Poetry Showcase by Strider Marcus Jones

Bio:

Strider Marcus Jones – is a poet, law graduate and former civil servant from Salford, England with proud Celtic roots in Ireland and Wales. He is the editor and publisher of Lothlorien Poetry Journal 

https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/.

A member of The Poetry Society, his five published books of poetry  https://stridermarcusjonespoetry.wordpress.com/ reveal a maverick, moving between cities, playing his saxophone in smoky rooms.       

His poetry has been published in over 200 publications including: Dreich Magazine; The Racket Journal; Trouvaille Review; dyst Literary Journal; Impspired Magazine; Melbourne Culture Corner and Literary Yard Journal.

HOT ROD

fast and furious
archangel in paint and chrome
brings me home-
purring megaphonious,
combusting with sav and sap
that i glimpse
peeking into warm grill chintz-
then she lifts her corset bonnet
and lets me touch her glinting bones
secreting home spun
pheromones
attracting, like moon and sun-
mysterious
and mnemonic
old senses,
fallow and fenced
soon become drenched
quiller and squirter
in that linguistic converter-
glow mapping,
overlapping,
slowly blown
in the metronome.

OLD CAFE

a rest, from swinging bar
and animals in the abattoir-
to smoke in mental thinks 
spoken holding cooling drinks. 
 
counting out old coppers to be fed
in the set squares of blue and red
plastic tablecloth-
just enough to break up bread in thick barley broth.
 
Jesus is late
after saying he was coming
back to share the wealth and real estate
of capitalist cunning.
 
maybe. just maybe.
put another song on the jukebox baby:
no more heroes anymore.
what are we fighting for-
 
he's hiding in hymns and chants,
in those Monty Python underpants,
from this coalition of new McCarthy's
and its institutions of Moriarty's.
 
some shepherd sheep will do this dance
in hypothermic trance,
for one pound an hour 
like a shamed flower-
 
watched by sinister sentinels, 
while scratched tubular bells,
summon all to Sunday service
where invisible myths exist-
 
to a shamed flower
with supernatural power
come the hour.


POMEGRANATE FLESH

ask those
who grow old-
some fruits are nicer
when they're riper.
you dont stop
the clock
on the one who chose
you to hold-
her pomegranate
is still your sonnet
of sepia feelings and flesh,
sensuously sweet and fresh.

although the mirror never lies,
it shows the beauty that lives
as it dies
and gives
its own reflection
of your perfection
to me
then and now,
each memory
taken
by the lenses
somehow,
preserved
by your words
and curves
in my senses.

our dance,
that thrilled
in its intricate
tango on the floor,
is still filled
with time intimate
romance
and more-
talking rubicon of reason,
in layer, upon layer of season
so sedimentary
since you entered me-
and i consumed
your silky mesh
of pink perfumed
pomegranate flesh

LOTHLORIEN

i'm come home again
in your Lothlorien
to marinate my mind
in your words,
and stand behind
good tribes grown blind,
trapped in old absurd
regressive reasons
and selfish treasons.

in this cast of strife
the Tree of Life
embraces innocent ghosts,
slain by Sauron's hosts-
and their falling cries
make us wise
enough to rise
up in a fellowship of friends
to oppose Mordor's ends
and smote this evil stronger
and longer
for each one of us that dies.

i'm come home again
in your Lothlorien,
persuading
yellow snapdragons
to take wing
and un-fang serpent krakens,
while i bring
all the races
to resume
their bloom
as equals in equal spaces
by removing
and muting
the chorus of crickets
who cheat them from chambered thickets,
hiding corruptions older than long grass
that still fag for favours asked.

i'm come home again
in your Lothlorien
where corporate warfare
and workfare
on health
and welfare
infests our tribal bodies
and separate self
in political lobbies-
so conscience can't care
or share
worth and wealth:

to rally drones
of walking bones,
too tired
and uninspired
to think things through
and the powerless who see it true.
red unites, blue divides,
which one are you
and what will you do
when reason decides.

I'M GETTING OLD NOW

i'm getting old now-
you know,
like that tree in the yard
with those thick cracks
in its skin bark
that tell you
the surface of its lived-in secrets.
my eyes,
have sunk too inward
in sleepless sockets
to playback images
of ghosts-
so, make do with words
and hear the sounds
of my years in yourself.

childhood-
riding a rusty three-wheel bike
to shelled-out houses bombed in the blitz,
then zinging home zapped in mud
to wolf down chicken soup
over lumpy mashed potato for tea-
with bare feet sticking on cold kitchen lino
i shivered watching the candle burn down
racing to finish a book i found in a bin-
before Mam showed me her empty purse
and robbed the gas meter-
the twenty shillings
stained the red formica table
like pieces of the man's brains
splattered all over the back seat
of his symbolic limousine
as i watched history brush out her silent secrets.



More bio: His poetry has been published in the USA, Canada, Australia, England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, Spain, Germany; Serbia; India and Switzerland in numerous publications including: Dreich Magazine; The Racket Journal; Trouvaille Review; dyst Literary Journal; Impspired Magazine; Literary Yard Journal; Poppy Road Review; Cajun Mutt Press; Rusty Truck Magazine; Rye Whiskey Review; Deep Water Literary Journal; The Huffington Post USA; The Stray Branch Literary Magazine; Crack The Spine Literary Magazine; The Lampeter Review; Panoplyzine  Poetry Magazine; Dissident Voice.  Check out the first 3 issues of the Lothlorien Journal see the website listed above for more & to order.