Month: April 2024

I step out of the apartment building I live in.
Giant bees swarm and buzz around me
As if I’m an intruder in their territory.
I see two of them mating on a step
Unconcerned about who is watching.
What the hell, have they no modesty?
Chidingly, jokingly I say, “Get a room.”

The other bees fly nearer paying no attention
To the indecent couple publicly copulating.
They buzz louder, fly closer to me,
Trying to intimidate me with their bluster.
Do they not know they are the intruders
Upon the previous bee-free doorway?

You might be wondering why I’m not freaking out,
Frightened about getting stung by those angry bees
flying like bomber planes around me.
It’s because I’m the apex predator here.
They don’t sting, and with a few sprays
I could take them all out like bomber planes
tail spinning to the ground in flames.

But like the Hindu Jains, today
I’m practicing ahimsa (nonviolence).
And despite their frenzied bravado,
Their madly buzzing fake attacks
Their puny intimidation attempts,
Like a deified, Roman emperor
In the stands of a coliseum arena
Making a decision to kill or spare
A defeated gladiator with
a sword poised at his head,
I give them a thumb up and
Spare their annoying lives.
Hail Caesar Bob!

Bob Boyd

She brought sunshine with her
Everywhere she went.
Everybody she saw.
Felt the rays of her charisma,
The warmth of her joy.
No matter how bad a day you had,
The sunshine she brought with her
Brightened your bad day,
And made everything okay.

Bob Boyd

She said I was too affected by the magnetic fields of the earth.
I asked her what on earth did she mean by that.
She had no idea. She just liked the way it sounded.
I didn’t mind her talking about something she knew nothing about,
And it did sound kinda cool and appealingly intellectual.
And that’s my girlfriend Daisy who sometimes talks kinda crazy,
But I love her for what to me is an endearing quirk.
At least she’s not an insufferable jerk.

Bob Boyd

The poet Theodore Roethke wrote this line:
“In heaven you’ll be institutionalized.”
Imagine if that were true,
And in heaven you had worse rules
Than on a rule-ridden, toxic job
With overlords like sociopathically strict bosses.
I don’t know about you, but for me that would be like Hell.

Bob Boyd

Maddy never had a soul
Nor a trace of a heart.
Women to him, disposables
Only for promiscuous pleasure.
His love yous, deceitful ploys
To get what he wanted from them.
Stayed with rich ones for a while,
Didn’t mind being a temporary gigolo
Until he got bored and found a newer fling.

He died penniless, womanless, alone
Never contributing anything to the world,
Only using women unconscionably,
Breaking their tender hearts wantonly.
Where he went in the afterlife, a mystery.
Given his wanton, devilish ways,
Wonder how that factored into
His after death relocation.

If there’s no such thing as Hell
Where does a womanizing Manny go?
If there’s such a thing as reincarnation,
Maybe he’ll come back as a rabbit,
Given his prurient proclivities.

Bob Boyd

Drugged up people stumbling around like zombies,
Vacant eyes, no one home in them, too far gone.
Some hardly conscious, barely upright swaying
like being blown about in random winds.
Distorted people shooting up in public,
A Disneyland of human caricatures.
Trash all over the sidewalks and the streets.
Drug paraphernalia scattered everywhere.
It’s a goddamn, screwed up sloppy mess.
Kensington Avenue, whatever happened to you?
And how is it America has fallen so far
With other drug ridden cities like this?
Shame on the rich, indifferent politicians
In charge of all of this misery and neglect
On the streets of Kensington Avenue.

Bob Boyd

Said though she loved him;
She couldn’t settle for him.
Oh how he loved her endlessly,
Would have laid down his life for her,
But he wasn’t good enough.
His 60k a year income wasn’t sufficient.
That paltry income could never buy her
All the stuff she craved and could have
With a few more zeros behind that 60k.
She hooked herself a high-prize catch
Hallelujah! She netted a filthy rich guy!
She got all the stuff she craved and more
With a filthy rich guy who cheated on her.
And she often thinks about that 60k guy,
Who loved her endlessly and
Would have laid down his life for her,
And the love she threw away.

Bob Boyd

Sometimes I wonder how it could have been
You and me
Though I never even hinted about what I was thinking
You and me
And we’ll both go to our graves without you knowing
You and me
And like everything else in life in the end it won’t matter
You or me

Bob Boyd

They don’t have wings
They aren’t from heaven
They aren’t real angels
But
With all their caring
Acts of kindness
They’re as close
As humans can be
To the real thing
God bless all
Of them

Bob Boyd

Married 50 years,
Met in high school.
Stayed madly in love,
Though all those years
In sickness and in health,
For better or worse
Like the preacher said.
Oh how I envy you.

Bob Boyd

Maybe despite people saying and singing
God is in control, there’s some randomness
In the creation equation.

Maybe regardless of how pious you are
Or how well you follow what you think are the rules
Random things can still happen to you.

Maybe it is analogous to doing everything
Right to protect your health, diet, exercise, etc.
Yet health problems can still happen.

Maybe when a tree falls on a woman in a park
in New York and kills her it had nothing
to do with how good or bad she was.

Maybe a lot of life is just randomness that no
Hand in heaven or on earth can prevent
From happening.

Bob Boyd

Not working is so freeing
Used to think
I
Couldn’t live
Without working but
I
Was helping people
For a living and
I
Saw that as being
Like a mission
I
Had so many successes
Did so much good
I
Didn’t see it as about me
Like Service working through me
I
Often felt euphoric when everything got fixed
Because of dedicated caring efforts
I
Miss the helping but the afterlife
will afford greater opportunities to help
I
With all my heart and all my soul
believe that awaits me

Bob Boyd

Often I
Wonder and wonder and wonder
Why the world is overrun
with evil with evil with evil
I suppose if you believe in a God that gives an evil entity
Satan Satan Satan
Carte Blanche on inflicting evil upon the planet
That can
Reconcile, reconcile, reconcile
The ungovernable infamy
All over the world
But that just doesn’t work for me
And I still
Wonder and wonder and wonder.

Bob Boyd

Perching in trees
Gliding in the air
Craftily sourcing food
Dropping nuts on the street
For cars to run over and crack them
Never forgetting human faces
Sometimes bringing gifts
To people who feed them
Demonized in horror movies
An injustices to the noble bird species
Crows

Bob Boyd

The ever evil Professor Effing
Cooked up monstrosities
In his hidden lab in GSO, NC.
He unleashed them in a quiet neighborhood,
People walking dogs, some people jogging.
A sunny idyllic day for fun and play
Before thirty giant genetically modified
Mongolian Death Worms destroyed
Everything that moved in that neighborhood.
Walkers, joggers, dogs, cats and a car or two
Until they discovered they had no appetite for cars.
Professor Effing, his experiment a wild success
Took his show on the road to HP, NC.
Pray your neighborhood isn’t next.

Bob Boyd