Category: Poems

The cold season is nearing now,
61 degrees today.

Like a warrior before a war,
I’m prepared for it.

And I’m looking forward to
the increasingly colder days.

Though I’ll shiver a time or two
and get chilled a bit, almost to the bones.

I’ll survive the worst of the winter cold
with little use of heat

and enjoy the invigorating effects of the
stirring winter chill.

Bob Boyd

When I was in grade school and high school
teachers always told me and my classmates
fighting is wrong, don’t do it.

At some point, I became aware of all the adults
fighting wars and found what the adult teachers
said to be hypocritical.

Here they were setting a standard that grown ups
failed to follow all over the world.

Now many, many decades beyond childhood,
I stopped fighting ages ago when I was a young man,
but I find it disturbing that adults are still fighting.

I find it disturbing that we still have wars, and
adults are still fighting and even dying in wars
all over the world.

And I wish when my teachers told me and my
classmates fighting was wrong, don’t do it,
that adults all over the world took their advice.

Bob Boyd

A wonderful ride
hollywood stardom
fame fortune glory
all her dreams
more than fulfilled
renowned actress
two husbands
two lovely kids
until she grew
older and her
ride slowed down
and the dreams
were ended
as well as the fame
and Parkinson’s
destroyed her life
erased her past
at age eighty-six
when her ride
screeched to a halt.

Bob Boyd

Wild nights
Crazy days
Wasted youth
Troubled past
Missed opportunities
Unretrievable
Cannot relive
The better life
He could have had
If he’d been
Less troubled
Less rebellious
Better behaved
Hit less times
Less screwed up
Model teenage kid

Bob Boyd

When I was a child
maybe under age ten

grasshoppers were a phenom
the way they could jump

the way some of them
could fly a bit

I cannot remember the
first time I saw one

I kind of wish I could
retrieve that wonder

recapture that amazement
remember that joy

but I’m an old man now
and such memories are gone

amazing childhood moments
I cannot relive.

Bob Boyd

He said he’d
been abducted
by aliens
the reptilian kind
they examined
and probed him
he said he
got the works
but failed to
qualify what
the works meant
he did seem
different
maybe the works
meant an upgrade
of his brain
then he said
one day he’d
join the aliens
on some kind
of shangrala
distant planet
he died soon
after that
a week later
I saw him in
a dream playing
golf, his favorite
pastime, with two
reptilian aliens
in a surreal
and paradisiacal
planet on a
brilliant green
glowing golf
course
maybe it was
just a dream
maybe not.

Bob Boyd

As he keeps reading
the cosmic energy
keeps increasing
in his head
like a basketball of
subtle energy inside
and around it
like those pictures
of halos
in eastern orthodox
icons
but he is not holy
nor is he unholy
he just is
he just is subtle energy
his consciousness
confined temporarily
within a brain
ot neurons
and glial cells
within a flesh
and blood body
with circuits of
blood vessels
circulated
through it
he is patiently
awaiting the day
when the he that
is a small part
of higher Self
can be united
with Self again.

Bob Boyd

he sees a movie with two beautiful starlets of the past
in it

one died in her forties of cancer

the other in her sixties of heart problems

he is sad their beauty and their lives didn’t last
except in their movies

at least they had that

he ponders how when he dies he won’t have
any remnants of his life on earth

he realizes as the years speed by
the tens
the hundreds
the thousands
and more

nobody will have any remnants of who they were
or what they did

it’s as if it’s all illusionary
or just a dream
this passing life
this ever ending
impermanence.

Bob Boyd

No woman in my life
Withdrawn from humankind
Spiritual energy streaming up in me
nonstop permanently
like a Hindu monk charged up with shakti
every day and every night
like a recluse basking in spirituality
waiting for the final release
hoping for the maha samadhi
the world no longer owns me
I yearn for the higher life
the sat chit ananda
the real home of this aging soul
unconditional love, eternal bliss

Bob Boyd

I’ve reached an age and a time of my life
when I see how my life and the world with its
worries and concerns, suffering and evil,
is all impermanent.

Yet, I have to remind myself of that when
I see things in the news that disturb me,
that don’t matter in the greater scheme,
of the passing impermanence.

This remembrance of the impermanence
puts things in perspective for me,
that none of the disturbing things matter
in this transitory existence I am only
a sojourner in.

Bob Boyd

I was a teenager
I thought she was perfection in the female form
I was so smitten with her, I couldn’t see the signs
I couldn’t see how she would eventually cheat on me
I had such tunnel vision that I couldn’t see the inevitable
but it was a good lesson
after the tears dried, I gained great clarity
I became wiser and more adept at seeing the signs,
like looking into a crystal and seeing the future with a woman
like becoming practically bulletproof against assaults on my heart in the years to come
though that too smitten to see the heartache coming was painful
it was one of the greatest lessons of my life.

Bob Boyd

She was a genuinely sweet woman,
kind, warm, friendly to all.

She had a heart of hearts,
caring for all.

On a dreadful summer night
she got drunk with two disreputable men,
supposed to be her friends.

They took advantage of her in the
back seat of a car when she was barely
conscience, too drunk to resist.

Like unfeeling, heartless monsters,
they boasted of their rape conquest
to others in the city where I lived.

She never told the police, perhaps she
didn’t want to endure what was shameful to her.

Her reputation sullied, many were told.

I didn’t want to hear about it, her being
taken advantage of like that, her being drunk.

But unlike others, her reputation wasn’t sullied
with me.

She was still a genuinely sweet woman
and always will be in my mind and in my heart.

Bob Boyd

Why do the thrills of things like

falling in love

first Christmas gifts

first new car

have to get old?

If I had to pick one thrill to last and last,

it would be the sky high thrill of falling in love.

No one would ever get used to it,

Never would it get old.

It would be permanent bliss with a permanent,
loving other.

There’d be no break ups, no broken hearts, no divorces –

continuous romantic love unbroken, always new

always thrilling, always true.

Bob Boyd

My thanks to aging for making me
increasingly aware of the impermanence
of this life and of me.

When younger, I didn’t really get it.

I hadn’t lived enough, seen enough
people, things and events pass away,

like leaves falling off trees on a river bank
and floating away in ever rushing waters,

like ever passing lives.

Now many people and generational icons I knew
are dead – gone forever.

Now I look forward to joining them
in what I believe is a glorious, permanent existence.

Of course, my belief could be wrong.

The only permanence I could die into might
be just a permanent death and nothing more,
no heaven, no nirvana, no eternal bliss, nothing.

Or, I could die and have to come back to
this impermanence again, maybe as
an improved, better me facing all the
uncertainties, the suffering, the evil
in this impermanence once again.

I like my belief better, a permanent world
devoid of the suffering, evil, and impermanence,
a forever world of peace, love and bliss.

And Mike Mchugh and Joe Drew, if you’re reading
this from the other side,

If what I believe is true,

I hope to meet you there too.

Bob Boyd

You see her face
her hair
her eyes
her smile
her alluring body
her enchanting moves
her endearing gestures
This are but the moving parts

The keeper of her secrets
the queen of her intelligence
the source of who she is
the generator of her actions
is her gray matter
her wonanly brain

This is what you should
pay more attention to
rather than being swept away
your mind mesmerized
by the siren-like beauty
of her moving parts

Bob Boyd

I spy the neighbor’s cat under my car,
as I’m about to fire it up and go to the grocery store.

I feel honored the cat has chosen to grace the underbelly of my car with her noble, feline presence.

I met this cat months ago when I was talking to the neighbor who is the cat’s pet; the orange and white feline wonder purred and endearingly rubbed her soft, furry body against my leg.

I felt grateful that she accepted me like that,
as if welcoming me into a human cat kinship with her.

I hate that I have to start my car and scare her away.
It seems almost sacrilegious to me, like trashing a holy relic.

But, alas, I have to get some sustenance from the grocery store,
perhaps I’ll make amends with the cat another day.

Bob Boyd

The Challenge of the Coming Cold

I look forward to the coming cold weather,
the challenge of surviving it with little heat –
intentionally.

Comforters and Sherpa blankets, layers
of warm clothing.

Fire proof space heaters only when
absolutely necessary.

Windows weatherized, door draft stoppers
ready for use.

An indomitable will to withstand the cold,
the challenge, the triumphant victory over it.

Bob Boyd

His body began breaking down
in his early thirties.

He’d been strong and fit, and
couldn’t figure out why.

He went to see a doctor
and was put in a hospital.

He was probed, examined,
his blood taken.

Worst diagnosis possible,
cancer at age 31.

A year later, dead at the
young age of 32.

Why do such awful things
have to happen

to some young people
God, I’m asking you?

Bob Boyd

He used to like to fish
days and nights,
all the time.

To him it was a sport.
He didn’t catch fish to eat.

He caught all kinds of fish,
bass, trout, catfish, perch,
sunfish and more.

Once he even caught a tiny squid.

Once he could have caught
a crab; it hung on to the bait
and finally dropped off.

But there came a time in
his twenties when he could
no longer fish; he could no
catch, harm, or kill fish
for fun.

He didn’t know why that
change in him occurred,
an awakening
he hadn’t expected.

A blessing for the fish.

Bob Boyd

What a feeling it was when as a teenager
for the first time in my life, I held hands with a girlfriend.
Wow! I couldn’t believe how good, how wonderful, it felt.
It was like a fusion of hearts, hers and mine, in that
most special, sweetest of all moments in my teenage days.
I felt like I was melting with bliss inside my heart and
straight to the core of my budding, youthful being.
If only … if only for a wondrous, magical moment,
I could experience that enchanting, teenage feeling again.

Bob Boyd