Category: Poems

My friend Benny was always lucky at playing poker;
he always won money at it.

Benny was lucky with women as well; he never seemed
to get rejected and always had girlfriends.

But though an otherwise nice guy, Benny cheated at poker,
and he cheated on women.

Benny sometimes played poker with dangerous men
and I thought one day he’d get caught cheating with them

and end up dead and buried somewhere, a missing person,
never found.

But Benny’s biggest mistake was cheating on a crazy woman
who sent him to his grave with a bullet in his head.

Bob Boyd

I never cared about climbing dangerous mountains.
or skydiving out of airplanes thousands of feet above ground.

In my view, life is risky enough without making it
even more risky.

To me, the only risk of my life worth taking has always
been risking it in defence of another.

But that’s just me and you might be different, savorng the thrills and finding inexpressible joy and excitement

in climbing dangerous mountains and jumping out of airplanes whereas I’ve always been too scared to do those things.

Bob Boyd

Time is like a lawnmower
the way it keeps mowing
down my days.

My life is like a large lawn
that is three fourths or more
mowed as of today, Saturday.

I can’t hear the hum of the mower
but I can feel the days being
mowed away.

Bob Boyd

I have old friends in the afterlife.
And I’m good with being dead like them.
I wholeheartedly welcome the Reaper
and look forward to joining those friends.

I have consumed more than enough
of the pleasures and the pains of this life.
I’ve had more than my allotted share.
So it’s easy for me to think this way,
and I can barely wait for my dying day.

Bob Boyd

I wake up this morning at 3 am.
I think to myself if I had a girlfriend
or a wife who slept with me,
that would probably be an annoyance
to them.
I see that as one of the many benefits
of living solo without a girlfriend or a wife.
Sure it can get lonely without a
significant other, but there are also benefits
that you don’t have when with another.
I feel blessed that I can see my situation
that way, and I greet another wonderful day.

Bob Boyd

Many are the breakups,
Many are the divorces
Few seem to be the
high school sweethearts
whose love lasts a lifetime.
Some grow tired of what
was the loves of their lives.
Some grow apart when
the excitement dies down.
A few have murdered their
once loves of their lives.
Blessed are those whose
love lasts.

Bob Boyd

He Heard strange hissing sounds coming from his barn,
Something paranormal in the night he wondered, scared.
The eerie sounds ceased, and he could not find the source.
Some kind of vanishing ghosts or worse?
Heard it again next night, brought a gun and a flashlight,
Heard a whooshing sound inside the barn,
Only wind blowing through an open window.
At last he found the source of the hissing sounds,
A proud barn owl looking straight at him.

Bob Boyd

As a tall, skinny teenage kid
I wanted to get body builder big
lifted weights, popped protein pills
did body building exercises
I read about in muscle mags
lots of bench presses and curls
I got stronger, muscles got bigger
but I never got body builder big
I didn’t know about genetics then
and nobody was taking steroids.

Bob Boyd

Poodle dogs are smart
they’re also a little crazy
I’ve seen tiny poodles
charge at bigger dogs
though I admire their bravery
I’m sure some have been
torn to pieces because of it.

Bob Boyd

I’ve always found
graveyards peaceful
maybe it’s because
nobody’s acting crazy
nobody’s making trouble
if only living people
could be as peaceful
as those who are dead.

Bob Boyd

Married, in her old age sex was painful,
the enjoyment became torture.

Her husband the same age and less
controlled by carnal urges,

and a kind and sensitive man
was perfectly okay with a platonic love.

And they both knew real true love is above
physical pleasures.

Their marriage became a sweet return
to innocence and a greater, lasting love.

Bob Boyd

On a hike with a friend
in a national park,
he barely saw it coming,
ten feet tall and translucent.

He couldn’t make out its face
but its body looked largely
human.

He sensed it was menacing,
ducked when it charged him
and his friend.

In a millesecond, it snatched
his friend out of this existence
and it and his friend vanished.

Now he’s a person of interest;
the police think he’s crazy
enough to have killed his friend
based on his insane alibi.

Bob Boyd

After years of marriage, they got bored with each other
but stayed together, better than being alone.

In an attempt to fill their empty lives, they ate a lot of comfort food, got overweight and unsightly.

Died miserable, unhappy, and unloved, like many other couples for whom love has run out.

Bob Boyd

I wish I could have a chance
to redo my life
make less mistakes
do more things right
make better choices
avoid the pitfalls
I fell into in this life
I feel I could have
a better life
with a second chance
maybe I’m wrong
maybe everything
was as it had to be
and a redo would
only lead to different
mistakes and pitfalls
and I’d end up in
the same place
wishing I could have
a chance to redo my life.

Bob Boyd

Given death separates all lovers
far as we know.
Maybe it was best our love
didn’t last
and spared us the agonies
of one of us dying on the other.

Bob Boyd

Where do we go when we are ashes
or buried in the ground?
Do we go to a shared space
or a collective of souls?
Do we go to a singular paradise
or a group heaven?
Or do we keep being reborn
until we become enlightened
and live in eternal bliss forever?
Perhaps, despite all the theories
and the speculations
when we die, our afterlife is
the ashes or the ground
and nothing more.

Bob Boyd

I was thinking today
about how I’ve been
living alone for years.

And how sometimes I
wish I had a woman
to live with and love.

But despite occasional
bouts of loneliness,
it’s so nice living alone.

Bob Boyd

Stopped watching TV years ago
overpriced and a lot I didn’t want.

Everything I watch is on the net now,
a universe of choices.

Can pick and choose entertainment and
information I prefer to watch.

Not paying for junk TV programs and
the infomercials I hated.

Was a relief to cut the cord and have
more choices for what I wanted to see.

One of the best decisions of my life
was leaving Cable TV.

Bob Boyd

I saw a sparrow hopping back and forth in the snow
in a bird feeder cam in Ohio.

I thought to myself, has this bird gone bonkers?
I’d never seen a sparrow hopping back and forth like that.

But as the sparrow kept hopping, I saw he had not gone bonkers;
he was digging a hole in the snow.

With his hopping back and forth, on the forward hop his
tiny toes dug into the snow.

On the backward hop, his toes, like tiny shovels, dug
the snow away.

The reason he was digging the hole was, like men drilling for oil,
he was digging for seeds under the snow.

Seeds that the other birds knocked off the bird feeder days ago
that were now buried in the freshly fallen snow.

After a three inch dig, he found the mother lode – plenty of seeds
he pecked at and ate.

Bob Boyd

You meet the woman you feel is
the love of your life.

The increasing days and nights
you spend with her

confirm what you felt on
that glorious day you met her.

But one day after you drop her off at her apartment,
she goes missing and foul play is suspected.

The police see you as a person of interest
as well as her ex-husband.

Both of you pass the polygraphs.
Both of you are cleared as suspects.

But the worst is when years later she is still missing,
and no one knows what happened to her,

and your heartaches never end.

Bob Boyd