Strider Marcus Jones – is a poet, law graduate and ex civil servant from Salford/Hinckley, England with proud Celtic roots in Ireland and Wales. A member of The Poetry Society, his five published books of poetry are modern, traditional, mythical, sometimes erotic, surreal and metaphysical http//www.lulu.com/spotlight/stridermarcusjones1. He is a maverick, moving between forests, mountains and cities, playing his saxophone and clarinet in warm solitude.
In 2015, his poetry features in Crack The Spine Literary Magazine; A New Ulster/Anu Issue 29; Poems For A Liminal Age Anthology; In The Trenches Poetry Anthology; Outburst Poetry Magazine; The Galway Review; The Honest Ulsterman Magazine and The Lonely Crowd Magazine.
ANARCHIC MOSS
lo lover.
you give my blood this colour
to warm my marble heart
to beat for you-
and make me sing
like a minstrel lark
melodic tales that bring
you deep contentment too.
in here,
we are one sphere
changing the atmosphere
to sweet intoxication
and equal liberation
with orderly chaos
and anarchic moss
like a poultice peace
healing false belief.
this cataplasm
fills the chasm
with our thoughts saying
what role we should be playing
to preserve Mother Earth
or be cursed
by the circumstance
of evolutions evil advance.
our motive and mind
should be humankind-
equal as one,
or divided, then gone.
THE DIVISION BELL
they have civilised
the language of hatred
and corruption-
turned it into condensed
subliminal codes
to be absorbed
passively
and aspired to
through elite worship.
this softening,
that swims in intercourse
with Oppositions
and Self mandates
it’s wars and poverty-
hides the bodies
from presentations
where the Smile and Fist
work together.
there is no Division Bell
that Speaks and Moves
with and for
the majority
marching past outside-
like Natives
carrying their bags of belongings,
being screened and moved
from lush lands
early into cemeteries
or onto cattle trains
out to desert Reservations.
the Doors
of cold centuries
blow open,
and we see
how Treaties
are still Broken and Abused-
by those we entrust
who have turned
the Globe of Everything
we are meant to Share
into something Bought and Sold
all Right to be Owned and Inherited.
most sheep don’t Mass for much-
just a patch of grass to graze
and a shack to shag and sleep in-
a few, have their own field
and privately furnished rooms,
but when they all adore
w and k’s first tour
on the front page and tv news
for twelve days of conditioning,
or letch and leer over the tits on page three-
the Universal Flaw in Their Rule and Law
makes them troll and bay for this culling of people-
until it comes for them.
THE DANCE
pull the roof off
knock the walls down
touch the forest
climb those mountains
and smell the sea
again.
watch how life
decomposes
in death
going back to land
to reform and be reborn
as something and someone else.
there’s no great secret to it all.
no need to overthink it through
food and shelter
fire and shamens
clothes and coupling
used to be enough
with musicians
artists
and poets
interpreting the dance.
then warriors with armies
religions with god
and minds buying and selling
stole the landscape
and changed time.
smash the windows
break down the doors
melt the keys
rub evil words from their spells
and puncture the lungs of their wheels
before they kidnap you from bed
call you dissident
hold you without charge
wheel you out on a stretcher
from waterboard torture
for years
without trial
in Guantanamo Bay.
they are selling
the sanctuary
we made
with our numbers
bringing back chains
making some of us slaves
outside the dance
in the five coloured rings
making winners
and losers
holding flags and flames.
I WANT WHAT ORDINARY OTHERS WANT
i want
what others want-
synchronicity
and simplicity
in life of free will-
sharing some land
i can work with my hands
no more slave still-
time trapped.
lines tapped.
steps tagged.
voice gagged.
this elite mafia
of Orwell and Kafka
has built Metropolis
on old Acropolis-
reducing proles
to zombie roles
in constitutions
of constructed evolutions,
with blood to dust faiths
riding like dark wraiths
bullets shredding
bombing and beheading
the innocents
and dissidents
to steal their lot
and not share what you’ve got.
THE MADRIGAL OF VOICES
the madrigal of voices
somewhere, in its choices,
chooses and rejoices
back to me-
collecting frozen wood,
from the crofts and slums, of old childhood-
sat here, on this chair
in the numb night air.
now, your moonbeams kiss
the winter of me. stirs
ripples on its pond skin. unpicks the threaded wish
of passions positive remark-
while sleep fights
these luminous lights
of limp daggers-
laughing in the dark.
somehow, its root
of subdued jasmine and tropical jute,
reaches that closed chamber of your core-
and thoughts transmute,
woven to the nature of its lore.
negativity narrows
when i stroke in your shallows-
forward as before;
but staying in tomorrows,
i enter and endure.
The Galway Review 