about the Catholic Church
covering up those molestations.
How saddened I was for the good priests under clouds of suspicion,
people thinking they could be pedophiles too.
It was so unthinkable some priests with that certain mystique
could ever lose their holy auras and molest children.
Bob Boyd
Fred and Rose West raped their children,
tortured and murdered some of them.
Raped and killed many young women.
Without a doubt none of those victims
deserved such horrific deaths.
How can one account for such infamy
against innocent victims If there’s a
loving God residing in heaven?
Maybe you can believe the victims
had massive karmic debts accrued
from wicked past lives that had
to be paid off with their murders.
Maybe you can believe there’s no God,
so all these nefarious acts upon this
crime-ridden planet are random fates
with no karma or Divinity involved.
Christians often sing God is in control.
I cannot see God in control of such
depravity. Raping and killing one’s
children and murdering many
young and innocent women.
Maybe as some Christians believe
the Prince of Darkness Is the cause
of all the unending evil in this world.
I can see resolution in that belief.
But I cannot accept a Satan caused
The Wests to rape and kill wantonly.
Nor can I fathom why so much
evil runs rampant in so many lives.
Bob Boyd
She said never would she leave him.
She said never would she stop loving him.
She said she’d be his forever,
But that was the real never.
When her new love didn’t work out
And she wanted a second chance with him,
He said never.
Bob Boyd
Baby lions abandoned by mother
Nursed by German Shepard mother
At the nature park.
Separated when baby lions became
Too big and could hurt the dog.
Two years later, German Shepard mother
Runs to full grown lions in the park
Workers fear lions will attack and kill her.
Lions surprised by the dog’s bravery
Smell her and remember who she is
And the dog and the lions lay down together,
Friends and family forever.
Bob Boyd
He saw an ex wife in dreams two nights in a row.
In the first dream she wanted to make love.
In the second dream she asked him for his email twice
And was extremely sad when he refused her requests.
He could not do a rewind after the pain she caused him,
Despite all he had done for her and her disabled son.
He wondered if she was having nagging regrets
Bleeding into his otherwise peaceful dreams.
Bob Boyd
He grew to dislike the peopled world,
Too many crowds of noisy humans,
Too much motion and commotion.
He preferred the quiet, solitary life
Never a bothersome interruption.
Never any tensions or arguments.
Reading and writing many poems,
Passing his days in total tranquility.
Bob Boyd
The couple dismissed the foolish warnings
About the folklore named Forbidden Forest,
Which was only a peaceful, national park.
Supposedly if you went in. You wouldn’t get out
They knew others had hiked it without incident.
They knew they could trek it with comfortable ease.
They’d hiked more challenging trails many times.
They set out in August of nineteen seventy two
And ventured deep into the welcoming wilderness
And never returned from the Forbidden Forest.
Search parties ensued. Rangers, helicopters,
Trackers, search dogs, hundreds of volunteers.
All that was found of them were their hiking shoes.
Bob Boyd
The roars of dandelions cannot be heard,
Except by sensitives who hear hidden sounds:
Growing pains of freshly cut grass –
Seeds bursting through the ground –
Groans of trees withstanding furious winds –
Screams of dandelions beheaded by killer mowers.
Bob Boyd
His genetics predisposed him to mental illness,
Not his fault, nothing he could do to change his fate.
He often wondered why me? Why me?
Compared to him, others led wonderful lives,
He struggled with craziness in his twenties,
And refused to dull his mind with crazy pills.
He wrote beautiful and memorable poems.
At least despite the curse, he had some talent.
On a downcast day when his life lost meaning,
He shuffled into an abandoned farm building
With an armful of rope in his shaking hands.
He had decided to hang himself to death.
Before he secured the rope around his neck,
A starving, feral cat approached him meowing.
He scooped her up in his arms and petted her,
Took her home and fed her some nutritious food.
He credited her with saving his screwed up life,
That he made some life-saving changes in.
He followed his doctor’s well-intentioned advice
About taking medications that stabilized him.
After which he led a wonderful, productive life,
Writing and teaching poetry in a university,
And he never considered suicide again,
And he got married to a woman who loved his cat.
Bob Boyd