She wakes up
another uneventful day
her aging body stiff
her old mind groggy
she’s all alone
in her vanishing world
her dreams are buried
as she’ll be
not long from now
and she’s just waiting
to die.

Bob Boyd

Jimmy, Annie and Sarah
were playing hide and seek
in the woods next to the
neighbor they lived in.
Jimmy and Sarah hid
while Annie counted to 20.
Sarah was hiding behind
a tree laughing and was
easily found by Annie.
Annie and Sarah searched
for Jimmy but didn’t find him.
That was 50 years ago, and
despite hundreds of searches,
even by dogs and the FBI,
Jimmy was never found.

Bob Boyd

In her youth she was a mathematics
professor at an ivy league college.

Her coworkers and students
described her as incredibly brilliant

Now she’s a retired, elderly woman,
and her mind has become compromised.

Her brilliance is gone forever;
she’s lost her self awareness.

Mindless, she has become
like a zombie wandering

all over her neighborhood,
and soon she’ll be confined

to a nursing home oblivious
to everything in her ending world.

Bob Boyd

She was in my life for a few seasons
then on a whim she was gone.

Sometimes I wonder what happened
to her and if she’s still alive.

But in this ever changing life
that passes by so fast,

now I see her passing out of my life
was of little consequence

as were most of the events
of my life in retrospect.

Bob Boyd

The other night I had a dream where
I was wrestling with a formidable opponent.

Unlike the Biblical Jacob, I don’t think
I was wrestling with an angel.

My opponent looked strong and human
and not at all evil.

I thought he would easily beat me at wrestling,
as big and as muscular as he was.

But I was holding his hands and seemed
as strong as he was.

Just as I felt I could take him to the ground,
I woke up with my hands in the air,

as if they were still holding his and wrestling
with him.

I wanted a rematch in another dream last night,
but he didn’t show up.

Bob Boyd

If ghosts are real, imagine ones that are
interactive,

making the air cool around you, whispering
in your ear

appearing and disappearing in front of you,
moving things in a room.

To me, the worst would be seeing one
manifesting and looking directly at me.

Bob Boyd

In some cultures and in some beliefs,
whistling at night summons evil spirits.

I don’t believe in such nonsense, but
would I whistle at night in a dark forest?

No way, lol.

Bob Boyd

As far as humans becoming better
despite some notable improvements
in the 200,000 years we’ve been here
it seems we’ve not improved enough.

Evil flourishes, crime happens all
over the world, prisons are full.

If I had a direct line to a Creator,
I’d ask for an upgrade to improve
the human condition.

But, alas, the Creator never seems
to answer my prayers and petitions.
And I think despite the improvements,
our species will continue to have
evil flourishing, crime happening, and
prisons full of criminal humans.

I think it’s a chronic, unfixable condition
with some of us fated to be evil,
some of us fated to be criminals
in prisons all over the world.

Bob Boyd

She’s lived for 80 years.
Health problems now.
Nothing debilitating, nothing
compromising her living,
but she’s all alone without
a friend in this passing world.
She sees the end of her life is
rapidly approaching.
And she is yearning for it.
She steadfastly believes
the loneliness will vanish,
and she’ll find lasting happiness
and fulfillment with her God
in a forever world of eternal bliss.

Bob Boyd

Sometimes he misses the innocence of childhood

the less complicated times

when he made fewer mistakes

when his life was purer

before his teenage years

when life started getting more complicated

and he began shedded his childhood purity

and losing his childhood innocence

now he reflects on his mistakes

and wishes he could start from

the innocence of childhood again.

Bob Boyd

When I was a kid in high school, a classmate
told me I looked like a wolf.

He thought he was insulting me,
but I took it as an unintended compliment.

If reincarnation exists, I might have been
one in a former life

because I really like wolves, especially
white Arctic wolves.

If I’d been a wolf in a former life,
I probably would have been one of them.

Nobody else ever told me I looked like
a wolf,

so I guess that classmate was mistaken,
and I probably wasn’t a wolf in a former life.

And at least that classmate didn’t tell me
I looked like something worse,

like a gargoyle or Frankenstein.

Bob Boyd

If she leaves you because you’re too nice,
take heart; she’s doing you a favor.

You really don’t want to be with a woman
like that.

And if nice guys really finished last,
how come they all eventually get married?

Some nice guys, who may not really be
nice guys,

say screw it, I’m going to start treating
women like shit.

Why compromise yourself, and succumb
to such loathsome behavior?

Just keep trying, and you will find a woman
who will value you for the nice guy you are.

Bob Boyd

She met him in college,
it felt right,

many things in common,
a real nice guy.

They dated for a few months,
got married.

For a two years,
everything was wonderful

until she learned his
late work hours

were not the kind of work
she expected

when the police cuffed him
and took him away

after he had killed his
thirteenth victim.

Bob Boyd

Sometimes I miss the company of a woman,
her love, her touch, her tenderness.

Doing enjoyable things with her, pleasing her
with words and actions.

The sound of her voice, her eyes looking at me
lovingly, her comforting hugs.

Maybe not having been with one in ten years
at times make me a bit batty, lol.

And I forget how when it’s bad, it’s hellish,
her harsh words, complaints, indifference.

The disappointments, the agonies, the
approaching heartbreak.

Blessed are those men and women
for whom relationships remain heavenly.

Bob Boyd

Crime cases where ministers have murdered their wives.
Priests who sexually abused children.
A Christian wife,raised in a prominent Christian family, marred a good Christian man and found a Christian boyfriend she convinced to murder her good Christian husband.
For these people, religion didn’t seem to work.

Consider all the blood shed in the name
of religion.
Consider innocent women tortured and burned
at the stake as supposed witches by
religious men, acting more like demons.

One could come up with various excuses for
these evil believers: free will, psychopaths,
possessed by demons, a devil, etc.

But I find it puzzling that despite beginning
as believers some become so diabolically evil.
And I wonder why a loving God doesn’t step in
and save them from themselves and spare
others from being harmed or murdered by them.

Bob Boyd

Not a shot was fired. Not a bomb fell.
Instead we were bombarded with rock music
and some of the best rock bands on the planet.
I’ll never forget the great British Invasion
that began in the mid sixties.
I’ll never forget how much fun and joy
those incredibly talented Brits brought to our shores.
If all only all invasions could bring joy and entertainment,
instead of bombs, bullets, deaths and misery.

Bob Boyd

He’s been visiting her gravesite
for nearly ten years.

He often talks to her, as if
she were able to hear him

through her tombstone or from
under the ground.

Much to his sorrow, he never
gets even a hint

that from beyond her grave
she hears him.

Nor has he ever seen her in
any of his desolate dreams.

He worries that maybe
she’s just dead in that ground

instead of in some afterlife
waiting for him when he dies.

Tears still fall often from his
forlorn eyes.

Bob Boyd

He calmly watched her walk out of his life,
no begging, no attempts to change her mind.

She was disappointed; she expected some
resistance to her leaving.

Though she had been with him for seven years,
she didn’t know him well enough

to know it was easy for him to let go when
a woman decided to leave him

or when he decided to leave her, and unknown
to her, in his mind he had left her long ago.

Bob Boyd

She said she left America,
called it a Fascist state.
Now she lives in a prison
in Britain
for what she posted
on social media there,
just like over a thousand others.

Bob Boyd

I wouldn’t choose heaven.
I wouldn’t choose cosmic consciousness.
I wouldn’t choose oneness with God.
I choose being in a paradise living
happily ever after with the perfect
soulmate for me.

Granted, that’s silly and shortsighted,
but it appeals to the romantic in me
and seems like the perfect fairy tale
forever.

Supposedly, if this kundalini energy
that has risen in me for over 50 years
reaches completion upon death,
and matures into cosmic consciousness,
I’ll be beyond my silly afterlife romantic
longings, forever in the Sat Chit Ananda,
Eternal Bliss Consciousness.

But, alas, thinking from my limited earthbound,
embodied level, I’d rather be in eternal bliss
with a soulmate … in love forever.

Bob Boyd