A car wreck put me in the ICU
Dying in the summer of 2022
I felt my self leave my body
Saw the doctors working on me
Before I met angelic Marjorie
In a vivid field of lucent tulips
I felt like I’d known her forever
When she kissed me sweetly
And I returned to life in the ICU
Now in that mystical moment
Right before I fall asleep
Marjorie appears and kisses
Me and visits me in dreams
Bob Boyd
She told me in May of 92
We were done
She gave me some fake excuse
Her reason for leaving me
But I knew her real reason
Was she felt too good for me
An average wage earner baker
I knew she wanted the high life
Her sister had with a rich guy
Though we got divorced
I knew she’d come back to me
But I never expected as a ghost
After she died in May of 96
When she overdosed on drugs
In some rich guy’s mansion in LA
Bob Boyd
I always knew something was a little off about her.
She was incredibly beautiful and Barbie perfect,
Yet I sensed she wasn’t exactly as she seemed.
When my brother, John, introduced her to me.
I sensed something darkly disturbing about her
Despite her beauty and her charming ways.
And her seeming impossibly perfect.
I warned John about my suspicions,
But he married her anyway.
A year later John disappeared,
And Barbie perfect wasn’t worried enough.
She suddenly left town not long after that.
John’s disappearance remained a mystery
Until he appeared to me in a lucent dream
And showed me where his bones were buried.
In a shallow grave under some bushes on a beach
I found the grave and John’s bones, but
His bones had not a trace of flesh on them.
Two years after that, a news report revealed
Barbie perfect had been arrested in Maine
For cannibalizing her husband of a year.
Bob Boyd
My father loved to listen to the bluebirds in
The bird house he built in our backyard.
When he got old and got Alzheimer’s,
All he could talk about was the bluebirds.
Sometimes it made me a little crazy
But I never let him know what made
Him happy was annoying me.
When he died, the blue birds went away,
And that saddened me almost
as much as losing him until the bluebirds
Sang again in my head, and I knew
It was an afterlife message from him.
Bob Boyd
Dear Earth,
Do you ever get tired of spinning,
And does the weight of so many lifeforms
Ever feel heavy to you?
Do you ever get dizzy with all
That unceasing spinning?
Do you ever feel you’re on
A 24 hour grind and wish
You could take a break or
A holiday?
And do you have an exit plan
For when the sun stops
Burning in the sky?
And do all those bomb tests ever
Give you earth aches?
Last, thanks for all your tireless and thankless spinning
Day to day year to year and for hosting all
The countless lifeforms.
In gratitude,
Bob Boyd
Why do you go faster as we grow older
When we want you to go slower?
And why do you go slower
When we are kids and want to get older?
Are you an invisible trickster
Who delights in messing with us
Or is the problem within our bodies
And related to our changing biology?
Bob Boyd
At age twenty-four I lit up the movie screens
And all my male lead actors wanted me
I married seven of those handsome men
After six months the lure of my looks and theirs wore off
And with my career and theirs we had little time together
And since we always worked with beautiful people
Not one of those Hollywood marriages lasted
Either I cheated on them or they cheated on me
With exciting and gorgeous co stars we met on sets
Now I’m a white-haired, wrinkled old lady nobody wants
My beauty and my Hollywood fame like a faded dream
And despite my once alluring beauty and great fame
I’m all alone now and regretting I never found lasting love
Bob Boyd
Joshua Boggs (1890-1918)
I was a logger who chopped down
Cedars, Sequoias, Firs, and Pines
In the forests of sunny California
I had a strong back and a temper
A love for cheap corn whiskey
And a cheating wife named Minnie
One day I got home from work early
My ax slung over my broad shoulder
Caught Minnie with another logger
Lost my temper and went crazy
Chopped them both to death
Pieces and blood in the bedroom
Fled California right after that
To Greensboro, North Carolina
Found work as a farm hand
Fooled around with farmer’s wife
When the farmer found out
He shot me in the legs when I ran
Tied me up and carried me to
A pig pen filled with hungry hogs
He smiled and said bon appetit
And fed me to the snorting hogs
A gruesome horrible death
That even I didn’t deserve
Bob Boyd
I decided to make my country more multicultural
I always liked the mix of many cultures
And the cultural exchanges it would bring
People from all over the world living harmoniously
I let all manner of people and beliefs
Into my welcoming country but
Hadn’t counted on some cultures
And their religions and beliefs
Being incompatible with mine
And wanting to change my country
And hating its beliefs and politics
And even though I was top tier elite
Better than the common populace
I was too proud to admit I was wrong
And risk blemishing my exalted status
My experiment failed, reaped with discord
And a divided country became
Crime ridden and filled with hate
Bob Boyd
Big crowds exciting for some
Smothering for others
I’m one of the others
And when I see big crowds
In videos or in photos
The herds of humans remind me
Of herds of animals and seem
Of no more significance
Then those herds of animals
In the greater scheme of things
Bob Boyd