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a poetry collection by Tom Lyford
No Daffodils, No Clouds, like Tom Lyford’s earlier poetry books, is a compendium of baby boomer Americana. The table of contents listing, with everything from “Brat Packs” and “Idiots’ Guide to Wormholes” to “A Terrible Thing to Waste” and “Poem Nazis,” reads like the big board of Alex Trebeck's Jeopardy categories. Allow Tom Lyford to personally introduce you to his unwitting mentors Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Stephen King, J. D. Salinger, and Ray Bradbury. Accept the tokens he offers for passage back through the Twilight Zone turnstile to relive those sights and sounds and smells of your '50s and '60s drive-in movie theater and roller skating pavilion. Contemplate his long view as to where we’ve been, and where we’re headed. But you’ll discover no “wandering lonely as a cloud” or “host of daffodils” here. Why? Because legions of Wordsworth wannabes have been doing that since 1802. What you will find, however, is a lot of humor and heart. You’ll find accessible poems that you can understand. And you’ll even find creative illustrations…
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THE COVER
(click below to enlarge)
NO DAFFODILS, NO CLOUDS Click below for further samples:
I wanna write a poem as crooked as Willem Night Moves, 1964
Dafoe’s teeth, a poem as pockmarked
as Tommy Lee Jones’ sour puss… Tobacco Road
I wanna write a Meatloaf poem, not Go to Tom Lyford books
a Manilow, and definitely not a Mel at amazon.com
‘the Velvet Fog’ Tormé poem…
I wanna write an “UH-oh!” poem, one that conjures up
the Jaws theme and makes you say something like,
“You’re gonna need a bigger boat!”
An armored-personnel-carrier poem!
A bomb-squad poem!
A flak-jacket poem!
I wanna write an O J Simpson Ford Bronco poem
that’ll lead the coppers and choppers in a cold
pursuit right up the San Diego Freeway!
I wanna write a poem as crooked as Willem Night Moves, 1964
Dafoe’s teeth, a poem as pockmarked
as Tommy Lee Jones’ sour puss… Tobacco Road
I wanna write a Meatloaf poem, not Go to Tom Lyford books
a Manilow, and definitely not a Mel at amazon.com
‘the Velvet Fog’ Tormé poem…
I wanna write an “UH-oh!” poem, one that conjures up
the Jaws theme and makes you say something like,
“You’re gonna need a bigger boat!”
An armored-personnel-carrier poem!
A bomb-squad poem!
A flak-jacket poem!
I wanna write an O J Simpson Ford Bronco poem
that’ll lead the coppers and choppers in a cold
pursuit right up the San Diego Freeway!