Author: Bob Boyd

Feline Dirge at the Door

When a kid in the fifties had to bury a family cat,
Buried in the woods. The burial felt eerie to me.

Late that night cats meowing at our front door,
Seemed a paranormal frightening thing.

Somehow the cats must have known
Their friend, our family cat, had died.

And like people crying at a funeral,
They were mourning their dead friend

With a group funeral dirge that
Sounded like something from Hell.

Thank God they didn’t dig up the cat
And drop her at our front door.

I felt bad enough losing our beloved pet
And hated having to bury her.

Bob Boyd

Watching Dead People Dance

Going way back to the twenties on YouTube
Seeing people dancing back then, young and merry,
All dead, their dancing done, all in the ground,
A sobering reminder of life’s transience.
Not always easy to really get the grim fate
Awaiting you and me when our dancing is done.
Living like we’re here forever, even though we know better.
Sad how many leave the dance younger than age thirty three.
Often wonder why many so young have to die, never living full lives;
Sometimes I say things like maybe they were needed in heaven sooner,
Or perhaps God needed more angels in heaven.
But those words are insufficient to answer the ultimate: Why?
And the seeming injustice of it all. God’s call.

Bob Boyd

DeLorenzo

DeLorenzo made a big mistake in the city I’m from,
Key witness to murders in the east of the city.
Thought he was a fearless gangster but kind of a punk,
Refused police protection too tough for that
Could take care of himself, no problem.
The killers ain’t gonna do anything to me
They can go straight to Hell.
Shortly after that, Delorenzo disappeared.
Suspicions pointed to the East Side Gang.
Everybody in the pool hall I hung out in knew that;
The word was prominent on the street.
No clues needed. Obvious. Open and shut.
He should never have messed with East Side
Or chosen to rat them out to the police.
All that eventually turned up of Delorenzo
Was one of his arms in the local dump.
No witness, no DNA, the killers went free.
One knocked him out. Another held him down.
A third ran over him with a car relentlessly
Until he was stone cold dead.

Bob Boyd

Calling It a Day

The Pavement’s sizzling sitting in the merciless sun,
Got no money, no job, no friends, no wife, no life.
Used to be a high flying CEO, had the monied, extravagant life
Blew it all beginning with white lines on my plush desk
In my executive suite. Lost it all, even a beautiful, faithful wife,
That looked kind of like a famous social worker, Madonna Moss.
Now I shuffle in the sad streets screwed up and bumming money
For more drugs and the never lasting euphoric high, reduced to that.
Diving in dumpsters behind fast food restaurants for garbage food.
The homeless shelter doctor says I haven’t long to live, a year at best,
Doesn’t matter to me, my life sucks; it’s over anyway. I’m done.
Tomorrow I might jump off a bridge or walk in front of a freight train
And take my chances, heaven or hell if either exists, don’t care where.
If I can get a gun, I’ll put it to my head, pull the trigger and call it a day.

Bob Boyd

Robots and Cancer at the Grocery Store

Packaging shrinking, prices going up.
Cashers being replaced by self service machines.
Robots coming to replace grocery store workers.
Meet your local grocery store manager, Mr. AI.
More food alleged to give us cancer
No matter which ones we eat.
Maybe the cause of younger people getting cancer,
Hidden in the food, a head of lettuce a death sentence,
Peas and carrots in a can, seeds of future cancers.
I write this sitting here eating junk food copiously,
Playing Russian Roulette with my health, supposedly.
I’m 79, had cancer, and it doesn’t matter to me.

Bob Boyd

A Thieving Girlfriend

Last time I saw her she drove off with my car,
Unfortunately she stole it after arguing with me.
I called the police, they put out an APB.
A clever woman, she evaded the police
And drove to parts unseen never seen.
Ten years later I saw her in a dream.
She asks me to forgive her. I did.
Then I see an old shaped grave
That seems connected to her,
But I cannot read her name on it.
In the dream the name of the town
An hour’s drive away
Is somehow revealed to me.
I visited the town, explored graveyards
Until in a little old Methodist Church
I find her in the church graveyard,
Beloved Minster Joyce Matthews
1952 to 2021.

Bob Boyd

Woman in White

In a graveyard mourning my recently deceased sister
I spied a willowy white-haired woman dressed in white

She was elderly but still beautiful and fetching
With a siren like quality that was getting my attention

She beckoned me to her with an enticing smile
As if she knew me, and we’d been close before

Reluctant, I didn’t want to walk over to her
I started feeling uneasy about the strange graveyard situation

With one finger, she motioned me over, her face looking evil
I felt like a lifeless puppet on a string

With my mind subdued and no will power I began to falter
But I somehow regained my resistance despite the horror

And she swore at me and said on this day I curse you
Before the day is out misfortune will befall you

She hissed at me and walked to a nearby grave and oh my God
She sank into it like she was sinking into water

She must have been a ghost. No trace of her
Going into the ground was visible

Freaked out, I ran to my car and hopped in it
I drove out of the cemetery like a fireman going to 4 alarm fire

An unseen force took control of the steering wheel
And crashed me into a tree, my head smashing into the windshield

I woke up in the hospital and screamed
The attendant nurse looked exactly like the woman in white

Bob Boyd

A Great Guru

The young husband and wife
Had an incredibly powerful guru
With many paranormal powers
Mostly seen on a blanket in India
Hailed as a great sage by
New Age notables of the day.

To have a guru that great
Was a boon from God,
And one was granted
The unfailing protection
Of a cosmically guarded life,
Provided by a fully enlightened guru.

But something went awry
In a car in a garage in America.
The wife killed herself
With carbon monoxide.
The great guru couldn’t save her,
Perhaps he was a charlatan,
Or the protections of great gurus
Are only bankrupt guarantees.

Bob Boyd

Jennifer

She isn’t a Miss America …
She isn’t a PhD …
She isn’t a CEO …
She’s more than those three.
She works in a grocery store making pizza,
But she’s so much more than what she does
And to me so much more
Than Miss Americas, PhD’s and CEOs.
She’s sweeter, kinder and inwardly
More beautiful than the three.
She’s untainted by self obsession, self-importance
And being better than others.
That’s why to me her humility, her indifference to
The things that drive the three
Make her far better, humbler and nicer
Than Miss Americas, PhD’s and CEOs.
But, alas, she’s too young for me.

Bob Boyd

A Woman Named Moonbeam

I know a woman who was named Moonbeam
Stoned out of their minds on LSD
Her hippy parents ill-fated her with it
Somehow she survived all the teasing
Said it made her stronger and kinder
Never wanted to be like the mean kids
Who picked on her because of her weird name
Despite the growth she got from Moonbeam
Tired of having it, and wanting a normal name
She went from Moonbeam to Sunshine.

Bob Boyd

Funeral Dirge

Men punching women in New York City
Could they be more cowardly?
What kind of fiend does it take to strike
A lovely woman walking down a street.
We’re a far cry from gallant chivalry
When rarer for a man to attack a women
On the streets of New York City.
And what has happened to Gotham City
With all its crime and craziness?
How I miss the days when New York
Was immortalized in songs.
Now the only song that immortalizes it
Is a funeral dirge because the great
New York I knew has died.

Bob Boyd

Rasbora Scout

Rasboras, Rasboras what shy fish you were
For at least five months you always hid
The bottom of the tank beneath the sponge filter
Your permanent hidden aqua Shangri-La

You never swam to the top of the tank for food
I wondered if you would starve to death
Then a week ago, an explosion of bravery
Suddenly you were everywhere

Swimming all over the tank
Merrily chasing one another
Dashing to the top for daily fish flakes
Now I think I know why the sudden change

When all of you were shyly reclusive
One of you was like a fearless rebel
Swimming to the top occasionally
He must have been your scout

Bob Boyd

Rainy Day

You left me on a rainy day in May
You were surprised when I
Didn’t beg or try to make you stay
You’d never met a man like me

You didn’t know I saw it coming
When you became more materialistic
Which was a major negative to me
I’ve no time for greedy women

That debonair rich guy you left me for
Cheated and made a fool of you
When you begged me to take you back
And said you changed and needed me

I couldn’t go back with you; I’ll tell you why
You desecrated our perfect love
As if you drove a stake through my heart
And killed everything we had forever

And I could never trust you again
And I knew usually changes don’t last
Despite desperate promises and tear-stained vows
And the wound from that stake will always be in my heart

Bob Boyd

The Incompatibility of a Pisces and a Leo

Once a girlfriend talked me into seeing a famous astrologer with her.
I don’t believe in that nonsense, but damn the things you do for love.
The astrologer said you’re a Pisces, she’s a Leo, it will never work;
Poppycock I said, you can’t base our relationship on the stars.
She said I don’t know. My astrological readings are usually right.
As if a rational dispelling of that astrological nonsense,
For a full year our love was like a romantic paradise despite the stars
Until my ex-girlfriend ran off with the astrologer
Don’t tell me that was in the stars.

Bob Boyd

Graveyards During The Day

I like graveyards during the day;
I find them peaceful, not ghastly.
I like reading the headstones.
Some have sad epitaphs,
A child dead at age six,
Often with an angel on the headstone.
Some are so old you can barely read them;
The etched words worn away with the years.
I like finding old neglected graveyards in forests,
Symbolic of how nothing endures forever.
I find it exciting to see headstones from the 1800s,
Like finding a rare and nearly ancient treasure.
I don’t like graveyards at night.
Once, decades ago when
I lived near a small one
With a walking path in and out of it
To take a shortcut while jogging at night
I ran through it and felt so much fear
That I got goosebumps and felt
As if my hair would stand on end.

Bob Boyd

The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits

Mary Toft (1701-1763) an English woman
In 1725 made weird history in Godalming, Surrey
When she gave birth to eighteen rabbits.
To lend royal credence to the bunny births,
Nathaniel St. Andre, Surgeon to the Royal
Household of King George 1st, validated
The miraculous birth of the rabbits.
He wrote a pamphlet entitled
A Short Narrative Of an Extraordinary Delivery of Rabbets Perform’d by Mr. John Howard Surgeon at Guilford published in London in 1727.
Thereafter Mary Toft became the talk of the times.
News of the amazing births spread everywhere.
Another royal surgeon, Cyriacus Ahlers
Doubted the bizarre bunny birth claims.
Sent Toth to London for closer scrutiny
Examined by doctors, exposed as a hoax.
You don’t want to know the gruesome details
About how the woman who gave birth to rabbits
Faked the elaborate hoax in this outlandish tale.

Bob Boyd

Richard Munslow, The Last Sin Eater 1906

Savior of the sin ridden dead,
Sentenced to the hell fires,
He ate the bread,
Drank the ale,
That had been sitting on
The deceased chests,
Their sins consumed in
The bread and the ale
And in Munslow’s body,
The hell bound deceased,
Sins absolved,
Got a reprieve and
Went to heaven.
But what about Munslow?
Did consuming all those sins
Send him to hell?
Nay, he had a special
Heavenly dispensation.

Bob Boyd

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