Category: Poems

Learned they use cake batter
in their donuts

which is why they taste so
uniquely good

It gets better

They make the donuts while
you wait

in minutes

And you can decide on
the toppings you want
if you choose to

God how I love Duck Donuts

And right now I have a desire
to have one of their

Donut Ice Cream Sundaes
again

But I’m prudent about
eating their donuts and
donut ice cream sundaes

If I ate them as much as
I’d liked to

even with working out
and riding my exercise bike
everyday

I’d put on unhealthy weight
and probably have
killer cholesterol

So I eat a duck donut or two
or a duck donut sundae
just once in awhile

Bob Boyd

A fool’s folly you could reasonably say,
and most of the time you’d probably be right.
But I’ve seen cases where those quick marriages
lasted a lifetime.

And I’ve seen cases where people waited years
to be sure their marriages would last, yet
soon were divorced despite their meticulous planning.

I think there’s some luck in these matters, like
winning or losing in a gambling casino, also
like the saying “lucky in love.”

And count your lucky stars if you’ve been lucky
in love; so many in this world are like gamblers
who lose their hearts gambling on love.

Bob Boyd

I’ve never owned a gun.
It’s not that I’m opposed to them.
In some cases, guns have saved lives.

For example, a single mother home
alone with her two little children,
and a man begins breaking into
her apartment. She’s yells I have
a gun. He yells I have one too.
Then the shots: bang! bang! bang!
The intruder dies. She lives.

The gun certainly saved her, and
I believe the intruder would have
raped and probably murdered her,
if she hadn’t had a gun.

I’ve thought about a gun for self
protection as I grew older and less
able to defend myself.

But there are many possible hazards
involved with owning a gun.

If you shoot someone in what you
think is self defense and you are wrong,
you go to prison, and rules about gun
ownership and self defense are more
complex than I think most would imagine.

Plus, aside from the rules, If you pull
out your gun in traffic to shut a road raged
maniac down, not intended to shoot him,
and he pulls out a gun too.

What started as only a threat to shut him
down, could end with one person dead
and the other in prison.

Beyond that, I just didn’t feel fearful
or in danger enough to warrant owning
a gun.

But were I receiving death threats, I’d
surely consider getting one to possibly
save my life.

But more because I’d be pissed off
that some asshole thought he could
threaten my life and get away with it,
and as if the threat would cower me.

Bob Boyd

Though she loved her husband,
in a dream she copulated with a
handsome man who after the
love making revealed himself as
a terrifying demon.

She woke up frightened, relieved
it was only a nightmare.

She became pregnant not long
after that, something she and
her husband had been unable
to do.

When her child was born, she
had the feeling her baby girl
was evil, as if somehow she
was the spawn of the demon.

She put that foolish thought
out of her head, and her child
was a normal child until her
seventh year.

Then she heard her child
whisper inside her head that
she hated her father
and he’d soon be dead.

A day later, the child’s father
hung himself to death in the
cellar of their house.

And she felt the horror of
knowing her first impression
of the child was right.

She lost her mind over the
fact her child was a demon’s
spawn and the anguish of
her husband’s death.

Crazed, she grabbed a knife
from a kitchen drawer and
stabbed her child to death.

Now she spends the rest of
her days locked away in an
asylum for the insane and
babbles crazy talk about
copulating with a demon.

Bob Boyd

Numerous times when I’ve read
or heard Near Death Experiences
NDEers claim communication is
all telepathic in the afterlife.

The reason it’s all telepathic in
the afterlife is nobody has a
voice box there, which to me
seems logical.

I’ve read and heard in these
cases, the language you
spoke on earth is not an
impediment to understanding
anyone no matter what
language they spoke on earth.

I’ve also read and heard
communication with aliens
is allegedly the same, which
if the claims are real,
I’ve never read or heard
anything about why that
would be.

I tend to believe the accounts
by the NDEers are true, and it
makes me speculate a bit about
how procreation won’t be there
as well.

And as procreation is tied to love
on earth, if romantic love is
nonexistent in the afterlife.

But if reincarnation is factual,
it wouldn’t matter, and we’d be
back on earth with a voice box
and the chances of
falling in love once more.

Or reuniting with a soulmate
on earth again until we both
got off the wheel of rebirths,
in love forever.

Bob Boyd

Back in the 50s and 60s, war on the silver screen, valor galore.
We always won the war, exciting fun to kill enemies, always went home singing victory songs.

Rousing entertainment while nonchalantly munching buttered popcorn and juicy fruits in cushy movie seats.

Never lost, nobody really hurt. A few died but not the main characters, unknown extras usually, their deaths a blip on the silver screen.

Besides in the movies, less personal, less real, didn’t register. Nobody got Agent Orange, maimed, shell shocked or PTSD.

Nobody came back in wheelchairs or missing limbs.

The real Vietnam war changed it all.

A high school classmate, Joe Drew, joined the marines back then, unlikely candidate, gentle Joe never got in a fight.

Sweet personality seemed incapable of harming anything. First one in my city home dead in a body bag, lost his young life, and his future, in that faraway Southeast Asian jungle.

More deaths followed. Not like the movies. Sons, daughters, brothers, fathers and mothers dying.

Many came home maimed in body and in mind, others in wheelchairs, some with arms and legs blown off.

Agent Orange and PTSD plagued many. No cures.

The 50s and 60s war movies were never like that.

Bob Boyd

Never imagined innocent, beautiful butterflies Would ever have predators.

To my dismay, learned butterflies are on many predator’s hit lists:

Warblers, sparrows, parrots, blue jays northern mockingbirds black-headed grosbeaks, whatever those are.

Insects are also complicit in the slaughter of butterflies:

Ants, flies, wasps, praying mantises, dragonflies and more.

God Almighty, why couldn’t beautiful butterflies that dance in the air and kill nothing live in peace?

Why couldn’t these gentle creatures that survive on flower nectar and decaying fruit and are so adorably colorful and seemingly sweet be spared lives without being constantly hunted and killed by malicious predators?

Maybe it’s foolishness, maybe I’m being over sensitive, but it disturbs me deeply that gentle and beautiful butterflies have so many predators that mercilessly kill them.

Bob Boyd

Gave me a ride to school one day
when I was thumbing a ride at age 16.
I recall remembering what a nice guy
he was.
Not long after that he shot a salesman
to death in a store robbery.
In prison he got a degree, became a poet
and seemed a model prisoner
until he escaped with another prisoner
and a guard was killed, not sure if he did it.
He wasn’t found till twenty years later.
He’d been living in the open in Chicago
doing poetry readings with a poetry group,
and his poetry was quite good.
He attended a church, did volunteer work for it.
His twenty year escape ended when he won
poet of the month at the Chicago poetry group,
and a police officer saw his photo in the news.
He died not long ago on a medical parole,
and I will never understand how my cousin
Norman Porter could have had the soul of
a poet and the darkness of a killer.

Bob Boyd

I’ve never understood how anyone
could hunt and kill deer.
Such beautiful, gentle creatures
that only eat leaves, twigs, fruits
and nuts.

For some it’s a sport to hunt and
kill them. For me it would be worse
than killing some humans, like serial
killers.

I see them as gentle animal souls
that harm no other animals and
pass their lives adding beauty
and grace to the natural world.

Bob Boyd

Temporarily clinically dead, a car accident
Above his body witnessed, heard everything
Before the scene vanished and his spirit
Went through the panoramic life review
Like passing movie scenes of his life events
Realized life and afterlife spiritual schools
Graduation permanence in the Realm of Bliss
Swept through the tunnel of radiant White Light
Glimpse of the inexpressible abode of Love and Light
Awed and humbled by encounter with the Absolute
Unconditional Love beyond words, source of everything
Unimaginable, inexpressible eternal unending bliss
His earthly life lackluster, unreal and dreamlike
Wanted to stay in his true home forever and ever
Told he had to go back and be more loving.
Came to in the ICU disappointed and saddened
To be back in the impermanence, longing
to return to where he was born to be eternally.

Bob Boyd

A Muslim and mother of three children.
A good mother, a devoted wife, and a personal fitness trainer.
She lived in Farmington Hills, Michigan.
Her husband felt she was Americanizing their three
children.
Taking them away from their Syrian, Islamic roots.
He argued with her often about it.
The arguments and the marriage ended when he threw her down a stairs.
During the middle of their divorce, Nada died of suffocation and blunt force trauma to the head, and her body was pushed out of a second floor window.
Murdered by her 16-year old son who sided with his father about the Americanization of his sisters and hated his mother for it.
The son got sentenced to 60 years in prison.
It was believed the father put him up to it
But definite proof was never found.
Religion can be of comfort to countless people,
but sometimes it turns people into mindless fanatics and diabolical murderers.
RIP to Nada Huranieh who was a beautiful woman and a good and caring person.

Bob Boyd

I get emails from Roses Discount Store
nearly everyday.

Some would call that spamming, but
at my age I call it socialization. 🙂

And because I’m so high on Roses Discount Store
I enjoy seeing their email advertisements.

And it’s kinda nice to receive a daily
email from Rose’s, like from a faithful friend.

Bob Boyd

I remember you little, six-legged buggers,
and I can clearly see why some of your annoying
species are called piss ants.

With your overwhelming numbers, you invaded every
apartment, every house I lived in in the Philippines.

You came up from the floors, down from the roofs,
though the walls, the windows and the doors.

You got in my cabinets, my closets, my bed, my food,
and my towels. Twice you bit the hell out of me.

You made me come after you like the scorched earth
tyrannical Stalin purges

with a Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius
indifference to your deserved and more than justified deaths.

And I know if you have post offices in your underground hideouts, there are pictures of me, ant public enemy number one, hanging on those post office walls.

Bob Boyd

All you hear about is Dogman.
You hear about sightings of him
in Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio,
Illinois and Minnesota and
other states across the U S of A.
Blah. Blah. Blah. What an exhibitionist.

But never a peep about Dogwoman.
Where’s the inclusivity? Where’s the fairness?
Maybe my thinking is off, but would we have
a Dogman without a Dogwoman at some point?
So why no news about her?

Is there Dogwoman misogyny at play?
Or maybe unlike the flamboyant, self-serving
attention-seeking Dogman, she’s not a
flaming egotist who goes out of his way
to exhibit himself in all those states across
the U S of A.

Bob Boyd

Behold one of the darkest arts of
Government: Eminent Domain
Reminiscent of stolen Native American lands
Some cases underpaid for the seizures
Some cases of removals at gunpoint
How is it in what some politicians claim
is the greatest country in the world
we have a government perpetrating
intrusive, insensitive land grabs
And while I’m on this insidious topic,
Here’s what eminent means
“Well-known and respected, especially
for achievement in a particular field.”
I see nothing respectful
I see no achievement
I see only a particular field of stolen lands
watered with the tears of people
those lands were seized from
I see a disgraceful well-known
diabolical practice by a government
in cases not by the people but
against the people
I see broken hearts of families
who owned lands for generations
robbed regardless of forced
compensations
Eminent Domain, a
Goddamn shame.

Bob Boyd