I was a big deal in my day
A sensation of my times
The press raved about me
My name was on the lips
Of people everywhere
I thought my fame
Would last forever
As renown as I was
But a mere fifty years later
A blink in the infinity of time
I am unknown and forgotten

Bob Boyd

Nights are lonely since you departed
Days are dreary without you here
Often I feel a bit saddened but
Without any regrets or cries
I just have a lot of whys
We seemed so right together
Truly believed we’d be forever
But you chose a different course
With that rich investor and ran away
Weeks later you came back sorry
And with a profusion of apologies
But I could not let go of my disappointment
And we were done forever.

Bob Boyd

In the sixties he ate the bark off of trees
And everything edible in the forest,
Including insects, roots and flowers.
Never ate those processed foods
So abundant in the western world.
He saw the animals in the forest
As brothers and sisters.
He understood the howls of wolves.
He could interpret the sounds of bears,
And he described himself as a bear whisperer
And considered bears as part of his family.
One day he consumed a bucket of dandelions,
One of his bear relative’s favorite treats.
And his whispers and kinship meant nothing
When the bear smelled the dandelions inside him
And gorged himself on the human dandelion treat,
Like a kid eating a chocolate covered ice cream bar.

Bob Boyd

I was living the dream
A Rock and Roller
Starting at age 16
Toured all over the USA
Opened for some big name bands
Wrote the songs for my band
Knew one day we’d have a hit
On the road for 50 years
Never wrote that big hit
Not even a one hit wonder
Realized I was never going
To be a big international star
I dreamed I’d be at age 16
At least I lived the dream

Bob Boyd

A company head like ancient Nero
Fiddling around with employees.
Her music, demeaning outbursts
Discordant verbal assaults
That caused the audiences of
Workers to quit year after year.

The cost: a bad reputation
All over the city and the loss
Of many high quality employees.
But like Nero, she didn’t reform
And kept blowing good people out the door.
Some people are just born tyrants,
Who no more than a psychopath
Can change his behavior are
Locked into theirs.

But the world goes on and
Devalued employees find
Better jobs elsewhere. So
At least the story has
A happy ending, except
For the Nero-like tyrant.

Bob Boyd

The sun fell from the sky
The moon blew up
Stars scattered throughout the universe
Nukes destroyed the earth planet
The remains of which spun
Aimlessly in the cosmos.
Nostradamus was right,
But no problem
The Dance of Shiva
Will start again and
Humans will resume
Their evolutionary
Journeys.

Bob Boyd

Outraged by increasing, out of control crime,
even women getting punched in the streets,
My brother and I decided to go into superhero action.
I dressed like Batman. He dressed like Robin.
We both had years of martial arts training
And from lifting weights since childhood,
We were incredibly strong and imposingly buffed.

As a team, we patrolled the streets of our city every night.
We kicked the crap out of a rapist, stopped a robbery of an old lady.
We became crime fighting legends even on the evening news.
Our mission was exhilarating, cleaning up the streets of vermin.
We fought criminals all over the city. We stopped more crime than the cops.
All the glory ended when we caught a street walker trying to solicit.
We were going to report her to the police, but my brother said no.

In a save the princess knight mode, he told her he could save her from the streets,
And I could see they had a love connection that would go nowhere.
Shocked, I tried to rein in his delusional lovesickness and save him
From making the dumbest mistake of his life and the possible end of our team.
He starts going out with her and says she’s really a good girl;
she just had a hard life and that led her to degrading herself in the streets.
He quits the team.

She convinces him freelance crime fighting is too dangerous,
As if her career path wasn’t loaded with dangers and dangerous characters.
After a month of fighting crime without him, I felt like the Lone Ranger
Instead of Batman. I couldn’t go on without our duo, without my backup.
A year later, the street walker turned good girl leaves my brother
To become a nun in a convent hundreds of miles away.

My brother goes crazy, puts on a Superman costume, gets drunk,
And tries to fly off the top of the six story apartment building he lives in.
On the way down, he sees the street walker, turned good girl, turned nun
Coming back to him. She folds her hands in prayer and prays out loud, and my
Brother floats down into her arms. Maybe that nun stuff gave her some
Potent prayer power like a super nun hero.

Bob Boyd

Remember when I saved your life when
You fell of that boat and could not swim,
And the current began pulling you down?

Remember when I brought you that
Carnation for our senior prom and
You said we’d be together forever?

Remember how when you went to
That fancy college and felt you
Were becoming too good for me?

Remember how I said you were
Becoming too stuck up for me
And I never called you again?

I remember all those times
And often think of how things
Might have been.

Bob Boyd

His parent always said,
Why can’t you be like him?
He’s always helping his father,
He’s a model kid.
He grew to hate that model kid
He could never be like.
But he found out he was
better than him in one way.
Playing a game of hockey
On a pond near where he lived
The model kid tried to stick
His hockey stick into
another player’s ice skate
Who had gotten past his defense.
Though in his parents’ eyes,
He wasn’t as good as the model kid
He knew he’d never be a cheater like him.

Bob Boyd

When she presented she was magical.
Her words flowed into the audience,
Captivating, hypnotic, sugar sweet.
Her knowledge, massive, amazing,
She educated many. Enlightened many lives.
Whether you were a PhD or a high school dropout
Both of you completely understood her topic.
Her presentations had that quality,
Unpretentious, real, beneficial to everyone.
Her name is Wanda Moone. You probably
Never heard of her. You probably never
Will, a loss I wish you never missed.

Bob Boyd