Category: Poems

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

He took a job working as a lookout sitting in a firetower
In a remote location in the wilds of Montana.
He felt he needed some isolation for self reflection
And to mend a broken heart he got from an ex wife.
At first the scenery was breathtaking. He felt renewed.
But as the days and nights wore on, the newness got old
And the lack of social contact began making him unsettled.
By day sixty, he felt like he was starting to go insane.
On day seventy, he climbed down from the tower,
Wide-eyed and crazy, and ran into the depths of the forest,
And mysteriously vanished somewhere within it.
Search parties, rescue dogs and trackers combed the wilds
But only found his discarded shoes and clothes.
To this day, twenty years later, he is still missing
And no one knows what happened to him.

Bob Boyd

He knew Cassandra for seven days
Met her in the sixties heydays
Their love was immediate and true
He knew he’d met his soulmate
They spent seven glorious days together,
Had fallen totally in love,
Every day a heavenly day.
Until they took LSD and she went loopy,
Started screaming and acting crazy
And was rushed to a hospital’s psych ward.
He never saw her after that.
Her family shipped her off somewhere
And hid the location from him.
Now all he has are memories of those
Seven glorious days of his greatest love.
And every day and every night
He keeps believing someday
She’ll come back to him.

Bob Boyd

The Angel in My Dreams

I saw her shopping at CVS in the cosmetics aisle
She stood out. Impossible not to notice her.
And she looked familiar to me,
Blonde hair, radiant blue eyes and mysterious.
I saw her at Harris Teeter buying a few groceries.
Then I saw her at Starbucks ordering a latte
All on the same day.
She turned and looked at me unsurprised
And said:
“Are you following me?”
I said, “No.”
She said, “I’m following you, Bob.”
I was stunned she knew my name.
“How do you know me?” I asked.
“Think about it,” she said. “The angel in your dreams.”
My mind stopped. My body went limp. I tranced out. I couldn’t speak
She smiled, said she’d see me in my dreams, and exited the store
Before I was able to come out of the trance to talk to her.
And though I keep seeing her in dreams,
She has never manifested in the material world again.

Bob Boyd

He knew he was getting older than he thought
When he saw he had wrinkles on his arms
And his biceps and sagging triceps withering away .
What the hell he muttered to himself
I’m turning into a wizened, wrinkled old corpse
Like an archaeologist dug up from some tomb.
Do I even still have a semblance of a pulse?
Is my ticker still ticking? Am I drawing a breath?
All systems are still go but for how long?
After he realized he still had a little life in him
He wondered if he could get a movie part as
A walking dead since he was almost the real deal
Or maybe a part as an extra playing a stiff in a mortuary
After he adjusted to his life wrinkling and waning away,
He said screw it, got soused, and went tipsily on his way.

Bob Boyd

Met her on a Sunday
Said she loved me
First sight love
Mine forever
Leave me never
Monday she
Was gone.

Bob Boyd

He wrote the most beautiful poetry,
But he murdered two innocent people.
Hard to understand those two sides of him,
One side that understandably negated his poetic skills,
Skills that mean nothing to the families of
Those two innocent men he killed.
One a young sales guy in a store he robbed. The other a prison guard.

Nor were all the years he spent in prison enough
To atone for those lives he took away from those bereaved families
Now that he’s dead and writes poetry no more
Two families are relieved a murderer is also no more.

Bob Boyd

He crossed swords with the best
Jousted with the crown’s finest
Engaged in many battles
And in foreign campaigns
Won many tournaments
Wooed many damsels
In a former Medieval life
In his wishful imagination

But in right now reality
He’s in the battlefield
Of his bedroom dueling
With kamikazi buzzing flies
And suicidal sniper gnats
Vanquishing them all
With deadly combat skills
Like the mighty knight
The great Sir Lancelot

Bob Boyd

A devilish devious bloke
A crafty lying turncoat
A practicing black arts witch
Turned on his kin and kind
To hunt witches for money
During the burning times
Fooled the God-fearing people
Sent many innocent women
To the flames of the scaffold
Rewarded in gold coin for
His deceit and infamy
A hero among the faithful
Until he was exposed and
Got snuffed out on the stake

Bob Boyd

Went into the hospital for minor surgery
Came out missing arms and legs
A careless mistake
A life butchered
A hardened ride
Through this uncertain life
The draw’s bad luck
A sufferer’s travail
Till his or her dying day

Bob Boyd

During witch hunts in England
Witches got a break.
They weren’t burnt at the stake,
Hanged insead. Some break.
Firewood was too expensive
Ropes cost less.
The outcome the same
Whether rope or flame
Dastardly how innocent women
Persecuted and put to death.

Bob Boyd

I didn’t want Sandra to hike alone
up Damnation Peak.

Just the name Damnation Peak
worried me.

But Sandra was stubborn and
I was in a wheelchair

So I couldn’t go with her to
protect her if needed.

I had an awful feeling she
would die on that peak.

I warned her and warned her,
but she didn’t listen.

Sandra was stubborn and
I was in a wheelchair.

In the middle of winter Sandra
decided to scale that peak.

I worried a snow storm could trap
and kill her on that peak.

Sandra went to Damnation peak
anyway, deaf to my pleadings.

Halfway up Damnation peak
an avalanche roared

and that was the last sound Sandra heard
before that avalanche claimed her life.

I didn’t take the news of Sandra’s death well.
I went crazy for a while.

Between wailing and trying to talk to dead Sandra,
I kept cursing and cursing Damnation Peak.

As I’m cursing it now.

Bob Boyd