TOM'S POETRY CHANNEL

INVITATION TO THE BLUES

           

And suddenly there it is, hiding in plain sight,

                      B-flat 9,

right there on page 89 of Hal Leonard’s

Guitar Method: Incredible Chord Finder,

a real two-fingered wrist-wrencher for a

simple fella whose fat little fingers

after forty years are still fretting out

‘House of the Rising Sun’ and all those

other same ol’ same ol’ C, G, A-minor

and F-chord songs of the sixties. But...

when my little flat-top’s strings float

this one back up to me all smoky and

dark and minor... I mean, man, it’s like

some hip fairy godmother just waved her

magic wand to the light switch, waxed my

kitchen all

neon café-blue

shape-shifted my side chair into the

center-stage barstool... and out comes

Scotch and soda... mud in your eye...

baby do I feel high... oh me oh my...

and it hits me, man... it’s like...

maybe I’m at The Crossroads...

and off in the distance I can just

barely make out the sweetness

of ‘Bye Bye Miss American Pie’

wafting its way out of town

on the wayward wind...

but, whoa, Dude...

                     B-flat 9!

ON THE BEACH

                          

Swept up in a beachcomber gold rush on P.E.I.’s terracotta beaches

we prospect feverishly for the mighty sand dollar— with one buck

already in the bank... while up ahead, a gull bullies a hapless crab

savaging it with a jabbing beak... yanking it, flipping it over

in stark Wild-Kingdom cinéma verité and then, with a mouthful of

appendages clamped like clothespins in her bill and bomb-laden

with the cumbersome cargo, she lumbers herself airborne…

where, at an altitude of twenty feet, the stringbean legs pop

their joints like Legos... bombing our little Buster Crab back

onto the beach-head with a carapace-jarring thump! Whereupon

the gull, this… 'Jackie the Ripperess'… this angel of death...

descends with deadly finality upon her victim’s

now-much-handicapped gesticulations... When—

 

(fortissimo) Here I come to save the day! That means

that Mighty Mouse... is on the way!"

 

…Later, cradled in my cupped palms, our reclaimed-but-crippled

crustacean bogarts me his best grimacing grin, a wink,

a tip of the hat, and the thumbs-up… and with a k-plunk,

I sink him like a stone back into the safety of the surf

to live another day... to regale the little grandcrabs with

his tall tale of the fantastic flight over the sand

and The Rescue he’ll never tire of re-telling...

GOOSE BUMPS

            

wild-eyed and incredulous, I roll to a stop in the driveway and

sit reconnoitering from a safe distance this anomaly of the

                    live goose

standing stock-still like some big white, campy

pink flamingo speared into my front walk, right here in

the middle of town… leaving me pondering whether this be

prank or accident or cryptic omen from the gods…

wondering how it came here and why here, why my house

and what does it want? …I leave the getaway car idling

step cautiously out (open-door policy in effect) and—

…what is wrong with this picture?    any goose in my life

would be bizarre but this one… this one has a problem…

like a short-circuited popcorn-popper from hell, this bird is…

"evacuating" ever so ho-hum, matter-of-factly on the asphalt

                    crapping

steadily, mechanically, forever… yes, the goose that

shows up at my door will be the sick goose, the goose with

diarrhea —shit! do geese get rabies?— I dare not avert my eyes,

but something else… something in my peripheral vision…

a snow-white, you-know-it-doesn’t-belong-there patch of

something has been pecking at the shell of my shock,

prompting me, nagging me to turn, to look, so…

jesus-mary-and-joseph! lounging weightily on that

sagging branch only twelve feet off the ground and not

fifteen feet from ME... giving ME the old jaundiced eagle-eye

is the most powerful, up-close, in-my-face, wild kingdom

bald eagle I ever want to see— time stops... this is no dream

I can count talons, distinguish feathers...

I am a vulnerable, transfixed mouse who has stopped breathing

because if I move, scamper for my pick-up, shark-hooks will

impale my shoulder blades before I can slam the door behind me—

but some distracting racket, like shirts flapping on a wind-

whipped clothesline breaks the spell and I wheel to find myself

in the immediate flight path of one desperate bird-bogey at

twelve o’clock, revving its twin-engine wings in a spectacular

low-to-the-ground take-off, the last of its cargo jettisoned and

steaming on the runway— instinctively I duck left, barrel-roll

onto the lawn as the backwash of the wings and the flight shadow

pass over me... and from my knees, watch my goose,

already diminishing in size, fly for the haven of

any port on its last star-crossed horizon…

the eagle drops in a slow-motion

glide from the limb, patiently

powering up, gathering speed,

resuming the mission and...

he’s in no hurry— i feel my hackles rise—

he’s an ace, this boy, it’s all in a day’s work

for him... a milk run... a turkey shoot…

and humbly, foolishly, I realize now that

I had nothing to fear, I was in no danger

I

was merely somebody else’s

pathetic, not-quite-good-enough

but better-than-nothing

diversion

 

For the Bangor Daily News book review on both of these books released simultaneously, go to

http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/114140.html

WORK AVERSION TRAUMA: A LIFETIME OF SUFFERING is available at Thompson Free Library in Dover-Foxcroft (also Dover-Foxcroft's Mr. Paperback and both Bangor's Borders and Bookmarc's) for $10.00, or $15.00 (check or money order) by contacting the author at  tlyford@roadrunner.com  and/or by ordering directly from

Tom Lyford
121 Pleasant Street
Dover-Foxcroft, ME  04426

KILROY WAS HERE: ME TOO! (as all of my poetry books) are $5.00 at the library (and Bangor's Borders and Bookmarc's) and $10.00 by mail.

NOTE: Since both WORK AVERSION plus one or two poetry books fit into the new $5.00 UPS flat-rate boxes, the over-all postage is $5.00 on whatever I can cram into the box.

PLEASANT STREET: A CHAPBOOK OF BABY BOOMER BALLADS & POEMS (2005)
POETIC LICENSE (2005)
ON BECOMING A MAN OF SUBSTANCE (2006)
AMERICANA (2006) 

(Likewise, any inquiries may be forwarded to either of the above addresses)
Click to enlarge images below:

from AMERICANA:

"If You've Been Bad or Good"

"Dirge"

"Riding Around In Stephen King"

AMERICANA is still available at Bangor's BookMarc's

from PLEASANT STREET:

"seduced"

"born to lose"

"merrick square market"


from POETIC LICENSE:

"salvage operations"

"fire & Ice" (with apologies to Robert Frost)

"to leonard"




from ON BECOMING A MAN OF SUBSTANCE:

"rhymes with euphoric"

"on first seeing pinocchio"

"

New Book (released in July 2009)

       WORK AVERSION TRAUMA: A Lifetime of Suffering

              a chronological memoir of humorous or

                  unusual on-the-job experiences

           

                              Back                                    Front

Two-Headed Man Runs for Mayor... Against Himself!

Yea, blessed are the supermarket tabloids

for lo, they shall deliver us down

checkout grocery galleries of

cough drops, candy bars, and TV Guides--

 

And blessed are you and I

with our free life-long subscriptions to

THE SUPERMARKET CHECKOUT HEADLINES!

that exercise or 14-items-or-less

express lane brains...

 

And oh, tabloid headlines wear so many hats:

--They champion the inspirational successes of the handicapped:

    GIRL WITH 14 FINGERS WINS TYPING CONTEST!

    MUTE DRIVER HONKS OUT ROAD RAGE IN MORSE CODE!

    BLIND SEX CREEP BUSTED AS 'HEARING TOM!'

--They boggle the mind with life's unexpected ironies:

    STARVING CAMPER MAULS GRIZZLY!

    CHAMPION BULLFIGHTER KILLED BY BULLDOZER!

    CANNIBALS ORDER PIZZA-- THEN EAT DELIVERY MAN!

--They clarify well-known generalities:

    RESEARCHER CALCULATES A SNOWBALL'S CHANCE IN HELL TO BE .0000000000134%!

--They ease our environmental anxieties:

    SCIENTIST PROVES: EARTH IS GOING THROUGH MENOPAUSE! GLOBAL WARMING IS EARTH'S HOT FLASHES!

--They showcase the consequences of failing to make safe and sober decisions:

    DRUNKS FALL OFF ROOF AFTER BARTENDER DECLARES DRINKS ARE ON THE HOUSE!

--They provide important educational updates:

    CATHOLIC SCHOOL SISTERS TRADE WOODEN RULERS FOR ULTIMATE DISCIPLANRY TOOL: NUNCHUCKS!

--They reveal the truth behind the proverbs:

    SURVEY REVEALS BEST THINGS IN LIFE COST AT LEAST $5000!

    NEW STUDY SAYS 'STITCH IN TIME' SAVES ONLY EIGHT, ON AVERAGE!

    HONESTLY FALLS TO THIRD AS 'BEST POLICY'!

--And finally, sometimes they just make us think:

    BEER CANS AND OLD MATTRESS FOUND ON MARS!   Hmmmmm...

yes... think to ourselves

(like in that old Satchmo tune)

"What a wonderful world!"

 

    VAMPIRE ELVIS ON THE PROWL, SAY COPS!

            (FANG YOU... UH, FANG YOU VERY MUCH!)

 

 

CHECK OUT TIME

102.5 fm

(for Dave Morrison)

 

Well my time went so quickly,

I went lickety-splitly

out to my old fifty-five　

knowing that... if I could

save time in a bottle...

the first thing that I’d like to do

is wail goodbye yellow brick road...

you know, take off living to run, and

running to live, never worried about

payin’ or even how much I owed

and go lookin’ for

changes in latitude,

changes in attitude... but

all I really ever do is punch up

102.5

where winter spring summer and fall...

all you have to do is call, and I’ll be...

nibblin' on sponge cake,

watchin' the sun bake

all of those tourists covered with oil

where there’s plenty of room

at the Hotel California...

and the piano, it sounds like

a carnival, and the microphone

smells like a beer... and

you can check out...

any time you like

 

OCTOBER SKY

In pj’s we pad over dewy grass

in the October chill

to mount the ’48 Plymouth

lying like a cold black boulder

under a studded nightvelvet sky

(me on the roof—on my back)

 

And we are early

so it’s like the drive-in movies

dark enough for the impatient horns

to start honking, only we’re not out here

for a comedy or cowboy flick

but something dark, something sci-fi

 

Something Flash Gordonish—

because nothing but the Aurora Borealis,

the random meteor, or the blinking beacon

of your occasional prop-driven airliner

ever moves up there

in our nightsky

 

And so we fidget

waiting on that corner of heaven

we’ve been warned to watch

whispering in hushed reverence

and consulting the big radium-dial

Dad keeps in his pocket

 

When suddenly:

There it is! There! Right there! See it!?

The first untwinkling ‘star’

ever

swimming across the big dipper

plotting a geometrically-precise

 

Straight line and clocking

a faster transit of the firmament

than a four-engine TWA—

stunned with awe, we quietly mouth

the holy word…

 

Sputnik…

I, ROBOT

I sing my body electric

state-of-the-art

luxury sports utilty vehicle

of the species

nothing like me ever was

built like a brick shit house

to last

to take a licking

and keep on ticking

modeled on the redundancy principle

extra brain hemisphere, superfluous

kidney, lung, eye, hand, foot

five senses each with its

software-bundled hardware

connected by spaghetti-tangles of

fiber-optic nerves to the

mother of all boards

and every cell vacuum-packed

with its own copy of the spiro-encrypted

double-helix, micro-schematic

blueprint, and every digit stamped

with its encrypted swirl-pattern

‘scan code’

 

Oh, I’m the quintessential

self-replicating

self-healing

self-cleaning

psycho-medical

chemico-robotic

circuit city wonder—

 

Drop me on an alien planet

and watch:

at one-tenth brain capacity

I’ll invent the wheel

steal fire from the Titans

change water into wine

clone myself, and when there’s

enough of me, enough time

and enough typewriters

we

will compose

Hamlet!

TO LEONARD

“You know who I am…You’ve stared at the sun”  — L. Cohen

 

First irresistibly drawn

that dark winter evening in ’72

by the canticle thrumming

in your deep bass

from the back parlor in somebody’s

long-ago-forgotten farmhouse

 

entrancing me down someone’s

hallway past somebody’s rooms

following slivers of your haunted lyric

the rise and fall of your haunting timbre

your imagery of saintly sins

your harlots and holy sisters—

 

your one-man Gregorian chant

spiraling like spun gold from

the ebony groove on the

turntable altar I found there

and before which I

lingered away the evening

 

shunning hosts and company

and etiquette... and there

some ethereal mystery lady

some Suzanne

fed me“tea and oranges...

all the way from China"

There is

hardwired within me

a harmonic homing device

a gland perhaps

that resonates

“like a drunk in some midnight choir”

 

In response to mystical frequencies

of the darker spiritual wavebands…

that compels me to imprint on them

(like the sunflower that “locks” on the sun)

and to follow as a disciple...

as an apostle—

 

I understand now why moths

consume themselves in flames:

if your voice is fire

“then I

I must

be wood”