Elderly and low income
They huddled under their blankets
In the freezing winter night
They couldn’t afford the high costs
of heating their small Apartment
Temperatures fell below zero
The blankets not enough to
Keep away the deadly cold
Hypothermia assailed them
In the morning they were dead
Bob Boyd
Elated in our youth
Every night a party
Always up for excitement
Seldom a care
Lived for the high times
And the bright lights
Of our exuberant happy days
Never saw the dark clouds
Or the thunder and lightning
Coming into our carefree lives
Until the nights of Kristallnacht
Shattered our happy days
And put out our lights
Bob Boyd
Is the afterlife compartmentalized?
Do we go to a place where people we knew and liked are?
Do others go to a place where people they knew and liked are?
Do we just reside in a place with people and angelic beings agreeable to us?
I can’t envision an afterlife where we would bump into disagreeable people or annoying strangers.
I can’t envision an afterlife where we would suffer divisive individuals or intolerable agitators.
But, let’s say if you led a wicked life and harmed many people,
Maybe you go to a place with the disagreeable, annoying, divisive, agitating people.
Maybe that would be your hell.
Bob Boyd
Like a princess in public
She fooled everyone
Like an evil witch in private
She fooled everyone
Until she got exposed
For who she really was
And she obliterated herself
From public view
Did a lot of self reflection
Got a lot of counseling
Eventually because
A bona fide princess
Publicly and privately
Bob Boyd
Many have seen him in near death experiences.
Many have felt his presence in prayers.
Some have been blessed with visions of him.
Some have had miraculous encounters with him
That irrevocably changed their lives forever.
Some have been healed of lifelong afflictions.
Some have been transformed from criminals to saints
Who dedicated their once self-destructive lives
To following him: Jesus The Christ, Light of the world.
Bob Boyd
My dog Bo has a sixth sense.
He sees what I cannot see
When he wags his tail
At something in the air
And acts as if petted.
I could only see what he saw
When I saw it clearly in a dream.
He saw my angelic, dead sister
Come down from the heavens,
A halo around her head,
To bless and protect both of us,
A guardian angel from above.
Bob Boyd
The birds no longer sing in the tree
Squirrels no longer frolic in it
Leaves have abandoned it
Nobody sits under it
Like an old person
It is withering and dying
Soon it will be dismembered
And carted away
Without any tears
Without a wake
A once beautiful tree
Bursting with life
Nevermore
Gone evermore
Bob Boyd
An old weather worn statue of the Virgin Mary
Stands in their backyard unattended,
Solitary with no saints there as friends,
I wonder if that statue is infused with Mary.
If so, is she sending prayers to heaven
For the good of them and the world?
Or is that statue of the Virgin Mary
Merely an old statue and nothing more.
Or is that life size replication of Mary
Like a backyard shrine fortifying their faith?
If so, I believe there’s some Godly good in that.
Bob Boyd
My girlfriend left
For another guy
My cat ran away
My dog died
My car broke down
I got laid off
From my job
Of twenty years
My doctor says
I’ve got cancer
And there is a
Monsoon outside
Bob Boyd
I’m leaving she said
I said okay
She said you’re not going to try to stop me
I said no you’re like a free agent
She said you’re not going to beg me to stay
I said I’m too proud to beg and too respectful
To try to talk you out of leaving
Baffled she decided to give us another chance
She decided to stay
Unbaffled I decided to leave
Bob Boyd
Kings and Queens
Princesses and Princes
Knights and Ladies
Kingdoms and Fiefdoms
Castles and Moats
O how I love Medieval History
Battles and Conquests
Bows drawn
Swords clanging
Knives stabbing
Lances piercing
Thousands slain
Massive carnage
Ungoverned bloodshed
O how I hate how bloody it was
Bob Boyd
She always used the expression smart as a whip
To describe people she deemed intelligent.
He hated that expression; it made no sense.
The only connection with smart to a whip
Was when your body smarted when it whipped you.
She never liked it when he said a person was cool
As if a temperature meant someone extra special.
They never told each other about those dislikes,
Their love more important than insignificant issues.
Bob Boyd
All she wanted was peace and harmony.
All he wanted was trouble and discord.
They tried to keep their relationship together
For three grating and insane years
Until they drove each other crazy,
Till their doctors prescribed them pills to
Medicate their minds and relationship ills.
Miraculously after that they lived happily ever after.
Bob Boyd
She liked watching the birds at her birdfeeder
Fluttering about the feeder seeking seeds
Until rogue squirrels scared the birds away
And ate all the birdseed and angered her.
Half crazy from the get go, she screamed
And charged the marauding squirrels,
Tripped and fell on her angry face.
The fall brought her to sane senses.
She bought a squirrel proof bird feeder.
And graciously fed the squirrels corn,
A satisfying compromise for each and all.
Bob Boyd
She said she knew me in a former life
Inwardly I scoffed at that
Another crazy
Why always me
I should have known
By the way she dressed
Like a neo hippie
Or a white witch
Though she was beautiful
I couldn’t do crazy
Did crazy too many times
Never worked out
I became crazy too
From the bizarre nonsense
And scatterbrained beliefs
But when she touched my hand
My mind reeled back to former lives
Like watching them in a movie
I saw she had been my wife
In the High Middle Ages, 1662
Bob Boyd
Rich or poor
Famous or unknown
In the end
Both go to the grave
Neither matter much
The world keeps spinning
Both keep dying
The sun keeps shining
Both fade away
It’s always the same
Like a cosmic game
If people reincarnate
Maybe the rich
Come back poor
And the poor
Come back rich
Bob Boyd
He sought God through prayer, song, and church.
He studied in a prestigious seminary all day long.
Eventually he became a pastor of a Baptist Church.
A Christian woman, she knew he was the man for her.
When he courted her, things were heavenly.
When he married her, things became like hell.
He controlled her every move, told her what to do.
Trapped and smothered under his despotic rule,
She had an affair with a less religious church member.
Left her preacher husband, married him.
Her new husband died under criminal circumstances,
A bullet to the head. And a preacher is praying
In church to Jesus for forgiveness for his heinous sin.
Bob Boyd
My dog named Bo is the greatest dog I’ve ever had.
He’s a big, shaggy mongrel, and sometimes I swear he has ESP.
When I introduced him to my hot, new girlfriend named Mona,
He barked and growled at her despite her attempts to appease him.
He wouldn’t even take some tempting dog treats she tried to give him.
I yelled at him to stop growling and barking at Mona,
But he wouldn’t listen, and I had to lock him in a room.
After that Mona said she was okay with Bo’s bad behavior
And graciously surprised me with a whip cream vanilla latte.
I took a sip of the delicious concoction that tasted heavenly
Until my vision became hazy. The room spun. And I passed out.
When I came to hours later, my watch, my wallet, my credit cards,
my laptop and all the money in my ATM …gone.
After I calmed down from the shock and the rage,
I let a barking Bo out of the room I had shut him away in.
He looked at me with unconditional love in his loving brown eyes,
His tail wagging. And he never said I told you so.
Bob Boyd
He hung out with drug users
The high was everything
Elevated ecstasies in pills
Eradications of misery
And depressing downers
When he told his
Drug user friends he
Had terminal cancer
They didn’t want to
Hear about his suffering
They didn’t want to
Know he was dying
They were too high
To care and didn’t want
His bad news to
Bring them down
Bob Boyd
She had a great life
Plenty of money
A debonair boyfriend
A dog she called Flossy
A BMW
A lifetime inheritance
She threw it all away
When she hired a hitman
To kill her ex-husband
Because of a custody battle
She was losing
The hitman ended the
Problem ex-husband
But he got caught
And ratted her out
For a lesser sentence
And the woman who
Had it all rots in prison
And her two kids lost
A mother and a father
Bob Boyd