Category: Poems

In Memory of a Mike McHugh

I remember you friend Mike McHugh, always a good story, always a great smile.
Women loved your raven black hair and your bright, deep blue eyes, to them
you were a handsome prize.
I hated how time dulled your bright deep blue eyes, grayed your raven black hair,
stole the stories from your lips, numbed your mind with a medical condition worse
than Parkinson’s.
How it saddened my heart that all that you were and more the years erased
And worse, now that all that you were and more is gone forever
buried in the cold, unfeeling ground.

Bob Boyd

The Older I Grow

The older I grow the more people and generational icons
I know in the afterlife.
The older I grow the more I realize I’m merely a
sojourner in this uncertain, fleeting life.
The older I grow the more my body breaks down and
needs medical repairs to maintain it.
The older I grow the more I become like a fossil in
this fragile, transient existence.
The older I grow the more things I see I dislike
in this ever downward spiraling world.
And the older I grow the more I see death as a friend
who will usher me into my eternal home of
limitless love and unending bliss.

Bob Boyd

In Memory of Joe Drew

From Woburn, Mass, a small city, in 1964 Joe Drew joined the Marines,
The few, the proud, the brave sent him to the front lines in Viet Nam.
A good, gentle guy, never harmed anyone with words or fists.
Often thought, Joe why … why … why you, the nonviolent one?
Concluded gentle Joe probably felt he wasn’t manly enough,
And the Marines made manly men out of gentle teenage boys.
I’ll never forget Joe Drew, goodhearted, tender soul, great guy.
Joe came back from Nam in a body bag, first in Woburn.
Tears rained all over the city, one of our own down forever.
How I wish Joe never joined the marines and went to Nam.
A nicer guy there never was. If when I die, I wouldn’t be
Surprised if I meet an angel in the afterlife … Joe Drew.

Bob Boyd

Remembering Ruth

Remembering you with tears my eyes misted
was saddened to learn you had 52 years only.
You should have had at least 70 or more.
Never learned what sent you into the afterlife.
Your nicotine decades long addiction, I suspected.
You always smoked too much, worried me.
But maybe you hit the afterlife lottery, leaving
sooner, freed from the ravages of aging,
and I’ve no doubt you’re in a heaven. And
just maybe … we’ll meet again.

Bob Boyd

Crystalline Unicorns

We rode on crystalline unicorns in the afterlife, the unconditional love and the bliss mind blowing beyond words, beyond imagination, beyond anything one can experience in the transient days of impermanent, earthly life. Me temporarily only, an NDE tourist, her, Brianna, luckier, a permanent resident. Bliss beyond measure as we gallop through euphoric Elysian fields, Brianna, my newly discovered soulmate.

Now I know why I never found love true In my earthly existence of near misses. I needed to die to finally find her, not only the woman of my dreams, but the one I’d seen in my dreams before the car wreck that killed me temporarily. And though I miss her I know she’ll wait for me until I die permanently.

Bob Boyd

The Parade

This passing parade of people
you see throughout your life,
some you love, some you hate,
some you barely know.
Some are strangers passing by,
some linger then say goodbye.
Of the many in that parade,
few remain. The rest are
as if dead, gone from
your life forever,
returning never.

Bob Boyd

Robins

Robins scatter on the lawn as I walk by.
Why so afraid? I mean no harm.

Soon they fly off, as I wish I could
Make them see I’m a friend not a foe.

But I understand as little prey birds
They have to always be afraid

Of big human monsters like me.
And, honestly, I’d be the same,

Were I a little prey bird that
Could be crushed by a hawk,

Or killed by a big human monster
Unlike me.

Bob Boyd

Desiree O Desiree

Desiree, O Desiree there’s never been a woman like you,
not even the Greek goddess Aphrodite could compare.
Sometimes I wonder if you’re an ancient goddess too,
sent from Mount Olympus to an undeserving mortal like me.
And I wonder why this insignificant mortal came to be
with a goddess among women like you, Desiree.

Maybe Zeus sent you down to me for the time
I saved that Greek kid from a bully in DC.
Maybe he was Zeus’s son sent from
Mount Olympus for a mortal woman who,
for whatever mysterious reasons, deserved to
be with a god among mortal men.

Like ancient times, maybe ancient Greek gods
still intervene in the affairs and romances
of mortal women and men.
Maybe like you, Desiree, those Greek
gods are incomparably, mind-blowingly real.

Bob Boyd

The Aegean Sea

I’d love to sail with you
Between the Balkans and Anatolia
In the historically important Aegean Sea
Where Aegeus jumped into those waters
And drowned himself to death
Where the Greeks and the Turks
Argued over the sovereignty.
But let’s forget about the
Myths and the history
Let’s just be together
In our love boat afloat
in the Aegean Sea.

Bob Boyd

Drawbridge

Back to Drawbridge Cancer Center last Friday
Post cancer, blood test, and doctor checkup
Chocolates and poems for the wonderful nurses
Tirelessly laboring in the infusion room daily
Providing comfort, care, and kindness
Soothing and cheerful, helping heal cancers
With magnificent infusion machines
I miss those wonderful nurses
at the Drawbridge Cancer Center
And will be forever grateful for
their tenderhearted care and
skilled help in saving my life.

Bob Boyd

A Thousand Tears

He hears the cicadas grieving in the trees.
Their chirping grief in tune with his own.
Wife and three-month old child gone forever,
A raging house fire took them away.
His mind plagued with sorrow and guilt,
If only he’d been home instead of carousing,
A stable husband instead of a meandering one.
Maybe he could have saved them.
But what use of maybes now?
A thousand tears cannot wash away
The loss, the agony and the guilt.

Bob Boyd

If only You Believed

Was listening to Jefferson Starship Miracles. You know the part where they sing “If only you believed in miracles, so would I?” That’s my lyric to you. I’m here, heart open, bouquet of purple Irises, your favorite color, offering you all my love and more. If only you believed in miracles. If only you believed in the epic love of a lifetime, yours and mine, ever true, always new, only for you, ever glorious, me leaving never. The love poets write about, singers sing about, movies film about, people dream about. If only you believed… like I do.

Bob Boyd

Morning Coffee

I woke up and found you gone.
In my dream we were together again,
You in the kitchen making coffee,
The smell fragrant to me as always,
I loved your morning coffee.
You made it better than I ever could.
You hugged me before we drank
Our coffee and discussed poetry.
Holding you, I smelled your fragrance,
Far more pleasing than the coffee’s.
Upon waking to the world I remembered
That you were gone. Six feet under
in the cold smothering ground.
Tears fell from my eyes.

Bob Boyd

Never Get Tired of This Song

Ever hear a song you could
listen to a thousand times?
I have.
Listened to it probably thirty times,
never get bored with it.

Strums chords in me resonate
with idea of a goddess womon
lights up the world with love.
Perfect woman for me
soulmate incarnate.

Love Grows (Where my Rosemary goes)
Edison Lighthouse. I even love the band’s name.

Bob Boyd

A Strawberry Rasbora Fish That’s Like Me

The strawberry rasbora fish in my fish tank stay at the bottom.
They never come to the top for food, kind of annoys me.
I wanted to see them swimming merrily all over the tank.
But … one of them reminds me of me, the rebel one.
He breaks free from the herd, or should I write school?
He marches to that different beat. He drums his independence
from the restrictions of compliance with the other rasboras.
He swims all over the tank unconcerned about the opinions of
the other rasboras enslaved by the pack, or should I write school?
I think the repressed rasboras secretly admire his free spiritedness,
but fear censure from the other fish, rasbora public disapproval.
I salute you free spirit rasbora, escapee from the conformity.

Bob Boyd

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