Month: October 2025

Lying in bed remembering
the warm comfort of a woman
lying next to me

an emotional and
physical comfort
a balm for the body
the mind and the soul

I’m thinking it would be nice
to feel that warm comfort again

I imagine I never will
except in occasional thoughts
and summoned memories

then I remember how
the warm comfort
can become
a cold discomfort

how the sweetness
can turn sour

the relationship doomed
with no rewinding it

and I banish those
warm remembrance
from my wary mind

taking comfort in
my peaceful life
devoid of heartaches
disappointments
and miseries.

Bob Boyd

The crazies seem to be multiplying
I see them acting out in videos
I see them screaming in streets
Imagine if aliens ever sprayed
our skies with an invisible spray
that made us all chronically crazy
acting out and melting down
like the multiplying crazies
except every minute of every day
imagine those with access to
the nukes all over the world
gone as crazy as the rest of us
BOOM … BOOM … BOOM ….

Bob Boyd

Cars, trucks, buses stream by
in the falling rain pitter patter, pitter patter
on the sidewalk and on the street
the rainy sound of tires rolling on the wet pavement

I see a man wearing a gray raincoat with a hood
he’s walking a black, doberman dog on the sidewalk

a man appears on a motorbike weaving in the crowd
a row of people approaches all with black umbrellas
another man appears walking with a purple shopping bag
I wonder what he bought in that purple shopping bag

I can faintly hear the walking people talking and laughing
the entire scene is no different from here in America
I think about how people everywhere are usually alike
wanting peace and happiness in their quiet lives

I pray we never have a war with Russia
and blow to bits people just like us
and get blown to bits by them as well

it all seems so primitive and unnecessary
and what a shame to destroy countless lives
over wars that should have never happened.

Bob Boyd

Never tried skydiving
preferred to play it safe
many do it for years
without incident

some, even experts,
fall to their deaths
from terrifying heights

imagine the horror
of knowing death was
waiting for you
on the hard ground

as you screamed
your lungs out
on the way down

never been one to
throw the dice
gambling on living
and dying

knew just by living
you were throwing the dice
and that was more than
risky enough for me.

Bob Boyd

I’ve often read of sages and holy men
living secluded away from the world

holed up in hidden caves
existing on wild edibles in forests

I suspect some find what they seek in solitude
enlightenment, cosmic consciousness, nirvana

But I suspect others are driven mad
the lack of human contact
the self imposed solitary
the psychological perils of isolation

they are like men walking on tightropes
between worldly and otherworldly structures
some make it across the tightropes
finding enlightenment, cosmic consciousness, nirvana
others fall into an abyss of madness.

Bob Boyd

Too many people go missing
hiking just by themselves
sadly some are found dead
sadly some are never found
the forests hold many secrets
the fates of so many missing
the tragedies of so many dead
I believe if the trees could tell
the stories of all these people
the willows would weep for them.

Bob Boyd

I’m at my computer remembering when back in the
long gone, free love, Haight-Ashbury highs sixties
some adventurous free spirited women
were called hippy chicks
I’m also wondering how women ever got
called hen’s babies
that aside, I’m thinking an ex hippy chick
would probably be a good match for me
we could talk about peace and love, Hendrix,
Woodstock, India, Ram Das, getting high on mantras
cosmic consciousness and Meher Baba
we could have our own two person commune
and talk about how groovy, heavy and far out
our new age resurrected Age of Aquarius lives were
she’d wear paisley dresses with flowers in her hair
I’d let my freak flag fly evermore
we wouldn’t need LSD and psychedelic trips
or getting ten feet tall like Alice
groovin’ together, spacing out
on our stars aligned soulmate love
would be all we’d need ever and forever.

Bob Boyd

I suspect today the ants have run for cover
shivering and swearing about the cold

probably wishing like birds they could fly south
to those warmer cities, sanctuaries from the cold

probably wishing like me they lived in a house
and could turn the heat on

now I’m wondering what they do
when like hell freezing over
the ground they travel on gets iced over

I’m thinking they burrow deeper into the earth
maybe closer to what I think is a warmer core
maybe halfway to China

maybe like Tibetan monks they practice tummo
and turn the thermostats in their bodies
up to my age, 80 – degrees instead of years.

Bob Boyd

I have been yearning for the cold weather
and holy hell it’s here brrrr brrrr brrrr
shiver shiver shiver

57 but seems like 27 since it snuck in
so quickly and coldly last night

and was much lower than 57 initially
which my apartment has hung on to

like a kid refusing to give up one of its toys
I think it likes the cold more than I do

I’m gulping down hot coffee
blanketed in layers of warm clothing

and a hoodie and a lumber jack hat
which has warmed me up enough

I refuse to turn on the heat
until the cold becomes near unbearable
before I freeze to death

I did this last year successfully
and plan to withstand the cold
even better this year

you may think my plan is crazy
maybe it is but I don’t want to spend
a small fortune on heat with my poverty line
Social Security income

when I like a beast in the wild can endure the cold
and like the challenge of enduring it
like maybe that beast does

and maybe like that hairy beast I’ll get more hairy
longer hair and a bushy beard

besides this Don Quixote jousting with the cold
is one of the few quasi adventures left in me
in my reclusive, nonadventurous life at 80.

Bob Boyd

Women who hike in the wilderness alone
worry me for reasons I’m sure you can deduce

easier prey when in the wilderness alone
whether you are a woman or a man

making yourself an easy opportunity
for a predator, man or beast, looking for a kill

also bad if you get injured by yourself
without a hiking friend to help you

why put yourself in potential jeopardy
when with precautions you could be safer?

just saw a YouTube video where a beautiful woman
disappeared and never found hiking by herself

vanishings like this happen far too much
sometimes even when precautions are taken.

Bob Boyd

Billy Hargrove accepted a midnight dare
from his rowdy teenage friends
brothers Alex and Michael Simms
spend an hour in Greenhill Cemetery
in the city they lived in, Greensboro, NC
beginning at the witching hour, 12 am
Billy a badass from birth
and a nonbeliever in foolish things
snunk into the cemetery minutes before 12 am
sat down with his back resting on a headstone
where Lucreatia Burns, a witch when she lived,
was buried under the headstone since 1942
an hour past and Billy got up and left
laughed when he saw his friends
sitting in their cars outside the cemetery
and pumped his fist in the air triumphantly
a moment later, blood poured out of
shocked Billy’s eyes, ears and mouth
and he was lifted and shaken in the air
by a cackling insanely strong, invisible force
that tore his shaking body apart
and … cursed … badass Billy Hargrove was no more.

Bob Boyd

Like beasts of the jungle are born to kill
so was he

except the beasts killed for food
but he killed for the thrill

unlike the beasts of the jungle
he relished his tortures before the kills

he had no misgivings, no guilt
like sinless jungle beasts, he was born to kill

a terrible car accident left him with a concussion
and rearranged his thinking

the weight of all those tortures and kills
began to shame and torment him

as if the brain damage birthed a conscience
rendering him unable to torture and kill

he climbed to the top of a mountain cliff
jutting rocks below it

took a deep breath, began to step off the cliff
then backed away, couldn’t do it

hiking back down the mountain
stepped too close to a bear cub

screamed when he saw the mother bear
growling and racing toward him

he tried to outrun the bear until the bear caught him
and did to him what he couldn’t do to himself

now his blood and bones are scattered in the forest
and he is in a hell being tortured and killed indefinitely.

Bob Boyd

She was born into all the advantages
wealthy parents, high IQ, beautiful face and body

In her early twenties
she got tired of having everything

began drinking too much
driving too fast and too drunk

flew off a highway into a tree
rushed to the ER by paramedics

clinically dead on the examination table
a doctor pumped her chest with defibrillator paddles

returned to life minutes later
said she had a life review and saw God too

shortly after that and some reflection
donated her riches to the poor

and became a Buddhist nun
in faraway Singapore.

Bob Boyd

Should had died at age 76 of cancer
medical treatments saved my life
at 80 another pending medical crisis
a pace maker staved off the threat
now at 80 and nine months I’m worried
I feel too goddamn good
riding an exercise bike 2 hours daily
working out 3 times a week
writing thousands of poems
I might live longer than I want to
like my mother who lived to her late 90s

from working decades with the elderly
I’ve seen living too long
is often fraught with problems
possibilities of more health conditions
maybe a dementia or Alzheimer’s as well
maybe in a wheelchair or on a walker
quality of life becomes diminished
medical costs can keeping adding up
might be in an assisted living facility
unable to take care of yourself
or consigned to a bleak nursing home
fully dependent on others for your care
your independence, your freedom
and your extended long life
essentially finished before you die.

Bob Boyd

Thumbing a ride to high school
he got a ride from his second cousin
a good conversation with him
a nice guy

weeks later the nice guy second cousin
shot a store clerk in a robbery
and went to prison for life

years after that, he broke out of prison
killed a prison guard

disappeared for ten years
police didn’t know where he was

became a celebrated poet in Chicago under an assumed name
awarded poet of the month as J. J. Jameson

a photo of him with the award in a local newspaper
caught the attention of a police office

the authorities finally caught up with him
second cousin killer poet back in prison

he tried to get paroled a couple of times
denied each time

until in his late seventies when sick and dying
paroled and died a few years ago.

Bob Boyd