Poems by Bob Boyd

Bishop Bonner did the Devil’s work
Under Queen Mary the First in 1555
Torturing hundreds of Protestants
To renounce their faiths,
And become Catholics
In the Tower of London.
Breaking many on the rack,
Burning many at the stake.
Supposedly a man of God,
He had the modus operandi of
A cruel, murderous psychopath.
But when Queen Elizabeth
Ascended to the throne in 1558,
Bishop Bonner was thrown
In jail and died there in 1569,
His legacy of infamy the only
remnant of him remaining.
Would liked to have been an
Observer in the afterlife,
To see where he went,
Perhaps indeterminately
Broken on the rack and
Burned at the stake.

Bob Boyd

Summer days on the shores of a picturesque pond
His head on her lap blissfully gazing up at her
The most beautiful woman he’d ever seen
The backdrop of a beaming summer sun,
Enhancing her radiant blonde hair,
her incredible, goddess-like looks.
Knew they had a fairy tale love forever.
Though they lived states away and only saw
Each other during teenage summers,
He never knew love could be so wonderful,
So consuming, so blissful beyond anything
he’d ever experienced or could ever have imagined.
But like Icarus who flew too close to the sun
When she cheated on him and ruined everything,
His wings of love singed, he crashed to the ground.
Days turned into dark nights of dead dreams.
A saddened sun sobbed behind consoling clouds.
A melancholic moon cried in a lovelorn night.
And rivers of tears fell from his eyes
Over the loss of a fairy tale love.

Bob Boyd

This may sound kinda contrary, but I’m grateful I got cancer, no regrets. It vanquished my whitecoatitis; It liberated me from medical fears. It gave me admiration for the medical profession. It abolished my hate of hospitals; now I love what they do, though I still don’t want to be stranded in them, and I hate those freakin’ unwieldy hospital gowns. I’ve become like the phoenix out of the ashes, more inwardly powerful, my character enhanced. I’m grateful for the knowledge of cancer I gained and for all the wonderful infusion room nurses who like angels on earth helped save my life. I like how “I’ve been there,” kinda like street cred and can connect, commiserate, and relate with others with cancer so easily. It made my presentations ten times more powerful, my kinda like street cred makes me more legit. The worst thing happening, the dreaded C gave me the calmness of a Zen Master, something I never had even with years of attempts to reach that elevated state. And if I have to face cancer again, I’m game. And if it kills me I’m good with that too. The way I see it, I get to go to my real home, the abode of unconditional love and eternal bliss. You may doubt that, but I’m as sure as you are a living, breathing human being reading this that that’s where I’m going. I base that on extensive research into the land of NDES, shared death experiences, deathbed visions, a mystical experience I’ve had for over 50 years and having experienced bliss beyond description and the peace beyond understanding many times in the past and an unwavering faith in the Ruler of Time and Space despite His name being taboo in many quarters now. And this is a stream of consciousness poem.

Bob Boyd

In the Autumn of 1507 in Stirling, Scotland
an Italian-born abbot, John Damian de Falcuis
Studied birds in flight and believed he could fly.
He fashioned the feathers of eagles into wings
He wore on his arms. Clad in the makeshift
Flying machine, he leaped off Stirling Castle.
For a moment, he hovered in the sky
As if, like a bird he really could fly;
Then plummeted seventy feet to
The unwelcoming ground. Miraculously,
he survived, woke up in a doctor’s urgent care,
Many injuries and a shattered thigh bone.
He never could walk properly after that
And he stayed out of the sky.

Bob Boyd

His words about free speech
Rankled the ruling powers
He had to be silenced
Free speech enchained
A world grown intolerant
Tyrannically suppressive
The founding Democracy
Ended by oppressive elites
With tightfisted intolerance
Wrong had become right
Right had become wrong
And a once great Republic
Sank like the Titanic

Bob Boyd

Imagine if you were born fated to be fish food. Imagine knowing your demise was only a purchase away. And since you couldn’t go to church and no proselytizers would be knocking on the door of your plastic container to save your soul, you wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hades of getting to heaven.
You’d probably be hoping that death was a Hindu thing where you could come back at a higher birth.
Maybe living the good life as one of the privileged, high born fish who ate the fish food. If your karma had been even better, maybe you’d come back living the dream as one of the customers buying the fish food.

Bob Boyd

Cats in the Philippines
Have hard luck lives
No pampering
No petting
No fancy digs
Feral outcasts
Nobody wants
No veterinarians
No cat hospitals
No affection
No love
They prowl the streets
In search of crumbs

Bob Boyd

An hour west of Bangkok
Sak Yant animal spirit tattoos
Administered by Buddhist Monks.
Tranced devotees run like crazed animals,
Growling and gesturing, newborn beasts
Through crowds of thousands upon thousands
To the front of the astonished crowds
Captured, restrained by handlers
Stabilized by the Buddhist monks.
Is it as claimed the cleansing of Karma
Manifesting as spirit animals
Or crazed imaginations run wild?
Whatever the reason, it’s a bizarre sight.
You will never forget once you’ve seen it.

Bob Boyd

I knew you for two summers, met you at a teenage dance.
We danced to the song Sixteen Candles, and with each step
We became more enamored, knew we’d be a couple.
Teenagers we fell in love, planned to marry when older,
Vowed we’d be together forever, prince and princess, the fairy tale.
I loved you so much it was like I was living in a heavenly dream 24/7.
But when when the two summers became chilled by ill-fated fall winds,
You were untrue, and the heavenly dream became a heartbreaking reality.
The sun hid its tears behind darkening clouds.
The moon turned blue in the dismal night.
And I, heart-wounded prince, whose vow of love ever true
Couldn’t believe the princess killed the fairy tale,
And I could no longer be with you.

Bob Boyd

September 15, 1963 bombed to death in the 16th Street Baptist Church In Birmingham:
Addie Mae Collins (14), Cynthia Wesley (14), Carole Robertson (14) Carol Denise McNair (11).
I’ve seen their photos, read their stories – long ago,
Bright futures awaited those innocent, young girls.
Reading about them, tears fell. It was all so heartbreakingly sad.
Soulless monsters, the killers didn’t seem to care;
They didn’t seem contrite and ashamed, as they should have been.
Wondered how God could have let that happen, and in the sanctity of a church.
The only way I can reconcile their awful, unjust fates
Is that surely God must have needed four more angels in heaven.
Never forget those four young girls from Birmingham.

Bob Boyd

What is it going to take to woo this inscrutable woman?
Am I going to have to crawl over a hundred miles of broken glass?
Or swim the seven seas seventeen times?
Or like a gladiator of old, fight off hundreds of lions in a coliseum?
Or scale Mount Everest ten thousand times?
Good God in heaven, what on earth is it going to take?
In an attempt to make her favor sweeter,
I think I’ll start with some chocolate mousse from Harris Teeter.

Bob Boyd

I love 8th century Chinese poetry.
I even like their poets’ names like Li Po and Wang Wei.
They sound so cool and so exotic to me.
Those poets liked things like jade — in abundance;
They seemed to like it more than we like gold.
They liked oriole birds, and if you see one, you’ll know why
And there are eight species in the US and in Canada.
They loved the word crystalline, as in crystalline water.
In many ways their poetry is close to peerless,
Their use of imagery is phenomenal and sublime.
All of this amazes me because it was written so long ago.
And by that way, I’m not talking reading these poems
In Chinese. I know nothing of Mandarin, and I can’t
Speak Cantonese. Nor any of the hundreds of
dialects that are considered Chinese.

Bob Boyd

Some come into this world suffering
all manner of medical conditions
out of the womb.

Most go out of this world suffering
dementia, cancers, other medical
conditions into the grave.

Why all this suffering? Where’s the love?
I swear by heaven above, if I were in
charge of the here and now, the

comings and goings, nobody
would ever suffer on the way in
or the way out.

Bob Boyd

In India cows are sacred
They clutter up the streets
But scatter like frightened birds
When the elephant god
Ganesha, the
Remover of Obstacles,
comes to town.

Bob Boyd

I never carry the torch, but I’m carrying a candle for you.
This poem is sounding like a Country Western Song, 🙂
And if you’ll come back, you’ll see I’ve still got
down home true love for you.

Bob Boyd

As a luckless old man ten unsteady steps away being in the obits,
I’ve given up on the ship I’ve waited for all my life to come in.
I think it’s docked forever in Singapore or at the bottom of the Bering Straits.
The only ships I see are those that always pass me in the night.
I sit here marooned in a beggar broke, loveless unshipworthy life.
Almost won the lottery, 10 million, but somehow the ticket got lost.
Had what I thought was the love of my life, Daisy Bobby Sue Mae,
Didn’t know she was half crazy and crazier about the monied life.
She left me when she somehow got flush with cash and bought
a BMW, designer clothes, diamond rings and a fancy pants gigolo.
I know what you’re thinking.

Bob Boyd

He lead a tangled life,
A miscreant in high school,
A troublemaker in the military,
A criminal back in the real world.
Then as an incarcerated outcast
Had an epiphany in solitary that
Untangled his tangled life.
Saw he was the architect
Of his destructive behaviors.
Reformed and rebuilt himself
Into a better benevolent man.
His troubled life vanished
like dark clouds after a storm.
Spent the rest of his days
In compassionate service to others.

Bob Boyd

Wisdom can lead you to the Door
Only love can unlock It.

Bob Boyd

When Anu was in the highest heaven
I was waiting in the wings of the ethers
To be born.
Though there a thousand years
passes in a millisecond,
Trillions of those is a long time to wait
To be born.
Soon I’ll die and go back into the ethers.
Will I have earned heaven
or liberation from the wheel?
Or will I be back in the ethers waiting
To be born?
Whatever the outcome, I’ll be
Better off than Anu. No longer
In the highest heavens, he’s
Dead and gone.

Bob Boyd

The figure of a snake,
The face of a lion,
Misshapen demiurge.
Rebellious,
Profane,
Sophia
why did you
Do it?

Bob Boyd

Free verse poems

Bishop Bonner, The Devil’s Dancing Bear (1500-1569)

A Long Ago Fairy Tale Love

Maximum Gratitude Beyond Measure

The Birdman of Stirling Castle

A Dangerous Man

Imagine if You Were Born to be Fish Food

Hard Luck Lives

Thailand’s Sak Yant Tattoo Festival

Two Summers and a Fairy Tale

Four Young Girls from Birmingham

The Wooing of an Inscrutable Woman

8th Century Chinese Poetry

Coming and Going

Sacred Cows

Down Home True Love

Luckless, loveless Old Man Lament

A Tangled Life

Unlocking the Door

Anu

Sophia