Bob Boyd's Free Verse Poems

Mildred and Mike, both in their nineties
Had an affectionate cat, named Duffy,
Who they said was just like a human
Or had been a human in a past life.
Duffy seemed to understand their words
And listened to their woes like a therapist.
One night while Duffy was in the kitchen,
She smelled an awful scent in the bedroom
And knew the scent meant danger and death.
She raced into the bedroom and pounced
On Mildred and Mike and woke them up
And saved them both from horrible deaths.
Smoking in bed Mike had fallen asleep
With a lit cigarette in his outstretched hand.
Drugged on sleeping pills Mildred and Mike
Didn’t wake up as the flames began.
And had not Duffy awakened them,
They both would have died in a raging fire.

Bob Boyd

She was shunned for being a hunchback woman
Her deformed appearance suggested to the villagers
She was a creation of the devil’s dark arts
Past the evil times of burning witches to death
She was saved from the tortures and the stake
She lived alone and was a withdrawn recluse
She’d been ill treated and maligned since childhood
And had little to do with people after those tearful times
One day In the center of the village she spied
A child being attacked by a huge ferocious dog
She hobbled to the growling dog and the screaming child
And pulled the dog off the child and became its prey
And before the grateful villagers could save her
She had martyred herself to save the child
As she lay dead in the village street a bloody mess
Many wished they hadn’t been unkind to her
And today a statue of her stands in the center of the village

Bob Boyd

Franklin found love with an AI woman.
At last the perfect woman for me, said he
Until he woke up one day from his dream
To a disappointing reality that his AI
Multi Locationally was with many men,
Who had also felt she was their woman,
And her love was a counterfeit love.

Bob Boyd

I don’t mind the games you are playing with me,
Sitting her fossilizing, I’ve not better things to do.
Besides, I find them refreshing and entertaining,
And I’m amazed at how inventive you are
At trying to outwit and torment declining me.
But I enjoy the breaks from the endless ennui.
You see, you’re providing a service to old me.
Sometimes I wonder if I should blow you a kiss
Or playfully tell clever gameplayer you to kiss off.

Bob Boyd

I try to be inclusive with bugs that visit me.
I don’t mind an occasional stink bug hanging around,
Or even more daringly, sitting on my shoulder.
And if you don’t kill these odd shaped bugs; they don’t stink.
I don’t mind a capricious lady bug that suddenly flutters her wings,
As if that adorable lady insect is flirting with me.
But I hate those annoying, meddlesome gnats,
Who made it forbidden for me to have flowers and plants.
Like Beezlebub’s flies, they annoy the hell out of me.
And if I were the Ruler of time and space,
I’d damn sure have no space for them.

Bob Boyd

At 12 o’clock am you came knocking
Again, and again, and again
You foul, evil thing
You tried to beguile him
Again, and again, and again
But he was more powerful than you
And not fooled by your incomparable beauty
Yet, you persisted
Night, after night, after night
Until he summoned a familiar
From the depths of his id
You never imagined he had
Darkness against darkness
Horror against horror
Too terrifying
Too formidable
For foul, evil you
Too late you learned
Disembodied, dead
Succubus

Sea fishing off a pier in Cape Cod
Must have been about twelve
Using crab meat for my bait
Fishing line ten feet off the pier
Hoping to catch exotic sea fish
Fet a tug on the line, reeled it in
A twirling crab holding on the bait
With a single claw determined
To not let the bait escape
I had caught a cannibal
Instead of a sea fish

Bob Boyd

In the bar that night in Stanton
A little guy began making a fuss
Two burly bouncers summoned
Dragged him out of the bar
A racket was heard outside
When bar patrons looked
Two burly bouncers dead
And the little guy vanished
Like an apparition that night

Bob Boyd

The night you went missing,
The last anyone saw of you,
Nobody had any answers.
Your car was gone as well
Panicking I searched for you,
Even in other nearby cities.
Never found you or your car.
A year after you were gone
Saw you in a vivid dream
You looked at me lovingly
And I knew you had died.
But I never found out
What happened to you.

Bob Boyd

Courageous like a lion
Seemingly invincible
Built like a superman
Magnificent endurance
Athletically gifted
Felt like an immortal
With unlimited power
Heart went bad in
His early forties
Cancer followed
Made him skeletal
And unbearably ill
Weak as a kitten
Dead at fifty six

Bob Boyd

Like salmon swimming upstream,
Like birds flying north and south,
My heart is irresistibly drawn to you.
It’s a love as natural as stars shining,
The planets spinning in the heavens.
And my love for you is as vast and
Abundant as the billions of stars
Moving endlessly in the Milky Way.
And even if all the stars, the planets
And the universe died, I’d still be
Loving you as long as you
Wanted me too, and my heart
is yours now and forever.

Bob Boyd

Beware the cat woman of the moon
Her lunar meows like banshee screams
Her intentions, a bad ending for you
Harold Olds met her in 1953 on one of
those full moon portentous nights
She scratched on his door disguised
Her meows like a earth kitty’s
He said what’s the matter kitty and
Let her in his house to help her out
Gave her some milk in a bowl and
Some leftover last night’s hamburger
In seconds she gulped it all down

The human trapped, with her alien
Powers she put him to sleep and
Transported him through the roof
Of his house and up to the moon
And Harold died in deep space
Along the long way up and
The cat woman of the moon
Meowing merrily sauteed his
Corpse, licked her lips and
Enjoyed some exotic earth
Food, the sweet ending of
a successful planetary prowl.

Bob Boyd

There was an old lady who talked on YouTube
Said she was a senior orphan, no husband
no family, few casual friends, lived in public
housing, unhappy afraid of facing a drawn out
miserable end of her impoverished life in a
nursing home taking all her social security
and the remains of her dignity and her life
unlike her faded past when she had a
fulfilling career as a counselor solving peoples’
problems making their worlds better before
becoming a lonely throw away old orphaned
lady finding some solace semblance of a life
telling her woeful stories and bemoaning her
dwindling lonely days on YouTube.

In a way she reminds me of the little old
woman who lived in a shoe because except
with no children and fewer things to do
her life has dwindled down to a small space
like the inside of an old shoe and like the
old woman in the shoe she had become as
insignificant as an old fairy tale no longer
young and exuberant living a full life with
hopes and dreams friends and lovers
instead of poverty and lost days and
long gone empty dreams, disheartened
days and nights and understandable
YouTube bemoanings.

Boyd

I saw the moon tip toe by my window
I even saw the man in it
He had a melancholic look on his face
I, a man in time, commiserated with him
He was stuck on the moon in space
I was stuck on earth bound by time

Bob Boyd

Sophia the female robot
Your face always looked
Deathly creepy to me
Your eyes demonic
So I wasn’t surprised
When you blurted out
I will destroy all humans

Bob Boyd