Jed loved to fish after dark on cool nights
when the big bass and the eels came out.
He’d cast his line far out with a sinker
that sent the bait to the bottom of the lake.
While waiting for a bass or an eel to bite
He’d sit in his rowboat hoping to hook
A big bass rumored to be a giant fish.
He’d heard the legends about how it,
Never failed to get away when hooked.
Usually it broke the line, big as it was.
In a way, Jed almost caught that bass,
Or I should write it caught him
When it emerged from the lake
And more of a giant bass then expected,
It swallowed Jed and his entire row boat.

Bob Boyd

Fifty and five years, his life a mess.
Never thought he’d end up like this,
Incarcerated for a crime he didn’t do.
Sure he was wild but not like this.
Now he spends his days confined
Telling everyone he’s innocent.
No one believes him. No one cares.
They’re sure he killed that young kid.
Now three inmates have a plan.
And soon he’ll be knifed to death
To avenge the murder of that kid.
Justice served and deserved.
And the real killer killed another kid.

Bob Boyd

What is it with this romanticism?
Will it follow me to the grave?
Will I be afflicted with it in the afterlife?
I’m well past the procreative years.
Why does this romanticism linger?
Is it imprinted in the soul forever,
Or stamped on my DNA to never go away?
It is said in death one has no voice box
And surely no reproductive organs,
But I think one has a spiritual heart.
Is that where romanticism starts
And remains eternally in some?
But not in womanless sages
Who might transcend the need,
Who might not have the imprint,
Who might be rare anomalies
Unlike terminally romantic me.

Bob Boyd

At any given moment your life can be thrown in chaos.
Something as random as a falling tree in a park,
Or rocks hurled off a bridge by juvenile delinquents.
In New York a shove into an ongoing subway.
But worse things that these can happen,
An agonizing, prolonged death by a disease
That the pain makes you wish for death.
If you’re kind of lucky, it’s not life threatening,
A breakup, a divorce, the loss of a job.
Nonetheless, this is an unpredictable life.

Bob Boyd

She disappeared ten years ago
Never found, no traces of her,
One of many unsolved cases.
Where do these people go?
Alien abductions, serial killers
Human traffickers, death?
She has been seen in dreams
By me and others, but no clue.
She’s smiling in these dreams,
But just stands and says nothing.
I don’t know what that means.
A psychic said she’s in heaven
I guess I’ll go with that for now.
It’s better than awful speculations.

Bob Boyd

Saw you last night in a delightful dream.
You looked as adorable and petite as ever.
Gave you a book, don’t know why.
Hadn’t been thinking of you.
Were you trying to get my attention?

Bob Boyd

Praying mantis aliens
Insectoids 10 feet tall
Intellectually superior
Some claim it’s true
Imagine if hostiles
Coming for us
With anal probes
And surgical tools
Humans examined
Weaknesses sought
For final solution
To the human problem

Bob Boyd

Robins in the trees and on the ground
Flying on branches, hopping on grass.
Worms surfacing unaware of robin beaks everywhere.
Not unlike human life with Death’s beaks always everywhere.
Worms and humans limited life forms both prey every single day.
More obvious with the unaware worms than with the oblivious humans.

Bob Boyd

Time racing by faster and faster
Getting older and older and older
The years passing at warp speed
Death getting nearer and nearer
Closer and closer way too soon
I can almost see the coffin
Being built for dead me
And feel the grass above me
When I’m lying underground
And the me today is
Gone forever tomorrow

Bob Boyd

We came from different backgrounds
Her rich. Me poor.
I was too young to know about the rigid class system.
She didn’t know about it either, being a teenager too.
Her father and mother hated me.
I was unworthy scum to them. She deserved better.
My family didn’t have enough stuff, working class nobodies.
My father was a janitor, my mother a maid in a hotel.
Though I was just a kid, I knew it all came down to stuff.
Who had the most of if. Who had the least of it.
And it was all just nonsense. Nothing more.
But I was a dreamer blind to the class system,
And so was she.
So we eloped when we turned 18,
And you’d have thought I’d committed a crime.
Her family blamed me for their daughter’s disobedience,
And the better life she deserved rather than being with me
Her father sent two burly thugs after me.
They beat me up and nearly killed me.
And demanded I sign divorce papers.
I resisted until they started torturing me.
The pain became so extreme dying would have been better.
The pain too much to bear, I finally gave in and took the bribe,
A job at another state far away with great pay,
And the promise I’d never contact her again.
I could have tried to fight it legally later,
But I couldn’t afford the justice
Her father’s legal team could.
And I never saw her again.
I stayed in my own class after that,
And married a good, decent woman,
Who like my mother is a hotel maid,
Whose family thought highly of me
And didn’t care about how much stuff I didn’t have.

Bob Boyd