MICHAEL JAY PRICE
Poems
TRADITION
TRADE TRAGEDY
for Joe Fonda
Everywhere they buy soldiers
They buy soldiers
They bury soldiers
They bury some soldiers
And some not
Some soldiers and
Some not soldiers home
Wait some home witness
Some cry for some
Some die and some
Soldiers sold bury other
Soldiers sold and others
Everywhere everywhere
Everywhere everywhere
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WHAT IS
for J. Krishnamurti
1
among mango trees and
guava groves a man goes
a gun in one hand
theories of god in the other
2
that night utter silence
no beginning hence no end
alone on the lawn
all memories had flown
only what is
there was
till thoughts of
bougainvillea gained
*************************************
ALL OF ABOVE for Bela Bartók and Joe Maneri
nemesis sister insinuated downtown tom tom mega- mega- a negative
insisted dog-tired dogma dogged a rake racking his fake fez’s so
so content but
contented jackal rube syndrome besotted surname Smith or Jones
joked sorrowfully
local yokel like the vocal folk code unlocked folly from fellowship’s tome
a mind a scholar battled estimated incomplete a male fantasy a
villager awaited
tom tom tomb tomb abode eroding an orphan a toad to me he
proffered gold
both here and now and there and then the tree house palace open
to deviltries
boredom for an angel marred by far gone bar talk intrusions pals
gals and lace
a belle swelled marrying perfection to no purpose other than pure
fiction’s sake
swan turkey cat owl pregnant a capella outpourings snuffed out at
whatever price
this wanderer a prisoner of all of above loved but little his muse’s
dazed offerings a lamb
in a jam idealized he listens less and watches less and wearies still
of that idiot rat catcher’s fife
his oxen and id have followed him home now he must seek a ring
for a hoped for sweetheart
a breaker of hearts or his goats one blind and one deaf will drown
in his swill of regrets
bettered by doubt as they may be rows of rodents wrens hens and
children don’t an ontology make
yell yell yellow yellow the logic walking history’s crutches onto which
his witches’ wishes have fettered his life
*************************************
S.F.
Poverty mattered little
for little matter mattered.
*************************************
LADIES MANIFEST
for Perry Robinson and Lester Young
the ladies lead
the ladies plead
while in innocence
of silence
the mob stirs
and mobsters
pummel the looming
unambitious lambs
the venerable false
and the venereal real
sum of quarrelsome eyes
and lovelorn smiles
the ladies bled
the ladies fled
and gladly some
stray lads stayed
Michael Jay Price, a retired architect, was born
in Brooklyn, NY, where he now lives. In the late 1970s and early
1980s, he studied poetry with Gilbert Sorrentino.
“Tradition Trade Tragedy” has been previously published in Lips and was performed by Joe Fonda on the Nu Band CD Relentless: Live At The Sunset on the French Futura/Marge record label.
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