Bob Boyd's Free Verse Poems

I’m a celebrity
More important than you
I know better than you
What’s best for you
Because I think
I’m better than
Peon you and
Have the right
To lecture you
About things
I know little
or nothing about

Bob Boyd

He pined for fame all his life
He wanted it more than a wife
He began acting in grade school
Starred in high school plays
Voted best likely to succeed
In his high school yearbook
Took acting class after that
Got his first break a year later
A bit part in an action movie
Got recognized for his role
Began getting bigger roles
Eventually became a star
And won an award
All uphill from there
Fame achieved
A high for a while until
His stardom began to dim
And the fame became empty
And he got depressed and
Bored and drank too much
And started hating his life
Until he found a good wife

Bob Boyd

No matter how important you are
Or how important you think you are
Just like me and everyone else
You will be brought down
You will be extinguished
And in time
You will be forgotten
With more time
You will fade into insignificance
Just like me and everyone else

Bob Boyd

I was making it before the Great Depression hit,
Living the American Dream, buying stocks.
Then I lost everything and felt so disgraced
When like everyone else I stood in line
For bread and soup
And nearly starved to death.
When like everyone else I lived in a shanty
In Hooverville and nearly froze to death.
When like everyone else I couldn’t find a job
And got so damn depressed
That one day I just couldn’t go on,
Living in rags like a goddamn bum,
Unable to support myself,
Unable to afford a decent meal.
I gave up on living my lousy life
And shot myself to death.

Bob Boyd

Hateful people have no shame
They lie about people
Anything to defame
They gin up their rhetoric
To try to take a person down
They have no concerns
About their verbal venom
In their evil hearts they pine
For that person’s decline
For that person’s death

Bob Boyd

Recently Trump almost gets shot to death by an assassin
After which MSNBC says he should tone down the rhetoric
After years of demonizing him, some calling him Hitler
And claiming he would shut down democracy if elected
Unwittingly exposing their victim blaming and hypocrisy

Bob Boyd

Daughter of Satan, Saint of Christ,
One day like a demon, next day like a saint.
One day sweeter than any other woman.
Next day meaner than all of them.
A crazed woman of conflicting contrasts
When she intentionally went off her meds.

Bob Boyd

Timeless Eternity

The days, months and years kept racing by
Faster and faster and faster, no let up.
Sixty one year seventy the next, it seemed.
More and more people dying in that rapidity.
More and more friends falling away in the rush.
Time in an advancing full throttle mode
Sped him to his death bed at a age eighty five
When he died he saw that time finally stopped
In the timeless eternity of his afterlife.

Bob Boyd

They knew it was the real thing,
That summer’s night they met.
They had a wonderful romance,
Got married in a Baptist church.
Had a glorious honeymoon,
Sailed the sea on a cruise ship.
Spent five years together
Until all the glitter wore off.
Got bored with each other –
Began to hate each other –
And got divorced.
Why does love often
Have to be like that?

Bob Boyd

The House of the Rising Sun was blaring out of radios
The night I got out of my mind drunk at the beach
And dove into dangerous shark interested waters.
My beer muscles maxed up more than my sense.
And I felt invincible, even to man eating sharks.
A killer shark almost got me, suffered a single bite,
Before a friend pulled me out of danger and I got away.
But my friend lost his life to that blood-crazed shark
Because of drunk and stupid me on that deadly night.
Now I go to the ocean where my friend lost his life.
I say a thousand I’m sorrys to him in the depths.
I wipe hundreds of tears from my reddened eyes,
But I can’t wipe away the if onlys and the endless guilt.

Bob Boyd

He digs ditches for the Harbrow Construction Company.
In a union he makes a decent wage, is content with his life.
His wife cleans rooms at a local Hilton Hotel, is content too,
A regular couple, simple living, free of rich peoples’ excesses.
They don’t care about the trimmings of the wealthier life,
Fancy cars, yachts, mansion-like homes, country clubs and such.
They have each other, and their love is more than enough.

Bob Boyd

She looked so beautiful and nice in the movies and on TV.
He thought she was as close to angelic as anyone could be.
He watched all her movies. Read all the news about her.
He even had a few dreams about being with her.
On May 16th, 2022, a day he’ll never forget,
He saw her coming out of a ritzy restaurant in New York City
Looking more beautiful and more glamorous in person.
Breathlessly, he ran over to her and asked for her autograph.
Drunk and irritated, she dismissed him with a “Fuck off!”
Thereafter he called that day the day of his reality check.

Bob Boyd

We used to have hippies everywhere
And psychedelic music playing everywhere.
Then Jimi Hendricks died as if a
Precursor to the end of hippiedom
And all the psychedelic music,
And all the well intentioned love,
And all the well intentioned peace.
How I miss the hell out of those times.
How I miss the hell out of those days
When I see what we are left with now,
When I see far less peace and love,
And fewer free spirits than back then,
And more division and chaos,
In the wreckage of our declining country.
And ain’t nobody wearing flowers in their hair.

Bob Boyd

Excommunicated from the Catholic Church,
Couldn’t deal with the rules and the dogma.
Kicked out of a public high school,
Couldn’t deal with the rules and the boredom.
Thrown out of the US Army,
Couldn’t deal with the rules and regulations.
He was one hell of a rebel.
Became a rock star in 1966.
Made great music, hits all over the world,
Paid millions and millions of dollars.
Donated much of it to childrens’ charities.
Gave the finger to the Catholic Church,
The public high school, and the US Army.

Bob Boyd