Category: Poems

The aliens are in control the man in black said;
they can turn your nuclear weapons off at will
to show you you’re weak and ineffective
compared to their thousands and thousands
of years of advanced alien weapons technology.
They vanish in and out of dimensions and
can even take you with them if they wish.
All they want from you is a peaceful world
free from a devastating nuclear holocaust,
free from the killings of millions and millions.

Bob Boyd

At 26 she got diagnosed with
a terminal cancer.
She thought deadly diseases
only happened to other people
or people far older than her.
She bemoans that just when
her life was getting good
she was going to die.
She pines over the life
she will never have and
wonders why her –
why does she have to die
when others her age
still have a shot at life.
It seems so unfair to me.
It make me wonder
why life deals some people
a worse hand than others.

Bob Boyd

She said I should try to publish my poems.
I said I don’t give a damn.
But why, she asked.
I said because I don’t give a damn.
I’m so old it doesn’t matter to me.
Besides no matter how good your poems are
after thousands of years elapse all those
poems are forever forgotten.
And no matter how how good you think you are
as a poet, or as anything
you too are forever forgotten
just like everything else except the
inevitable death of everything.

Bob Boyd

The death of a child
The death of a spouse
A sudden blindness
The murder of a child
The murder of a spouse
A debilitating disease
A terminal cancer
An end of life coma
Your body paralyzed
The loss of your mind
from a dementia
Your country being nuked
Your country being ruined
The cost of a chocolate bar
quadrupling in price

Bob Boyd

He liked to watch girly porno films
in a booth in Boston’s Combat Zone.

He relished seeing the naked women
undressing and doing erotic things.

Couples doing erotic things
were an even better treat for him.

He liked to get drunk and
smoke Lucky Strike cigarettes

while see the sexual gyrations
of the many naked women.

His lusting voyeurism led to
his fiery demise one dark day

when he passed out drunk
with a cigarette in his hand.

And the booth he sat in
rapidly went up in flames

And his life ended watching porn
in the seedy Combat Zone.

Bob Boyd

He met a beautiful woman on a dating app,
the most beautiful woman he ever saw.

She looked as good in person as in her photo
when they met for a date.

He took her to one of the nicest restaurants in his city,
but she complained it wasn’t good enough.

She flirted with the waiter in front of him
and bad-mouthed the waiter when he didn’t reciprocate.

He said to her, “I can’t believe you’re acting like this.”
She said, “That’s the way I am.”

Then that most beautiful woman he ever saw
became one of the ugliest women in the world,

and his date turned into an abysmal nightmare
that he couldn’t wait to escape from.

And he never saw that most beautiful face again
that masked a repulsive person.

Bob Boyd

She saw the hot air balloons in the sky
and counted a baker’s dozen of them.
She counted in baker’s dozens
because she really was a baker
who baked breads and pastries
starting at 4 am every single day.

Between rolling dough and
stuffing breads and pastries,
she dreamed of marrying a
rich man and traveling to an
exotic country in an air balloon
and having an exciting life
like the lives people had in movies,
instead of baking breads and pastries
starting at 4 am every single day.

Bob Boyd

Maybe they’re trouble
an embarrassment
a disappointment
and maybe a disgrace
but you have to admit
they add some drama
to what may be some
necessary turmoil in
otherwise dull lives.

Bob Boyd

My clocks keep ticking
kind of like my beating heart.

Pity the clocks will most likely
outtick my aging heart.

Ironically or maybe not ironically
my clocks have more time
than me and my heart.

They probably could live
hundreds of years and
still be ticking.

While my heart if lucky or unlucky
might make it to ninety and nine
and never beat again in this
dead body, far less reliable than
an uncomplicated ticking clock.

Bob Boyd

Everything was wonderful
They were so much in love.

They planned their wedding
for two thousand and six.

On the day of the wedding
before the thrown confetti

and the ribbons tied to
the honeymoon car

the attendees and the bride
waited and waited

for the groom and his best men
to show

but the groom decided he liked
the company of the best man

more than the love of his future wife
while he and the best man got insensibly drunk

until the groom sobered up and
got to the church after the bride

had ended the relationship with
the unreliable groom

and eventually married
a more punctual man.

Bob Boyd

Geese are flying in V formations.
Wolves are running in packs.
Salmon are swimming upstream.
Pigeons are flying in flocks.
Some animals, some fish, some birds
break the mode and travel alone.
It fascinates me that nature or whatever
creates some species this way,
in groups or alone.

Bob Boyd

he was a goodhearted ordinary joe
he worked the 8 to 5 for twenty years
paid his taxes, followed the laws
served in the military as a marine
married a good and decent woman
attended a Baptist church on Sundays
tried to do everything right like a good citizen
until a dangerous pedophile molested
and killed his seven-year-old son
and his rage made him maniac crazy
he executed the pedophile
by torturing and burning him to death

he got sentenced to a long prison term
and became like a caged wild animal
killed an inmate who tried to make him his bitch
got more time tacked on his prison sentence
escaped in 1976 and has never been found

bob boyd

aging keeps trying to take him down
almost like the death of a thousand cuts
different maladies keep accosting him
his ticker works less and less efficiently
his sleep is increasingly disturbed
the quality of his life is diminishing
he cannot walk without a walker
his mind is becoming more fuzzy
his voice is becoming weaker
he fears a nursing home is his future
he knows he can’t be institutionalized
he’d rather die than end like that
he prays for death to rescue him

bob boyd

the day began with the sun beaming
the birds singing cheerfully
the bees buzzing happily
everything was optimistic
life seemed fairy tale wonderful
as if life were a happy ending evermore
in the sprawling lawn-trimmed suburbs
of the party town metropolis

but beneath the superficial
beneath the sunny day
beneath the fun and serenity
in the seeming shangri la
homicides were happening
drug addicts were dying
women were being raped
business were being robbed
fights were breaking out in bars

the bright happiness of that day
was a day of horror for some
chaos for others
and a day of misery
for more than a few

bob boyd

I was the last unmarried daughter
my two sisters had been married for years
I was 38 and my family kept asking why
I hadn’t married.

I had no good excuses. it seemed men
were just not interested in me. but the
pressure to marry became so worrying for me
that I married in a hurry to the first men ever
who took an interest in me.

the marriage was too rushed. my husband
didn’t respect me. I was chattel to him and
after about three months, he stopped loving me.

he began cheating on me and I put up with it
because I didn’t think I’d ever have any other
suitors who would want to marry me.

I wasn’t good looking. fate had been unkind to me.
eventually my husband was shot by one of his girlfriend’s
husbands and that was a blessing to me.

I was happier alone and without him, and at least I
had gotten married like my sisters and my family
got out of my hair.

now I’m a respectable widow. I dress in black and
go to Mass everyday. and I’m happier with this holy life
than I ever had been when I was married.

bob boyd