Poems by Bob Boyd

A full moon rises tonight. Oh God how that worries me.
My body sweats profusely, my heart beats louder;
I feel the changes in my body from mild man to terrifying beast,
Cracking sounds and hair sprouting all over me.
My canines turning into fangs, my height increasing to ten feet.
I feel inhumanly strong and invincibly unstoppable.
A howl I cannot suppress bursts out of my enlarged lungs
Before I run into the night seeking my frightened prey.
And if you don’t believe werewolves are real,
Pray you never see me on a full moon night.
You ask, “How come I’m not in the news?”
Because I’m a reluctant government experiment since 1973
Government contractors clean up the bloody messes
And keep my hundreds of kills out of the news,
No traces of the carnage, bodies never found.
Ever hear of Missing 411? Google it and you will see.

Bob Boyd

Sometimes I think I’d love to be with you
Sometimes I think it would be like sticking
My hands into the flames of red hot fire
At the heartrending risk of getting burnt again
At other times I remember the wonders I see in you
Your inner beauty vastly beyond any outer beauty
Your captivating lightness of being, your joyfulness
And ponder if you’d be the love beyond loves
But wonder if because I’m a deep thinking man
Mystically spiritual and never ending philosophical
Ever questing new and fascinating knowledge
If our minds could ever meet in an Elysian Fields
Of ambrosial, mythical, epical immortal love
That would soar our hearts into the heavens
Oh how I wonder about being with you

Bob Boyd

I know about things like
Consciousness expansions
Bliss beyond measure
Peace unimaginable
White Light like the sun
Permanent kundalini energy
Palpable spiritual radiance
Amazing synchronicities
Spiritual dreams
Love without limits
Loving kindness
Compassion in action
But I don’t know about you
I can’t fathom
I can’t divine
I can’t prophesize
If I could trust you
If you’d be true
If you’d be there
If ever I needed you
If I could depend on you
And I’m thinking
I’m too old
My heart too
Battle hardened
From too many
Wars of Roses
To ever throw
The dice again.

Bob Boyd

Essex England, 1600s, witches everywhere
Elizabeth Clark, elderly with only one leg
Hair cut off, body searched, roughly treated
By three women searching for Devil’s mark
Later tied to a chair, denied sleep for days
Forced to confess by Witch Finder General
Matthew Hopkins, fantical, cruel, evil
Proudly broke the 80-year-old woman
Who lied to stop the sleep-deprived torture
Confessed to being a witch and claimed
Other women in her village witches too
Her life ended with 15 other women
Condemned as witches, hung on the gallows
At Chelmsford Market Square in 1645.

Bob Boyd

Sitting at my computer wondering about you
Will we be compatible, like a celestial match?
Or will we be like lifeless, distant planets
Destined to spin away from each other?
Or will love bring us into each other’s orbit
And make us soulmates for an eternity?

Bob Boyd

Like the song Key Largo said, we had it all
Until you got involved with that crazy cult
Abandoned me and our true love
For a fake Avatar in Goa, India
Who promised full enlightenment
In a single lifetime by obeying him
Sad you fell for his impossible con
Heart broken and screwed up
I vowed never another woman
Became like a bona fide monk
Three years later, you came home
A disheveled, babbling crazy women
Used and abused by the bogus holy man
You got delivered by an Exorcist
Died a year later in Harvard Square
Drug overdose, no coming back
I placed flowers and tears on your grave

Bob Boyd.

When his wife, Jessica,
A stabilizing influence on him, died
Dan returned to the wild ways of his youth
Drugs, alcohol, badass attitude
Robbed a liquor store in Stoneham, MA
Shot the clerk and got away
Drove to Abilene, TX the next day
Stopped at a convenience store
In Canton, OH to rob it on a whim
Lazy-eyed teenage girl at the counter
Quick drawed a gun and shot dan dead
Teenage girl behind the counter
Psychopathic pretty in pink killer
Who shot the real counter guy
And posed as easy prey employee.
If only Dan’s wife hadn’t died.

Bob Boyd

In 218 BC, I crossed the alps with my
Famous North African War Elephants.
I brought burning hell to Rome
Winning scores of victories
In battles at the Battle of Ticinus,
Trebia, Lake Trasimene and Cannae.
The arrogant Romans felt their
defenses were impregnable.
They’d never met the likes of me.
Nor could they believe I’d taken
Those magnificent beasts across
The treacherous Alps.
But fifteen years later at the
Battle of Zuma, the Romans
Defeated me and I fled.
I was on the run for years
Until at the court of Bithynia,
I was handed over to the Romans
And poisoned myself to death,
Rather than let the Romans
Torture and execute me.

Bob Boyd

I enjoyed a high reputation as a great
poetess in China in the 11th century.
My poems were considered as good
As the famous poet Li Quingzao’s
Celebrated masterpiece poems.
Though some nearsighted critics
Disagreed (No doubt because
I was a woman, and they were men).
Had I been a man, they would
Have raved about my poems
And hailed me as the
greatest poet in all of China.
I’m sad to say time wasn’t kind
To my best selling published collection
Madame Wei’s Works, that made
The China Times best seller list
For ten years. I suspect Misogynist
Male critics burned them after I died.

Bob Boyd

At age seven, my sister Lenora
Developed an obsession with ants.
If you accidentally stepped on one
She would scold you for a week.
When my parents bought me an
Ant Farm one joyous Christmas,
As soon as I received the ants
Through the postal service,
I remember the stormy day,
Lenora went maniacally psycho
And smashed the farm to bits,
And set all the bewildered ants free
When a teenager, her obsession worsened;
She vowed to set all the ants free
At what she called the ant gulag,
The ant farm factory in Pittsburg, PA.
I worried she’d become a loopy
My suspicions confirmed when
She broke into the factory,
Somehow set numberless ants free
And tried to burn the factory down.
Now she’s spent fifty years
In a psychiatric hospital composing
Crazy paeans to ants while I write
Weird poems about stink bugs
Obsessively and dream about
Inventing a Stink Bug Farm
And selling it to the world.

Bob Boyd

Saw you in a dream last night.
Dark-skinned Nubian beauty,
Radiant brown eyes
Never saw a woman
More beautiful than you
Siren-like, I felt the lure
Kissed me in the dream
And the kiss, the kiss …
Unlike any ever
I wanted more
But the dream ended
And you haven’t been
In any of my dreams since
Were you real or imaginary
Some astral angel
Did our dreams intersect
Most pleasurably
Come back and
Let’s kiss again

Bob Boyd

I’m wondering what Jimmy Buffet is doing in the afterlife.
Is he singing and doing concerts for all those people in the Great Beyond?
And does his music and vocals sound better there?
Is he getting drunk on heavenly bliss in some kind of ecstatic Margaritaville?
Is he living on a beach next to an ocean of unconditional love and eternal bliss?
Is he able to get any of those Golden-era guitars he collected there?
Are there legions of parrot heads and even angel fans in his neck of the afterlife?
And is it 5 O’clock somewhere there or is time nonexistent?
Or is it 5 O’clock everywhere on some ethereal, eternal clock?
Tell me true if you’re a psychic, a medium, or a seer.

Bob Boyd

We’re all just people trying to make out way through this world
Some of us don’t get too far, dead before we barely start
Some of us meet terrible fates, wounded, murdered, debilitated
Some of us have twisted terrible lives, harder challenges
I was one of those people with a twisted terrible life
Undeservedly, a stroke of grace, a powerful spiritual experience
Lit the way for me to find a better way through this world
Now that my life is almost done, I’m looking forward to
Making my way through the higher, greater life
That white light spiritual experience remade me for.

Bob Boyd

Never wanted to become a god
It was forced upon me
I am the son of the son of Zeus
Avoiding becoming a god
Was impossible for me
At least I was able
To remain obscure
And you’ve never
Heard of me

Bob Boyd

In a tranquil field
Flowers and weeds
Locked in mortal combat
On the serengeti plans
Lions
Hunting prey
In the cosmos
Black holes
Devouring stars
In a junkyard
In Kentucky
A mechanic
Dismembering cars
Sitting at my computer
In Greensboro, NC
I don’t know what
This poem means
I just like the
Sound of it

Bob Boyd

30s music romantic lyrics, so good, so sublime
Sometimes they start to get to me like
When a crooner sings about meeting
His love of a lifetime under a blue moon
Or another sings it had to be you
When he finally meets his dream lady
Then another sings about saying good night
To his sweetheart and how they’ll meet tomorrow.
And some women with a sweet enchanting voice
Sings she’s got a feeling she’s falling in love with me
And I start remembering what it feels like to fall in love
When I get elated, romantic feelings I’ve just about forgotten
And that woman becomes the most beautiful woman in the world
Making all over women lackluster by comparison
Making my emotions enlivened with unending love for her
Longing for her incomparable company every single day
Thinking about her incessantly, remembering things she said.
And I start feeling like bringing an imaginary woman dozens of roses
And writing incredibly romantic love poems to her
And forgetting I’m kind of a don’t need no woman monk,
But oh how I love those 30s music lyrics, so good, so sublime.
And I love that music and those lyrics so much
That I’ll never stop listening to 30s romantic music.
I’ll just have to stay strong and forget about women …
Forget about women … forget about women ….

Bob Boyd

Living past ninety not for me
Quality of life too diminished
Maybe some exceptions
But exceptions are few
More medical health risks
Various cognitive ones too
You could become debilitated
Or consigned to a nursing home
You might think these words are
Like I’m singing off key
But I work with the elderly

Bob Boyd

Thought I’d love country living
Breathing clean country air every day
Avoiding congested city traffic and crazy drivers
Observing deer, a variety of birds, and other animals
Strolling down quiet, peaceful country roads at night
Living a carefree low pollution serene life
Enjoying a refreshing country living dream
Woke up from the dream after a about a week
Stores shut down at 9 PM every night
Nothing nearby for a late night smack
Or a craving for some pizza and a cola
Nearest grocery store like a continent away
Strolling down country roads perilous at night
No sidewalks, risks of rabid animals, narrow roads
Locals drove like maniacs down those narrow roads
Like nearsighted drivers racing in the Indy 500 at night
Good luck to you if you were taking that nightly stroll
Was relieved when I packed up and returned to the city.

Bob Boyd

Maybe the Hindus have it right. Maybe we reincarnate,
starting as the lowest lifeforms and evolving up to
human births and eventually attain enlightenment
where we get off the wheel of rebirths and attain the
Sat Chit Ananda, the Eternal Bliss Consciousness.
I’m thinking about this because as I look at the guppies
in my aquariums swimming about merrily, I’m wondering
do they just die into nothingness, and that’s it? Oblivion,
and it’s over for them? Or maybe they die into the tunnel
of White Light and emerge into a guppy heaven. A celestial
world freed from oppressive fish tanks and whatever cares
earthbound guppies have, swimming and playing ecstatically
in bliss-laden bodies of water, vast as oceans with no predators
to annihilate their joyous lives in an eternal, aquatic paradise.

Bob Boyd

When it came to his romantic past,
He was like Icarus flying
too close to the sun
Always with the wrong one.
Wings burned too often with
Loves gone up in flames.
Never did he find the right one
A seeker like him who enjoyed
Deeper conversations now and then.
But maybe the problem was
The wrong women finding him.

Bob Boyd

Free verse poems

Missing 411

Oh How I Wonder About Being With You

I Don’t Know About You

An Appalling Level of Casual Brutality

Love and Planets

We Had It All

When Dan’s Wife Died

Hannibal

Madam Wei

Lenora

Dream Woman

5 O’clock Somewhere

White Light

An Obscure God

Sound of It

I’ve Got to Stop Listening to 30s Music

Living Past Ninety

Country Living

Guppies

Wrong Choices