Category: Poems

September 29th, 2025. Today the weather
has finally gotten cooler.

It’s been like summer up till now.

Temperatures as high as 80, like a
sweltering fall

instead of invigorating cool winds
and lower temperatures.

You might be a summer person.
You might bask in the hot summer sun.

Me, I like the cooler weather and
dislike the heated rays of that hotter season.

Maybe because I’m at an age with the sun
can be like an enemy to an older person’s skin,
the ever present threat of skin cancer.

Or maybe it’s because I’m originally from a
much colder climate than where I live now.

Whatever the reason, I’m basking in the fall
winds and enjoying the refreshing, colder weather.

Bob Boyd

Despite claims of levitation from different quarters,
I just do not believe any human has ever levitated.

The evidence I’ve read seems more like hearsay
and embellished legends.

Were levitation attainable, I’d think we’d have
scientific, observable proof by now.

I’ve read some Catholic saints have levitated,
but those claims could easily be embellished,

or the alleged writings of saints making such
claims could have been altered

to make the faithful think those dedicated to God
were granted supernatural powers.

I also don’t believe because many claims of
supernatural abilities have been easily debunked.

And I believe in the quote “extraordinary claims
require extraordinary evidence.”

Bob Boyd

He senses they are coming for him,
as if he were somehow connected to them.
They come through his bedroom wall.
His mind becomes subdued, his body weak.
He feels his body being lifted off his bed;
it feels like a floating cloud.
They carry him through his bedroom wall,
as if it’s no longer solid matter.
Next he’s in their huge, oblong ship
strapped on something like an examination table.
The inside of the ship has a sterile, metallic smell.
He doesn’t like the look of the strange grey beings
and their unblinking, large black eyes.
He senses they are soulless and unfeeling.
They hover over him with medical-like instruments
in their abnormally long fingers and spindly hands.
They start extracting fluids from his body.
He feels weak and drained; he passes out.
He wakes up in his bed, his head aching,
his body sore, his mind dazed.
He feels like he’s had a terrible nightmare,
but he knows for sure it’s something worse.
And he fears they will be back for him again.

Bob Boyd

I can put up with a woman’s rabid politics.
I can endure with her talk about mansplaining
and her rantings about toxic masculinity.
I can withstand her constant dramas
and unhinged behaviors.
I can accept her fake body parts and
bloated buttocks enhancement.
I can suffer her constant nagging
about leaving the toilet seat up.
But I cannot live with her dislike of
my favorite ice cream, Häagen-Dazs.
That’s where I draw the line.
That’s the deal breaker.
That’s where we break up.

Bob Boyd

It all begins with love and bliss
that eventually levels off a bit,

or it levels off a lot.

The romance is no longer as
24/7 incredible,

though it might still be good

But sometimes at that juncture
It starts to go bad

and keeps growing worse.

I know this from experience
and how it goes so bad

that there’s no turning back.

Bob Boyd

Why do some have to come
into this life disabled

when others come into it
with perfect health?

Why are some fated from birth
to suffer a mental health crisis

later in their lives, say in their
early twenties,

at a time just when their lives
are really just beginning?

Why are some innocent babies
born with cancer

when other babies are
born with perfect health?

I cannot fathom the whys
of these terrible misfortunes.

I only know my heart aches
at the mere thought of them.

Bob Boyd

He worked out all his life, healthy as a horse,
strong as a bull.

Super fit, the fittest of all his peers.

Disease free in his fifties from the right diet
and working out daily in the gym.

Still healthy as a horse, strong as a bull, people
marveled at how good he looked.

Cancer in his late fifties, dead at age sixty

despite his superior fitness and the healthy diet
he scrupulously maintained.

His doctor said, “Sometimes you can do everything right
and still get sick.

Sometimes you can do everything wrong
and never get sick.”

Bob Boyd

She was an attractive, single woman
who lived in her house alone.

Crime and break ins had risen
in her city

that prompted her to buy
a gun for protection.

Her friends, opposed to guns,
thought she was being paranoid.

One night she heard someone
breaking into her house.

She grabbed and loaded her gun
and yelled I’ve got a gun.

The man trying to break into her
apartment yelled I’ve got one too.

The air exploded with gunfire
and the smell of gun powder.

When the shots died down,
one of them was dead,

a serial killer who planned on
raping, torturing and killing her.

Bob Boyd

he prowled the city streets hunting
for prey

he beat his many victims nearly
to death

he robbed them of their money
stole their watches and jewelry

made a good criminal living off all
the easy prey

until he tried to rob a petite woman
who had attained a special skill

and as he was about to strike her
she shot him dead.

Bob Boyd

To all the women and girls named
Karen who never act inappropriately
or crazy,

I hate how your name has become
synonymously when women who do.

I hate how fate and chance have put
that stigma on innocent you.

The curses of Medusa upon the cad
who put that unfair curse on you.

I pine for the day when the Karen fad
will pass,

and you can return to a normalized life
without your name

defamed and linked to deranged
behavior.

Bob Boyd

I recall Taoist Masters writing about meditating
near trees.
They claimed a peaceful energy emanated from
the trees.
I believe they probably were right; it does seem
more peaceful spending time near trees.
I remember the Taoist even have a meditation
method tied to trees, standing like a tree.
Having tried it decades ago, I found it was
an effective, potent method.
You stood with your knees bent and you arms
positioned as if holding a giant ball.
I know that treelike stance would give one
the peace of a steady tree.
I believe with years of standing like a tree
you would become One with the Tao.

Bob Boyd

When it’s good
It’s good
When it’s bad
It’s draining
And can’t be
Good for
Your mental health

You feel lonely
You think another
Will fill the emptiness
In your desolate life

But when You get
Another
You have To adapt
You have to
Compromise

You may not
Get along
After the
Newness
Of each
Other
Wears off
And You
End up
Sacrificing
Your privacy
Your life
And always
Keyed up
You begin
Missing
Those peaceful
Happier days
When you
Were alone

Bob Boyd

Friends, acquaintances, and icons dying.
Times and things you grew up with fading
or faded away, as if they never happened.
Drive In Theatres, Studebakers, Phone Booths,
Typewriters, Transistor Radios, TV Dinners,
Martin Luther King, Aldous Huxley,
Ernest Hemingway, Sharon Tate, Farah Fawcett.
You’re fading away too.
Body older, weaker, balance not as good, mind
not as sharp, health problems, minor and/or major,
bones may be brittle too.
What’s a body to do?
Acceptance. Acceptance. Acceptance.
There’s not much else you can do.
You’re fading away too.

Bob Boyd

He was a good kid
and an excellent swimmer.
On a summer’s day, he
went missing.
A search ensued.
Eventually after searching
his known haunts,
his body was found
drowned in a pool
in a sand pit.
Never found out why
this good kid
excellent swimmer
died in that pool.
It made no sense.
I read of a phenomena,
shallow water blackout,
sadly that may have
happened to him.

Bob Boyd

As the town grew
crime grew, murders
too, till the town was no
longer the peaceful place
it used to be, till the town
became so crime ridden
people began leaving it.
The exodus kept growing
and growing and growing.
Stores went out of business.
Office buildings emptied
till the entire town was
boarded up and abandoned.
And even the criminals left
the town that became a ghost town.

Bob Boyd

I believe there’s some luck in love,
especially when meeting the right one
is a random affair.
It’s not like you meet the perfect person for you
unless you are uncannily lucky.
To me, it seems by chance, by luck, you
meet the near perfect person for you.
Of course exceptions exist, some people
sabotage love.
Some are inherently hard to get along with.
But, overall, I feel you need some luck in love.

Bob Boyd

He thought she loved him,
his wife forever.
But she had other ambitions.
Tired of never having enough,
she longed for a man with more.
Unknown to her loving husband,
she was on the hunt for a
monied man.
While he thought she was out
for evenings with a girlfriends,
she was hobnobbing at events
attended by the rich.
When she finally found her
monied man and told him she
was leaving him, it hit him like
a gun blast to the heart.
She went on to bask in opulence;
he died of a broken heart.

Bob Boyd

The sightings keep increasing
Even the government says
they exist.
UAPs and UFOs.
Opinions vary on what they are.
Aliens seem the most likely.
Some say that’s for sure.
I believe they are right, but
if that’s true, why do they
seem to be avoiding direct
contact with us?
And are they friendlies or
are they unfriendlies?
I don’t think anyone knows
for sure.
Some think they are like
benevolent overlords that
watch over us and will
stop us from destroying
ourselves, if a nuclear war
were to start.
The belief is they would
stop the nukes from
launching and would save
the human race.
Whatever the case, I think
we are close to a direct
contact with whatever they
are.

Bob Boyd

Everybody thought my older brother was the nicest guy.
They didn’t know he had a nefarious darker side.
He had weaned himself on gangster movies.
He always rooted for the bad guys and booed the cops.
His main ambition in life behind his charming persona
Was to be a made man in the Mafia.
He tried to sign up in big city Boston.
Was told because he wasn’t Italian he couldn’t join
But could be an associate if he “Made his bones”
By taking out a guy named Sal Marino on the North End.
The hit must have gone badly wrong because
I never saw my gangster wannabe brother again.

Bob Boyd

Rhonda grew up in Sandpoint, Idaho,
attended a Baptist Church there.
She had a loving family with a sister
and a brother, but not much money.
Did well in high school, but not well
enough for a college scholarship.
Went to a junior college in California,
worked part time to afford it in
a fast food restaurant, but tired of
making substandard wages.
Got lured into being a stripper
for higher pay and easy work
by a college classmate.
Despite compromising her morals,
enjoyed the lucrative pay.
Eventually got hooked on drugs
and higher paying prostitution,
making a small fortune for sharing
her beautiful body with men.
To bolster her falling self image
referred to herself as a sex worker.
Gave up her college dream, more
money in hooking than with a degree.
Now she’s a middle age woman, her
looks and her beautiful body no
longer as marketable, and she walks
the streets selling her body at
reduced fees, and often dreams of
when she was an innocent girl in Idaho
and going to that Baptist Church.

Bob Boyd