Bob Boyd's Free Verse Poems

Her husband thought she went shopping too much.
He didn’t realize to her it was like shopping therapy.
It filled some emptiness within, made her feel better.
And they had more than enough money to afford it.
And many in her position, women and men
Would be the same, like Christmas every day.

Some would say she is too materialistic
In her constant need to buy more stuff.
But she’s harming no one in her shopping sprees,
And as long as she isn’t breaking the bank,
And it makes her feel better, why not?
Were I her and money wasn’t a problem
I’d probably be doing the same.

I’d probably start with a giant aquarium
And homing pigeons galore flying in circles
Above a castle in the country, maybe with a moat.
And probably a hot trophy wife for appearances,
Who otherwise wouldn’t be with old, wizened me,
Too old and and not monied enough to afford her.

And some high dollar, coiffured, pedigree dogs,
Maybe a $10,000 pampered, pedigree cat.
Oh yeah, a personal chef and barber too,
But wait! Already I’m breaking the bank,
And this poem is not supposed to be about me.

Bob Boyd

Seems every week something else gives you cancer
Seems this wretched disease keeps gaining ground
It’s like a never ending plague that keeps spreading
That kills over 600,000 people in the USA yearly
Tragically it’s even killing more young people now
And God Almighty why are some babies born with it
You’d think by now there’d be a cure for cancer
A pill or an injection or a procedure that could end it
At least progress is being made in the fight against it
Cancers that used to kill are now sent into remission
Still every week it seems something new causes it
And the grim reaper never had a better friend

Bob Boyd

Tired of women,
He became a monk
But he fought every
Day between prayers
His need for a woman
In his lonely life
He thought he could
Defeat what he was
Hardwired for
Despite his determined
Intentions in the end
He met a nun and
Both hardwired they
Renounced their holy vows
And took marriage ones

Bob Boyd

Full moons had a strange
lunar effect on him.
He wasn’t a werewolf.
He didn’t go bat crap crazy.
He didn’t go temporarily insane,
Or maybe he did a little.
When the moon was full he
claimed to have lived on it
In a long ago former life.
He said the moon had been
Populated millions of years
Ago by inhabitants like him.
He did look a little weird;
So it almost seemed true.
And during those full moons.
He would talk In a strange
language intermittently
Unlike any language on
earth which made you wonder.

Bob Boyd

Sexually abused as a child by monks
when he was a little child monk.
Said a Buddhist tried to kill him.
Described other Buddhism problems,
sounded like a forlorn Buddhist being.
Opened my eyes to the truthful fact
that Buddhism isn’t the exception
to child abuse and the imperfections
of all the sects, cults and religions.
This goes beyond the precepts
and the imperfections of them all.
We have to be our own spiritual
leaders and not be controlled by
all the rules or dismayed by
the corruption and bad leaders.

Bob Boyd

She loved to play the victim
When she screwed you over
She couldn’t take responsibility
For her repeated wrongdoings
Perhaps she couldn’t face
How messed up she was
And all the people who hated
Her because of her hateful ways
She’ll probably go to the grave
Thinking she was always right
Maybe when she dies and
Has the Life Review, she’ll wake
Up and see how she really was
Where she’ll go from there
Is anybody’s guess

Bob Boyd

“The Being of Light presents the dying with a panoramic review of everything they have ever done. That is, they relive every act they have ever done to other people and come away feeling that love is the most important thing in life.” (Dr. Raymond Moody)

Rasbora fish swimming joyfully
In my ten gallon aquarium,
Eighteen in a school of them.
I’d like to know if any thoughts
Come into their little heads,
Aside from mating and eating
And where they go when dead.
I’d hate to think they just die,
And that is the end of them,
As if they were unworthy of
Some kind of rasbora heaven.
Maybe the Hindus have it right
They reincarnate higher,
Maybe into a dog or a cat.
But rather than having to go
Through many incarnations
Some with joy some with strife
Repeatedly facing uncertainties
Maybe horrors and miseries
I’d rather they stayed as rasboras
And went to a rasbora heaven.

Bob Boyd

Claimed to be Christ come again
Built a flourishing cult worldwide
Alleged to have many powers
All his disciples fawned over him
He turned out to be a monster
Talked his disciples into infamy
killed people on Japan subways
Murdered them with sarin gas

Bob Boyd

Hells bells! Even chocolate can give you cancer now!
Does that dastardly cancer have to ruin everything?
I could accept cancer in fruits, vegetables, and red meat.
I could accept cancer in the environment and in plastics.
But chocolate? That’s the hill I’m willing to die of cancer on.

Bob Boyd

The ant scout found the food source
In an old lady’s old-fashioned kitchen,
Some chocolate syrup the old lady spilled
Behind the plastic kitchen trash container.
Excited, the scout left the trail of pheromones
For legions of worker ants to follow
Back to the syrup and was hailed a hero.

Worker ants marshaled their legions in formation
And marched into the old lady’s house,
Salivating at the thought of consuming the syrup.
But the old lady spied the advance columns
And sprayed all the advancing ants to death.
The scout got blamed for the botched mission
And summarily got kicked out of the colony.

In a last chance attempt to regain some glory,
He vowed to get even with the dowdy old lady.
He snuck in her house while she was sleeping
Crawled up her leg and planned to bite her butt
Foolishly believing like a bull elephant shot to death
He could end her large, old life with that single bite.

But he was intercepted by the startled old lady,
Who caught him between her wrinkled fingers
And foiled his misguided, quixotic attempt with
A death squeeze by those trusty old fingers.

Bob Boyd

She often wondered why she couldn’t have been born
Like her neighbor Jenny Lee who had everything,
Beautiful looks, a perfect body and oozing with charm,
Big boned, unattractive, and not acceptable to the in crowd,
She knew she was a better person than Jenny Lee,
But in the world she was born into that didn’t matter
If you didn’t have the superficial look and the right body.
Nobody asked her to dance at high school dances;
She was just another wallflower and she cried about that.
As she matured, she got over her envy and made do
With what nature had given her, and accepted her lot.
She also saw that with advantages come disadvantages,
And she made the best of her life and found happiness.

Bob Boyd

He never understood fans and followers;
Why they felt the need to follow others?
Why the need to fawn over others?
Did they not have enough self-value
To follow themselves and not risk
Being like numberless people,
Merely one of a herd of humans,
Mindlessly less by the need to follow,
Seemingly themselves not enough,
To be their own fans and follow no one?

Bob Boyd

Listened to the old song Luckenbach, Texas
Really resonated with it for the first time.
The things I see in the world today
Make me want to live in a Luckenbach, Texas,
Far away from all the unending nonsense
That I’m bombarded with everyday in the news,
A crazy world going crazier, spinning out of orbit.
Some say Jesus is coming back to fix this mess.

Damn straight super wish he would tout sweet.
But I don’t know if even a Godly intervention
Would fix this hellish, scorched-hot mess.
Some say we’re on the verge of WWIII.
Macht Nichts to me, bring it on.
At least I’d be nuked out of this
Haywired, lopsided screwed up world
But I’d rather go to a Luckenbach, Texas.

Bob Boyd

He said he was having a nervous breakdown.
He needed to get to the emergency room
To be sedated before it became full blown.
I was warned he was a lunatic,
But I had to help him just the same.
On the fast drive to the hospital,
He hopped out of my car at a red light.

I pulled my car over to try to find him
And get him back into my car.
Saw him in a park howling
And hopping up and down.
Ran after him full speed,
But he was faster than me,
And he lost me in a nearby forest.
Nobody ever saw him after that.

Reported him missing to the police,
But twenty long years later
After many searches,
Some with search dogs
And legions of volunteers,
They still haven’t found him.
And I often wonder how a lunatic
Can disappear so completely
And where he could have gone.

Bob Boyd