Strider Marcus Jones's Blog: https://stridermarcusjonespoetry.wordpress.com/, page 3

Thank YOU to awesome editor Nolcha Fox for publishing this poem. Love the presentation. Most appreciated Nolcha.

“VACANT ROOMS” by Strider Marcus Jones

poetry«VACANT ROOMS» by Strider Marcus Jones

Published by crazy4yarn2 on 25 de abril de 2025

take my thoughts with you,
as I cast them into the ocean,
and let the seagulls drown my words,
from cliffs where clouds sweep low.

wild, wind-swept spray, spits
at time turned rocks,
and stands them impotent too-
on sands that shift:

like truths, turned false and cut loose,
like flesh, that fades on a bone-bleached sky;
it hurts to set the past free-
and live in vacant rooms.

Copyright © 2025 Strider Marcus Jones
All Rights Reserved

Delighted to have my poem Convict Chains published by brilliant Editor Barbara Leonhard at MasticadoresUSA.

“Convict Chains” by Strider Marcus Jones – MasticadoresUsa // Editor: Barbara Leonhard //

MasticadoresUSA, poem, poetry, Treasured Contributors“Convict Chains” by Strider Marcus Jones

rich man and peasant understand
coins change hand,
despite the Magna Carta
we must all barter
to live-

only communists give
nothing
something
sometimes-
same crimes.

so, when reason rains,
i drag my convict chains
to the barrow bog
and cut peat
in feral fog
where motives meet.

six feet down,
sucked back five thousand years
the old town
settlement appears
in full formation
of chattel,
cattle
and battle
still at station
preserved
to serve.

around
the round
late night fires,
power plays and lust desires
hearth home homogenous
in Mars and Venus
making love in animal skins
wearing the same sins.

on the long walk home,
some alone
and those together,
believe never
can be changed
and are called strange.

Copyright © 2025 Strider Marcus Jones
All Rights Reserved

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.

His poetry has been published in over 200 publications worldwide including: Dreich Magazine; dyst Literary Journal; Impspired Magazine; Melbourne Culture Corner; Literary Yard Journal; The Galway Review; Cajun Mutt Press; Rye Whiskey Review; The Huffington Post USA; The Stray Branch Literary Magazine; Crack The Spine Literary Magazine; and Dissident Voice.

Delighted to have my poem The Cup published by editor Barbara Leonhard in Masticadores USA.

“The Cup” by Strider Marcus Jones – MasticadoresUsa // Editor: Barbara Leonhard //

The Cup

a smelted celebration
of victory
and carnal coronation
moulded in dark history-
the chalice divine
to inhuman crime
blessing unjust law
and futile war.

mine, holds the coffee
i pour into me,
or sometimes tea
when i want to see
who are different
in the present.

upturning the cup
and turning it such
to read the leaves-
a gypsy's
lore and ancient blood
has always understood-

who and what
controls the plot,
keeps us in the base and dregs
looking up, without the legs
to climb the slippery clay
into dark deceit
counterfete
deception and decay.

take back how to think,
stand at your own sink
and wash away
this cold custodian,
old Eton and Bostonian
suited slick affray-

of corporate hoodies
and big house bullies
hunting and shooting
laughing and looting,
smeared in oils that anoint
herding us to the vanishing point.

Copyright © 2025 Strider Marcus Jones
All Rights Reserved

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. A member of The Poetry Society, his five published books of  poetry reveal a maverick, moving between cities, playing his saxophone in smoky rooms. His poetry has been published in over 200 publications worldwide including: Dreich Magazine; dyst Literary Journal; Impspired Magazine; Melbourne Culture Corner; Literary Yard Journal; The Galway Review; Cajun Mutt Press; Rye Whiskey Review; The Huffington Post USA; The Stray Branch Literary Magazine; Crack The Spine Literary Magazine; and Dissident Voice.

Delighted to have two poems published in The Gorko Gazette. My thanks to Editor Raddy. https://thegorkogazette.com/2025/03/1...

Poetry 

March 12, 20256:35 am

It’s So Quiet and 1 more by Strider Marcus Jones

It’s So Quiet


it’s so quiet
our eloquent words dying on a diet
of midnight toast
with Orwell’s ghost-
looking so tubercular in a tweed jacket
pencilling notes on a lung black cigarette packet-
our Winston, wronged for a woman and sin
rewrote history on scrolls thought down tubes
that came to him
in the Ministry of Truth Of Fools
where conscience learns to lie within.
not like today
the smug-sly haves say and look away
so sure
there’s nothing wrong with wanting more,
or drown their sorrows
downing bootleg gin
knowing tomorrows
truth is paper thin
.
at home
in sensory
perception
with tapped and tracked phone
the Thought Police arrest me
in the corridors of affection-
where dictators wear, red then blue, reversible coats
in collapsing houses, all self-made
and self-paid
smarmy scrotes-
now the Round Table
of real red politics
is only fable
on the pyre of ghostly heretics.
they are rubbing out
all the contusions
and solitary doubt,
with confusions
and illusions
through wired media
defined in their secret encyclopaedia-
where summit and boardroom and conclave
engineer us from birth to grave.
like the birds,
i will have to eat
the firethorn
berries that ripen but sleep
to keep
the words
of revolution
alive and warm
this winter, with resolution
gathering us, to its lantern in the bleak,
to be reborn and speak.ut the strip-malls and old powder shops. The grass grows
Five feet tall but only once. Then it’s sheared for the coyotes’
Convenience. Rabbits hide as long as they can, but I’ll tell you the same thing
I told them:
Don’t linger.




THE HEAD IN HIS FEDORA HAT


a lonely man,
cigarette,
rain
and music
is a poem
moving,
not knowing-
a caravan,
whose journey does not expect
to go back
and explain
how everyone’s ruts
have the same
blood and vein.

the head in his fedora hat
bows to no one’s grip,
brim tilted into the borderless
plain
so his outlaw wit
can confess
and remain
a storyteller,
that hobo fella
listening like a barfly
for a while
and slow-winged butterfly
whose smile
they can’t close the shutters on
or stop talking about
when he walks out
and is gone.

whisky and tequila
and a woman, who loves to feel ya
inside
and outside
her
when ya move
and live as one,
brings you closer
in simplistic
unmaterialistic
grooved
muse Babylon.

this is so,
when he stands with hopes head,
arms and legs
all aflow
in her Galadriel glow
with mithril breath kisses
condensing sensed wishes
of reality and dream
felt and seen
under that
fedora hat
inhaling smoke
as he sang and spoke
stranger fella
storyteller.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

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 numerous publications including: Dreich Magazine; The Racket Journal; Trouvaille Review; dyst Literary Journal; Impspired Magazine; Melbourne Culture Corner; Literary Yard Journal; The Honest Ulsterman; Poppy Road Review; The Galway 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; A New Ulster; The Lampeter Review; Panoplyzine Poetry Magazine and Dissident Voice.

Happy to have 3 poems published in the excellent Rabble Review No.8 February 2025 with thanks to the editors and congratulations to all contributors. https://rabblereview.gumroad.com/l/RR8

Trapped in Manufactured Time

by Strider Marcus Jones

so lost schooled-
but not a fool,
stands in cold sunshine
on golden heath
where no kings rule
and ancestors of cottons thief,
make poor ends meet for dirty dime-
trapped in manufactured time.
he sits
and fits
in the shadows of its shades
and lines
on Cribden hill-
where clouds spill
like wire brillowed blinds,
imagining a wintered witch
composing pagan spells and rhymes
with bones like martyred blades,
whose burned marrow curses
industrialists and tokened slaves-
to believe a full purse is
how life measures made.
the trees are gone,
and wandering tribes,
who worked and gathered everything as one-
now live down in gas warmed hives,
in settled serfdom’s
truths and lies.

Pyramid Prison

by Strider Marcus Jones

in detritus metronomes
of human habitation
the ghost of Shelley’s imagination
questions the elemental,
experimental
chromosomes
and ribosomes
of DNA,
reverse engineered
that suddenly appeared
as evolution yesterday.

her monster mirrors dark wells
of monsters in our smart selves,
the lost humanity and oratory
that fills laboratory
test tubes
with fused
imbued
genes
to dreams
of flat forward faster
distinction
to disaster

and barbarism’s
ectopic extinction.
this is our pyramid prison,
where all souls
and proles
climb the debased
opposite steps of extremism,
like Prometheus Unbound,
defaced
sitting around
the crouching sphinx
abandoned by missing links.

free masons of money and wars,
warp the alter of natural laws,
so reason withers
and wastelands rust
no longer rivers
of shared stardust
in the equal symphony of spheres
in space,
filling our ears
with subwoofer bass,
definitive
primitive
medieval
evil
waste.

The Dance

by Strider Marcus Jones

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 shamans
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.

Thrilled to have 4 poems published in The Marbled Sigh‘s first ever anthology on Political Poems. My thanks to the editors and congratulations to all the other contributors. https://themarbledsigh.com/

The Powder of Patriotism


The powder of patriotism,

allows us to be herded,

like worker ants, and soldier ants,

and royal ants, who we don’t know-

perpetuate the status quo.

The powder of patriotism,

divides us into states,

where leaders owned by billionaires-

tell us who to hate.

The powder of patriotism,

ridicules the idea,

that missiles on our doorsteps

intensifies our fear.

The powder of patriotism,

makes men go to war:

but only those who send them-

know what it was for.



The Blood That Makes Us Black


imagine yourself,

in a photo-fit picture

with every nothing that’s new-

minus in health,

quoting icons and scripture

under the whole black and blue.

optimum dreams

turn out fake in the mirror

facing what’s been like fallen heroes-

in so many scenes

like a ghost who is giver

passing on wisdom, who knows-

the blood that makes us black

of two from one,

is schooled by fungus fortunes

and faiths old hat

to be sold on-

by suited gangs, making golden dunes.



So It Goes


when i look back

in a moment

of quiet acquired dignity

that comes to some

with age,

it is with patience,

for i was much the same

when everything seemed bigger

than it was

as uncertainty

wore the other shoe to confidence

and followed it step for step.

the energy of youth

that often acts

without respect and understanding-

to bluff and blag its way

in fashion and musical rebellion-

skips like stones

on the ponds of those who have it all

from Parliaments revolution-

but their ripples wane

through treacle trends

in this dumbed down democracy

soothed by drugs and drink.

apathy watches and laughs

at these new roundheads and royals-

jigging their booty

to tunes composed

by capitalist cavaliers-

wearing each despotic Emperor’s new clothes,

and a known assassins kiss of death

waits for anyone who questions-

so it goes.



On the Other Side of the Room’s Window


Dried coffee rings on the bedside table,

Where the martyr stubs his cigarette,

And disregards the opened volume

Of T.S. Eliot.

On the other side of the room’s window,

Buses shake past, but can’t be seen=

And when he calls for freedom,

The world spouts semen and war machines.

Cameras in the streets outside,

Watch this enemy within:

But how many Winston Smiths,

Are writing notes, and sneaking gin?


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. A member of The Poetry Society, his five published books of poetry https://stridermarcusjonespoetry.word... reveal a maverick, moving between cities, playing his saxophone in smoky rooms.
His poetry has been published in numerous publications including: The Huffington Post USA, The Stray Branch Literary Magazine, Crack The Spine Literary Magazine, The Lampeter Review and Dissident Voice.

Delighted to have these 2 love poems published by brilliant Editor Nolcha Fox in Chewers by Masticadores. Love the presentation.

2 Poems by Strider Marcus Jones

2 Poems by Strider Marcus Jones

SO OPEN, BUT SO SILENT TO YOURSELF

so open, but so silent to yourself,
like missing books messing up a shelf-
some unfinished, the others read,
somewhere else in someone’s head.
reason is reluctant to be heard
in conscience corrupt by tyranny blurred-
so leave the breaks in moorland grass,
and bound
unfound
where hours don’t turn round
inside this glass
duplicity and old division
of curtained cell
instead of prism
equal and parallel-
go, go without trace
into uncovered space
revealing your own face.

***

VACANT ROOMS

take my thoughts with you,
as I cast them into the ocean,
and let the seagulls drown my words,
from cliffs where clouds sweep low.

wild, wind-swept spray, spits
at time turned rocks,
and stands them impotent too-
on sands that shift:

like truths, turned false and cut loose,
like flesh, that fades on a bone-bleached sky;
it hurts to set the past free-
and live in vacant rooms.

Copyright © 2025 Strider Marcus Jones
All Rights Reserved

Really chuffed to have these 4 love poems published by dedicated Editor Nolcha Fox in ChewersMasticadores. Love the presentation.

4 Love Poems by Strider Marcus Jones

4 Love Poems by Strider Marcus Jones


NO ROADS

with no roads on our map of conversation,
we began
without plan,
and climbed, into the branches of imagination,
past the twigs and leaves-
those apothecaries
of lost libation,
into houred improvisation-

through its desert wanting rain
after years of stasis,
in a slow camel train
searching for that oasis-
with moving dunes
and negative runes
fending off the grey
in a charmed, nomadic way.

happen then, that this cold acoustic tune,
met your luteful lagoon
of mosaical notes-
and the baton moved,
as was proved
round the wheel with ambient spokes,
conducting without rules
our forgotten fools.

somehow,
go now,
through the eye of words,
to the heart of this rhythm
and the scion of its schism;
then home, like migrating birds
into separate nests-
for now, love rests.

***

SILHOUETTES OF LOVE AND LUST

i love to watch the chocolate
slowly melt
between your lips
of silky liquid felt,
then lick and lap
soft suck sips
in rhythm with your hips,
making such moments of motion
plough tidal waves in your ocean
as each surge of storm
throbs to be born
until the stone and dust
of autumn yellow moon
casts silhouettes of love and lust
that burst and bloom
through every love-soaked scented night
shuttered from politics so cocooned
in plutocracies of blight.

***

PULSATING FLOWERS

so define me
now you know
the nature of my ways.

understand me
somehow, slow-
love is more, than what it says:

frequent pulsating flowers,
pollening my hands and inky breath;
softening, those quiet hours
through life and death.

close-ups and downs
that fit together,
challenging the bounds
in bonds that stretch forever:

postures in sounds
and elemental words
of surprise and wit-

found in tea leaf grounds
that make reluctant lovers
come to it.

***

OUR TALK

the soft wind, stroking your smiling face,
fingers your fine combed hair, in out of place-
and i know
when you go
nothing can make this mood,
or give its famine food.

our talk, branching through woods and sky
like young leaves, suddenly knowing why-
they need the sun again
to be, and to remain-
more than a copied canopy
to reach the plain out to me.

i lounge, in your living words libation,
with uncommon nouns, uncovered in creation,
and wait for wantings i can be-
where complex minds dwell in that simplicity,
where feelings go to touch
and come to mean so much.

Copyright © 2025 Strider Marcus Jones
All Rights Reserved

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 numerous publications including:  Poppy Road Review; The Galway Review;  The Huffington Post USA; The Stray Branch Literary Magazine; Crack The Spine Literary Magazine; The Lampeter Review; Panoplyzine  Poetry Magazine and Dissident Voice.

Thrilled to have my poem ” The Mess of Thrown-off Clothes” published in the superb Issue 11 of Porch Literary Magazine. Thank you to the Editors and congratulations to all contributors.

The Mess of Thrown-off Clothes

The Mess of Thrown-off Clothes

by Strider Marcus Jones

i listen
to your love beads glisten
in the flotsam
of my room-

we make them
from samurai sword folds
at forge and loom
in the mess of thrown off clothes.

so many smoke me kisses
at portal doors,
and mithril wishes
on primitive floors-

take us back again
through heath and fen
to imitate
lost landscape-

cycle
and circle
sky and stone
outside and home-

in love in less
with your heavenliness,
and loneliness
durable under duress.

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. A member of The Poetry Society, and nominated for both the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, his five published books of poetry reveal a maverick, moving between cities, playing his saxophone in smoky rooms.His poetry has been published in numerous publications including: The Huffington Post USA; The Stray Branch Literary Magazine, Crack The Spine Literary Magazine, The Recusant, The Lampeter Review and Dissident Voice.

Tagged in: 11th Edition, February 2025, Poetry, Strider Marcus Jones

Delighted to have one of my Haiku in the Best of The Mainichi in Japan 2024. Many thanks to Dhugal J Lindsay

https://cdn.mainichi.jp/…/20250210p2a00m0et001…/0.pdf…

Strider Marcus Jones (UK)

turning wheel of time

paddle steamboat roaming down

the Mississippi

June 1, 2024

Comment: We think back to the time of Tom Sawyer.