There have been cases
where people have vanished
in national parks
and though those people
are nowhere to be seen
sometimes they can be
heard calling for help
and despite their cries
for help, they are never
seen again or found
perhaps they have been
trapped in a portal or
in another dimension
Bob Boyd
When is enough enough with too many
disappointments in love?
It’s all sunshine and rainbows in the beginning,
happy days and constant euphoria.
But, alas, so many of those falling in love
elations turn bitterly sour with time.
Yet, many keep trying to find love, disappointment after disappointment,heartache after heartache.
So great is the need for romantic love.
I gave up on romantic love many years ago,
enough was enough,
despite my heart’s murmurings for love
one in a rare while.
Often I wish that obsessive, unrelenting need
for romantic love was never implanted in me.
Yet even as an old man, in the deep recesses of
my beating heart, romantic feelings occasionally live on.
Bob Boyd
There’s a woman who married herself to the
Eiffel Tower.
There’s a woman who married herself
to a ferris wheel.
There’s a woman who is married to a
life-size cutout of an actor.
There’s a man married to a
Barbie Doll.
There are men and women married to
rag dolls.
There are men and women who are married
to AI husbands and wives.
I’m not making fun of any of them.
They’re not harming anyone, and if it
makes them happy I’m good with it.
Bob Boyd
Though I never knew you,
coming home for lunch from work
sometimes I saw you walking,
dressed elegantly,
I think in your late sixties
or early seventies,
and despite your many years,
you still looked beautiful.
Ten years later, after I returned
from the Philippines,
I saw you once more, sadly,
most of your beauty was gone,
and I worried you wouldn’t
live much longer.
I never saw you after that:
I fear you are dead.
If only, if only, I could have
gotten to know you.
Bob Boyd
I’m talking a hike in a nearby forest,
minding my own business, per usual.
The entire forest goes silent, no birds
squawking, no insects making a racket.
I know from reading fake stories about
monsters this silence means one of them
has entered the forest; I know it’s supposed
to mean danger and horror has arrived.
The fake stories about monsters were
halfway right.
When my ex-girlfriend appeared, looking
evil as hell, kinda like a monster as well.
Believe me, no monsters had anything
on her, terrifying as she looked.
Because I always thought she was possessed,
I made sure I armed myself with a cross and holy water.
When she charged me with fingernails brandished
as long as knives and screeching like a bona fide demon,
I held my cross in front of her face and doused her
with holy water as a back up.
She screamed loud enough to break the sound barrier,
her face looked like a demon’s.
She flew out of the forest screaming and swearing,
and she never bothered me again.
Bob Boyd
Melinda went to college to be a teacher,
though she got good grades, she put more
effort into partying and binge drinking.
She graduated with a 3.00 but a 4.00 in
partying and binge drinking.
Unknown to her, the cumulative effect of
all that binge drinking messed up her mind,
clouded her morality.
When she began teaching, she was like a
superstar, loved by her students, praised by
the principal and the senior teachers.
But because her mind was messed up
and her morality clouded from all that
binge drinking, she did something naughty
with one of her preteen students.
Now Melinda is no longer teaching;
she’s serving a five year prison sentence
for her inappropriate behavior with that
preteen student.
Bob Boyd
Ronny was an adventurous soul
as well as a daredevil.
He was also a born again Christian
who talked in tongues.
He was curious too, decided to attend
a Pentecostal snake handling
religious meeting deep in Kentucky
led by the famous Reverend Notts.
When the reverend handed him
a hissing rattler to hold,
Ronny caught up in the religious fervor,
grabbed it a little too tightly.
The rattler, angry as hell, bit Ronny on
the neck,
and Ronny saw blazing white light
bright as the sun.
Seconds later, Ronny passed out and died,
maybe he made it to heaven.
Bob Boyd
Her life has become miserable
she’s 67 years old and alone
she has no friends, only a
few distant relatives
her days are dismal
the tv shows she used to enjoy
seem mindless and dull
she wishes she were dead
with her husband of 30 years
who died a year ago today.
Bob Boyd
When he was 10,
30 was old.
When he was 30,
50 was old.
When he was 50
70 was old.
None of those numbers
really mattered when at
70 he was dead.
Bob Boyd
The rains pounded the earth
birds and animals took cover
humans as well
some with umbrellas
in the midst of the taking cover
the unfolding of umbrellas
the pounding rains
the earth sighed, enjoying
the long awaited shower.
Bob Boyd
to want to know
really know
firsthand
about the mysteries
the wonders
of the
Great Beyond
thus I welcome
Death
the usher
who will lead me
into the theater
of the afterlife.
Bob Boyd
A tender teenager who felt deprived of love
by his parents,
he yearned to find that love in a romantic
relationship.
At sixteen, he found that love in a beautiful
girl his age.
But as often happens with teenage love,
she left him for another.
The breakup was too much for his wounded
heart to bear.
He hung himself to death in his bedroom closet,
his need for love, his agony, no more.
Bob Boyd
His father made him a seaworthy toy boat.
He sailed it in the brook behind their house.
One day the toy boat got away from him.
It sailed through the brook to a river,
from the river to the sea, then to an ocean
and into the hands of a little boy in China.
Bob Boyd
She had an off-putting, weird personality;
she didn’t fit in with others.
She was that way all her life, never able
to get along with others,
always thought to be disagreeable and
unbearably weird.
It wasn’t her fault; it was the burden
she was born with.
Bob Boyd
Seeing an elderly couple falling in love
just isn’t the same as young people falling in love.
You don’t see many movies about old love,
like you do with young love.
But, I believe falling in love has the same highs for the elderly as for the young.
However, the sad part is, the effects of aging
can creep in, illnesses, death at any moment.
Possibly a dementia obliterating one of the
elderly lover’s minds ending their love.
To me, the worst is with death closing in when one suddenly dies, the horror, the heartache.
However, for the brave, the romantics, maybe elderly love is worth it despite the risks.
Bob Boyd
Jane, although educated, chose to be
a homemaker wife.
Some women derided her, a sellout
instead of a girl boss,
settling for being a Stepford wife,
subservient to a man.
I say, the girl bosses are no better
than homemaker Jane.
I say, her job is possibly even
more important,
raising her kids as well as she can
a stay at home mother
always there for her children,
never a conflict with a demanding career
Besides whether a woman choses a
career or being a homemaker
both are equal opportunities to live
fulfilling lives.
The problem is the economics, some
families need two incomes
to survive in this hustle bustle world,
to afford even bare necesities.
Bob Boyd
Up early every day foraging the ground
to make a living, his currency, his pay,
worms, insects, grubs and snails,
fruit in shrubs and trees.
Never a complaint, never a gripe,
always on time for work everyday.
Can’t afford to take any time off,
never a vacation.
A robin’s work is never done.
Bob Boyd
Since I began writing poetry
about two years ago
I hear words with the ears of a poet
words I didn’t really hear before
for example
when I read the word dromadaire today
I like the way it sounded
so I decided to write a poem with that word in it
inside the body of a dromadaire
a rare nanobody dwells
according to a recent study
that rare nanobody
might treat brain disorders
Alzheimer’s and others
who would have thought
a dromadaire roaming the desert sands
could have such a priceless treasure within him.
Bob Boyd
She got involved with him despite his rough ways;
she saw something fixable in him.
Though seemingly born a bad boy, she saw a spark of
goodness in him.
I can work with that, she said to herself. I can make him the
man he should be.
But woe upon woes, instead of her fixing him, he broke her.
Bob Boyd
I remember how she was the center of my universe
and my entire life revolved solely around her.
Now decades later, she’s barely a blur,
only a rarely remembered memory.
The years and the decades uprighted my senses
instead of keeping me unbalanced and
languishing over a lost love.
Bob Boyd