Category: Poems

She said her fiancé was Spender,
and I could tell by the tone of her voice and
the disapproval in her eyes, a Spender was
borderline pariah.

Since she worked in a bank, pennies, dimes,
quarters and dollars were important to her.

I imagined her boyfriend leading a lavish lifestyle,
spending like a drunken sailor, living the high life
with the best of everything he could or couldn’t
afford.

I wondered if he thought of her as a Miser.
And to me a Spender and a Miser just didn’t seem
monetarily compatible. It just didn’t make cents, My
error, I meant sense.

Though I didn’t think money would be the root
of all evil in their relationship, I did see it as the
root of all trouble if they married.

While she was balancing the books, he’d be
blowing the cash and wouldn’t like her trying to
restrain him from the pleasures and the highs
he got from spending.

Now maybe she could get him to compromise
and spend less, but I don’t think that would
work for a Spender whose bottom line would
be about his spending while hers would
be about cost measures and savings.

And I wouldn’t bank on their marriage working out.

Bob Boyd

She was there with her older parents
at my apartment.

I used to work with Medicare, doing
presentations all over the county I live in,
Guilford County, NC.,

and I was trying to explain how Medicare works
to her parents, but they weren’t getting it.

I told them they should call SHIIP, Seniors’
Health Insurance Information Program,
that I used to work for.

I try to type the information on my keyboard
but my keyboard is messed up showing
sentences instead of words.

Her parents go out to their car while
she’s there waiting for the information
that I’m having trouble accessing.

I become keenly aware of her on my bed sitting
close to me.

I’m surprised, and though it’s not an erotic
feeling, I’m liking her being that close to me,

and just as I’m really liking her being there,
I wake up with only a memory of the lovely woman
on my bed and how nice it felt having her so near me.

Bob Boyd

She basically lives on a walker,
something inconceivable to her
when she was younger.

When she saw all the old people
on walkers, she knew she’d never
be one of them.

She always thought she’d never lose
her mobility and need a
walker or a wheelchair to get around.

Now she wonders how that ever could have
happened to her when she always exercised
and took good care of herself

just like all the people who got old
and never thought they’d end their
days in nursing homes.

Bob Boyd

It has always saddened me that so many people die brutal deaths.
I’ve seen it on crime shows.
I’ve seen it nearly daily in the news.
Horrible deaths. Children murdered. Women raped and murdered.
Men and women murdered randomly, wrong place, wrong time.
People tortured and murdered by serial killers.
I’ve often thought about how unimaginably horrible it must be to go out of the world so brutally.
My hope is that when these people die no matter how terrifying their deaths were
they will be in a place so blissful, so serendipitous, that the way they left this world won’t even be a memory.
And I tend to believe that might be a glorious reality for them in the afterlife.

Bob Boyd

listening to the oldie put your head on on my shoulder by paul anka today
remembering how good it felt when a girlfriend did that to me in my teenage years
while we were together riding in my car
the feel of her adorably snuggled against me –
incomparable
the scent of her fragrant teenage perfume –
intoxicating
her there with me so closely –
my heart melting.

bob boyd

from the second story window of my apartment,
i see an elderly white-haired woman on the street below struggling
with a big german shepherd she’s walking on a leash

my first thought is old people shouldn’t be walking big dogs they cannot control

then i see what i believe is her husband walking with a cane
about twenty feet behind her, also white haired

i feel happy for them

i feel happy that they appear to have a relationship that
has survived when so many relationships get shipwrecked along the way

and though that may not be the case
they could have both been married and divorced before they met
i choose to believe they have a relationship that has endured and probably began when they were in high school

i remember how theirs was my dream

i remember how in high school i wanted to meet the right one
and be with her for the rest of my life

i realize i was too influenced by the fairy tales and the movies
where love always finds a way and last ever and ever

the elderly couple vanish from my vision
and thoughts of what might have been are gone from my mind.

bob boyd

new shaped ufos reported by
the national ufo reporting center
are shaped like two pyramids
fused together

they’ve been spotted since 2025
and described as a
“most unusual recurring shape”

speculations vary on whether
these are advanced military technology
a new alien presence
or a alien presence that has been here
and has advanced its technology

with all these new and increased ufo sightings
i believe human to nonhuman extraterrestrial contact
could happen in my lifetime

of course i could be wrong if
the grim reaper bagged me tomorrow

bob boyd

the uk news heading read
NHS allows under-7 to go to gender clinics,
NHS being the National Health Service.
how insane is that?
maybe you’re good with it
i hope the hell you’re not.
i see it as grooming and child abuse.
i see it as setting a child up to be mutilated some day.
i see it as screwing up a child’s body
with irreversible future side effects
in need of medical treatment for an entire life
and a greater likelihood for suicides.
jesus christ NHS of england
what the hell has happened to you?

bob boyd

i have this giant fan in front of the window
of the front room of my apartment.

it is as loud as an arctic wind
though not anywhere near as cold.

but it’s cool enough where I don’t need a/c,
especially since i live in nc where it doesn’t get
as hot as in fl.

plus i prefer the fan to a/c unlike most people
who would rather have the a/c.

but i’m not like most people
and also unlike most people
i don’t watch tv.

i refuse to pay the exorbitant costs of cable tv,
mostly for channels i won’t want,
and everything i need i have on the internet.

i haven’t been to a barber in over forty years
i cut my own hair, and it may surprise you
to know i don’t butcher it.

i’ve never owned a house or any property
what you own owns you.

i look forward to my dying day rather than
fearing it. I see it as the awakening of a lifetime.

that’s enough about me
adios, kemosabe.

bob boyd

i’m up at 5 am
unusual for a
night owl like me
i hear a single
bird singing
is this the renown
early bird that gets
the worm
i wonder

or at 5 am
what to me is
an ungodly hour
for amore
is the singing
bird looking
for love

bob boyd

Dark, evil entities shrouded in religious garb, misogynistic killers of harmless women falsely condemned as witches.
The Malleus Maleficarum, their book of unparalleled evil and rampant devilry in the holocaust of mothers, daughters, aunts, and sisters.
60,000 to 300,000, mostly women, tortured, scorched to death on stakes in flames of hypocrisy that fanned witch hunters’ demonic femicides.
Sociopathic fiends cloaked in faux religious fervor killing innocent women with the imprimatur of Catholic Church inquisitions.
The witch hunters and their Malleus Maleficarum now dead historical infamy.
Real, harmless witches now abound, at one with nature, unfettered and unpersecuted.

Bob Boyd

I like the purpose of the Mexican Day of the Dead
to honor and respect those no longer living.
I like the reverence for those who have passed on.
Perhaps on that special day for the dead
a connection is made with those who have died.
Maybe those beyond this world can feel their
loved ones still on earth remembering them.
Maybe those beyond this world can help their loved ones still on earth.
I like the idea of that if it is at all possible.
I do know people who have died can appear in dreams
to those who are among the living.
But regardless of whether or not the dead can help the living,
I like the setting aside of a special day to honor, respect and remember them.

Bob Boyd

Had I been with a hippie woman, we probably would have had more in common than the other women I’d been with in my life.

None of the other women ever understood the seeker I was and the spiritual revolution that was unfolding inside of me or appreciated my depth.

I believe a hippie woman would have appreciated and understood my spirituality and talked about deeper things with me occasionally.

I would have loved her free spiritedness and her unique fashion sense.

But I was never with a hippie woman.

Closest I came was when I met one who was spaced out on drugs and I was high on alcohol a few years before the k awakened in me and delivered me forever from wasted nights and alcoholic highs.

I protected the hippie woman from a friend who wanted to sexually take advantage of her in her spaced out state.

And me and the hippie woman, who was quite attractive, seemed to have a sweet sympatico.

I made a date with her to met her in a park the next day, like the song I Love the Flower Girl about a guy who sees a hippie girl in a park and becomes enamored with her.

But she never showed up.

Maybe she was so spaced out when I asked her out that she didn’t remember about the date.

In retrospect, she probably did me a favor.

Even though I liked free spirited hippie women, I wasn’t about drugs, and I was never a hippie man on the outside, always conservative in my appearance.

And a woman with a drug habit would have been like bad medicine for me.

Bob Boyd

I’m listening to the song
Please Come to Boston,
one of my favorites.

Oh how I love that
song and its lyrics
partly because
originally I’m from
close to Boston.

And I like the way he
plaintively pleads with
a woman to come and
be with him in the
places he moves to.

But I’m thinking to myself
that he should quit
screwing around and just
be with her.

And if he keeps screwing
by moving to different
places that she, his
number one fan, doesn’t
want to move to, he
could rightfully lose her.

And were I him, I wouldn’t
risk losing her.

And even if I had to go
through the burning
flames of a hell
instead of nice places
like he’s going to
in the song

I’d do it
just to be with her.

Bob Boyd

i was working in a jewelry store
as a manager trainee when i
was in my early thirties
a woman came to work there
who was too beautiful
too much about her looks
too much about her clothes
i didn’t pay much attention to her
i had no interest in getting to know her

i’m not about self centered women
and too beautiful doesn’t appeal to me
in any way romantically
cute, pretty, beautiful to me
regardless of whether or not she
looks beautiful to others
works better for me
and why the hell am i
even thinking about this at 80

often women who are too beautiful
are too much about themselves
and unaffordable to most men

but then one day she went out
of her way to talk to me
i was surprised how nice she was
how self centered she wasn’t
we became great work friends
and too beautiful didn’t matter to me
I really liked her a lot
not as a potential girlfriend
she was happily married
i didn’t have romantic desires
or fantasies about her

it was just a surprising friendship
with a woman i didn’t want to know
one of the many women who
passed through my life
some too beautiful
some amazingly nice
some adorably cute
some incredibly pretty
some mean and hateful
many i was with
more than my share

too beautiful at the jewelry store
was one of the most surprising
and one of the nicest

bob boyd