Strider Marcus Jones's Blog: https://stridermarcusjonespoetry.wordpress.com/, page 9

Really chuffed to have my poem I’m Getting Old Now published in Cajun Mutt Press. My thanks to Editor James Dennis Casey IV

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 07/10/23

I’M GETTING OLD NOW

i’m getting old now-
you know,
like that tree in the yard
with those thick cracks
in its skinbark
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.

Delighted to have my poem Under A Rowan Tree published in Masticadores India. Thankye to brilliant editor/poet Nolcha Fox. Most appreciated.

“UNDER A ROWAN TREE” by Strider Marcus Jones

Under A Rowan Treeunder a rowan tree,
wet wings over me-
open metaphorically,
to drippled drenches
that soak through senses
combing ecstasy.

the long grass sways with rhythmic dancing
oblivious to times passing,
and murmurs flake from summer wind
on bough awake with happening-

afterwards,
in whispered chords-
the pollinated pieces of confession
pout love without repression,
watching pagan sun
through rowan blossom.Copyright Strider Marcus Jones. All Rights Reserved

Delighted to have my poem When You Came In published in Masticadores India. Thankye to brilliant editor/poet Nolcha Fox. Most appreciated.

“WHEN YOU CAME IN” by Strider Marcus Jones

When You Came Inthe air

Tore into shreds

around our heads

in the room

when you came in.

Bare

words

flew out of your chair

like accusing,

Hysterical birds

and pecked at my plume

of silence

spitting vile violence.

I wore the harness

of your darkness

and pulled its load

of false truth

behind my youth-

you told me i was old

and i lost a tooth.

in the scene, that cut the cable,

while we both sat at the table

in the garden-

love's sour jasmine

drooped,

poisoned in its ruined roots,

then you wept to me

and went to him

tears

trailing,

years

jading,

fading

beauty

again.

that was there.

that was then.

a solar flare

of raven hair

around its star,

last light more magnificent than most,

close but far.


Poet from England. Editor and publisher of Lothlorien Poetry Journal. A Poetry Society member, his five published poetry books reveal a maverick, roaming cities, tooting his sax.

https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogs...

https://stridermarcusjonespoetry.word...

Metal Mania | Strider Marcus Jones

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volumes 1-8 Available from

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Edited by Strider Marcus Jones

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 8Echoes Dancing with Shadows

January – Mid February 2022

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 8 (lulu.com)

American poet Carl Sandburg said “poetry is an echo asking a shadow to dance. ” Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 8, features 74 internationally renowned poets and fiction writers as scintillating Echoes Dancing with Shadows including 2022 Pushcart Prize winner – Kurt Fuchs.

“Poetry is an echo asking a shadow to dance” –

                                                         Carl Sandburg

“Rather, I think one should write, as nearly as possible, as if he were the first person on earth and was humbly and sincerely putting on paper that which he saw and experienced and loved and lost; what his passing thoughts were and his sorrows and desires.”

– Neal Cassady to Jack Kerouac

“If you believe you’re a poet, then you’re saved.” – Gregory Corso

“I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn’t know who I was—I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I’d never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn’t know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn’t scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost. I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future.” – Jack Kerouac

“And for just a moment I had reached the point of ecstasy that I always wanted to reach, which was the complete step across chronological time into timeless shadows, and wonderment in the bleakness of the mortal realm.” – Jack Kerouac

The POETS/AUTHORS

Margaret Kiernan

Fred Johnston

Lisa Marguerite Mora

Peter Knight

John Drudge

Karen Mooney

Michael Igoe

Catherine Arra

Julian Matthews

Afiah Obeneewaa Grace Danquah

Adrian David

Susan Tepper

Greg Patrick

Yuu Ikeda

Terry Wheeler

Pragya Suman

Rustin Larson

Imelda O’Reilly

Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

Steve Klepetar

Brittany Hause translations of Ricardo James Freyre

Peter F. Crowley

Fiona Perry

Paul Demuth

Lynn White

Eric Burgoyne

Sana Tampeen Mohammed

Ernesto P. Santiago

Debbie Robson

Gary D. Maxwell

Mandy Beattie

Gale Acuff

Mona Bedi

Sam Barbee

Kushal Poddar

Kim Malinowski

Julian O. Long

Rowena Newman

Heath Brougher

Hibah Shabkhez

Ken Gosse

Margaret Kiernan

Nicholas Alexander Hayes

Debbie Robson

Kurt Luchs

RC deWinter

Douglas V. Miller

David Ades

Alan Catlin

Ursula O’Reilly

Peter Magliocco

Dmitriy Galkovskiy

John Grey

Richard M. Ankers

Wayne F. Burke

Dana Trick

Ethan Vilu

Duane Vorhees

Les Wicks

David Alec Knight

Adele Ogier Jones

James Miller

Angel Edwards

Christopher Barnes

Amita Sarjit Ahluwalia

Daniel Nemo

Doris Wei Tan

GJ Hart

Ngozi Olivia Osuoha

Adrian David

Sunil Sharma

Joe Sebastian

Mohibul Aziz

Bhuwan Thapaliya

Salim Yakubu Akko

Editorial Poems by Strider Marcus Jones                             

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 7Beat CafeNovember – December 2021

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 7 (lulu.com)

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 7 – Beat Cafe, features the outstanding poetry and fiction of over 60 poets and authors from our virtual Beat Cafe with their own modern day take on dystopian reality and fantasy. These internationally renowned poets and authors continue the revolutionary legacy of the original Beat Generation poets and authors and bring their own original take on twenty-first century life and society.Discover poems of enchantment, fantasy, fairy tale, folklore, dreams, dystopian, flora and fauna, magical realism, romance, and anything hiding deep in-between the cracks. Cover Image – Ed van der Elsken – Bohemian Life in Paris 1950-52 “It’s a sort of furtiveness … Like we were a generation of furtive. You know, with an inner knowledge there’s no use flaunting on that level, the level of the ‘public’, a kind of beatness – I mean, being right down to it, to ourselves, because we all really know where we are – and a weariness with all the forms, all the conventions of the world … It’s something like that. So I guess you might say we’re a beat generation.” ― Jack Kerouac “It really was a whole generation who were listening to Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Ella Fitzgerald, Sonny Rollins, James Moody, Fats Navarro and, a little bit later on, Mongo Santamaría and Chuck Berry, and these dozen or so guys gave them a voice. They led the way. They wrote what a whole generation wanted to read. The time was right and they seized the day by writing about their lives. They travelled, they got into scrapes, they got arrested, they got wasted … and they wrote about it. Isn’t that something?” ― Karl Wiggins, Wrong Planet – Searching for your Tribe Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life. — Jack Kerouac Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does. — Allen Ginsberg Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact. — William S. BurroughsBiographical NotesThe Poets & Fiction AuthorsCait O’Neill McCullagh  Tom Bakelas  J.S. Watts  R.T. Castleberry  Antonia Alexandra Klimenko  John D. Robinson  Janice D. Soderling  Greg Patrick Carrie Magness Radna   David Booth  Dr. Ajanta Paul  James Eric Watkins  Mark Blickley  Mark Saba  Piergiorgio Viti  Angel Edwards  John Drudge  Margaret Kiernan  Steve Klepetar  Ursula O’Reilly  John Dorsey  Gaynor Kane  Alec Solomita  Susan Tepper   Johnny Francis Wolf  Oriana Ivy  David L. O’Nan Elizabeth Marino  GJ Hart  Lilija Valis  Richard Wayne Horton  RC deWinter Bruce Morton  Hedy Habra  Robert (Roibeard) Shanahan  Lorraine Caputo  Dennis Villelmi (Williamson)  Oonah V. Joslin  Shine Ballard  Grace Danquah Jason Ryberg  Sister Louella Hickman  Andre F. Peltier  John Doyle  Karen Kerekes Peter Lilley  Cheryl Snell  Ken Gosse  John Knoll  Ursula O’Reilly  Douglas V. MillerMichael H. Brownstein  Rustin Larson  John Guzlowski  Adrian David  Meg Freer Dr Suleman Lazarus  Lynda Tavakoli  Kenneth Hickey  Robert Nisbet

Editorial Poem by Strider Marcus Jones

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 6Druids of Cernunnos – October – November 2021https://www.lulu.com/en/gb/shop/strider-marcus-jones/lothlorien-poetry-journal-volume-6/paperback/product-w6dz5y.html?page=1&pageSize=4 “Once, poets were magicians. Poets were strong, stronger than warriors or kings — stronger than old hapless gods. And they will be strong once again.” ―Greg Bear.
Lothlorien Poetry Journal is a contemporary literary journal featuring free verse/rhyming/experimental poetry, short stories, flash fiction, video poems and occasional interviews with poets. Journey with us on the road to poems that linger and haunt https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/
In Druids of Cernunnos – Volume 6 of Lothlorien Poetry Journal, I am honoured to feature the work of more than seventy renowned poets and authors from the USA, Canada, Australia, India, Ireland, England, and most of Europe and South America. Like Druids, Poets are guardians of our past, present and future. This volume brings you mesmeric poems and stories of fantasy and folklore, dystopia and nature, with magical realism and anything hiding deep in-between the cracks about relationships and most aspects of life. Enjoy reading this superb eclectic collection by some of the finest contemporary poets and fiction writers.
Lothlorien Poetry Journal nominates for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Help spread the beauty of Lothlorien Poetry Journal. Submit, follow, join the site and invite your friends. Copyright 2021. All Rights Reserved. The artists have reserved their right under Section 77 Of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the authors of their work. Cover image – a black and white photograph of a Druid of Cernunnos.DetailsPublication DateJan 11, 2022 Language English ISBN9781716010835 Category Poetry Copyright All Rights Reserved – Standard Copyright License Contributors.Edited by: Strider Marcus JonesSpecificationsPages244BindingPaperbackInterior ColorBlack & WhiteDensionsCrown Quarto (7.44 x 9.68 in / 189 x 246 mm)
Thank you to the following esteemed poets and authors for your superb poetry and stories in Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 6 – Druids of Cernunnos. You have my sincere respect and appreciation. I am honoured to publish your work. ~ Strider 

The POETS/AUTHORS Steve Klepetar Oonah V. Joslin Ivan de Monbrison Heather Cameron Jeremy Scott Mary Ellen Talley John Drudge Christine Tabaka Stephen Guy Mallett Antonia Alexandra Klimenko Robert (Roibeard) Shanahan Subraman David Russell Angel Edwards Adrian David Temani Nkalolang John Grey Adele Ogier Jones David L O’Nan Ursula O’Reilly Prince A McNally Margaret Kiernan Keith Hoerner Mona Bedi Scott Thomas Outlar M A Blickley Philip Dodd Sissy Pantelis Nathan Anderson Michael Lee Johnson Grant Tarbard Stephen House Dana Trick Vijay Nair GJ Hart Lara Dolphin J B Hogan Shelly Blankman John Patrick Robbins Lynda Tavakoli Ken Gosse Rose Mary Boehm Paul Edward Costa Jeanna Ni Riordain Alec Solomita David Parsley Lathalia Song Yash Seyed Bagheri J D Nelson Emma Jo Black John Drudge Mihaela Melnic A E Reiff Moe Seager Jyoti Nair George Sandifer – Smith Amrita Valan Kofi Fosu Forson Amita Paul Ryan Quinn Flanagan Candice Kelsey Edward Lee Jonel Abellanosa Stephen A Rozwenc Steven Deutsch S.C. Flynn Marie C. Lecrivain Silk Joshua Martin Margaret Kiernan Terry Wheeler Sandy Rochelle Alan Catlin Tricia Knoll R. Bremner Heather Sager

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 5Metropolis Drift August – September 2021

https://www.lulu.com/…/paperback/product-rqzjg9.html..

“Once, poets were magicians. Poets were strong, stronger than warriors or kings — stronger than old hapless gods. And they will be strong once again.” ―Greg Bear.Lothlorien Poetry Journal is a contemporary literary journal featuring free verse/rhyming/experimental poetry, short stories, flash fiction, video poems and occasional interviews with poets. Journey with us on the road to poems that linger and haunt https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/In Metropolis Drift – Volume 5 of Lothlorien Poetry Journal, I am honoured to feature the work of seventy-seven renowned poets and authors from the USA, Canada, Australia, India, Ireland, England, and most of Europe and South America, bring you mesmeric poems and stories of fantasy and folklore, dystopia and nature, with magical realism and anything hiding deep in-between the cracks about relationships and most aspects of life. Lothlorien Poetry Journal nominates for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Help spread the beauty of Lothlorien Poetry Journal. Submit, follow, join the site and invite your friends. Copyright 2021. All Rights Reserved. The artists have reserved their right under Section 77 Of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the authors of their work.Cover image – a black and white photograph of lovers in Paris caught up in Metropolis Drift.Maria: “We shall build a tower that will reach to the stars!” Having conceived Babel, yet unable to build it themselves, they had thousands to build it for them. But those who toiled knew nothing of the dreams of those who planned. And the minds that planned the Tower of Babel cared nothing for the workers who built it. The hymns of praise of the few became the curses of the many – BABEL! BABEL! BABEL! – Between the mind that plans and the hands that build there must be a Mediator, and this must be the heart.Metropolis – Directed by Fritz Lang 1927

Thank you to the following esteemed poets and authors for your superb poetry and stories in Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 5 – Metropolis Drift. You have my sincere respect and appreciation. I am honoured to publish your work. ~ Strider 

 The POETS/AUTHORS 

Antonia Alexandra KlimenkoSteve KlepetarMihaela MelnicJohn DrudgeTobi AlfierJohn DoyleMarianne SzlykJim Lewis (j. lewis)beamTim HeerdinkJeana JorgensenMarc di SaverioMargaret KiernanGJ HartSusan TepperKen GosseLisa ReynoldsMichael J. LeachAngel EdwardsJ.D. NelsonSherzod ArtikovJoan McNerneyAlec SolomitaKathryn Ann HillMichael Lee JohnsonHazel StorrNick NewmanPea Flower TomiokaAlan CatlinDana TrickGary BillsAdi RaturiAndrew Cyril MacdonaldJoe SebastianLauren ScharhagDavid EstringelRC deWinterSterling WarnerEllen ChiaMoe SeagerRose Mary BoehmPhilip Dean BrownIulia GhergheiIvan de MonbrisonMargaret Adams BirthJohn DoyleAdele Ogier JonesGiovanni MangianteElana WolffMarc di SaverioGinger Covert CollaLuis Cuauhtemoc BerriozabalCharlotte CosgroveJohn DrudgeSarah RobinTyler LetkemanBob BeagrieLouis KasatkinAmita Sarjit AhluwaliaTom MontagSusan TepperLynn LongRandy BarnesAntonia Alexandra KlimenkoMargaret KiernanGreg PatrickBen DouglassSusan TepperR.W. StephensHowie GoodJohn DoyleZvi A. SeslingUrsula O’ReillyStark HunterGeoff SawersJohn Patrick RobbinsPaul Ilechko
Editorial Poem by Strider Marcus Jones                                        Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 4Sentient Soulshttps://www.lulu.com/en/gb/shop/strider-marcus-jones/lothlorien-poetry-journal-volume-4/paperback/product-d7v4eg.html?page=1&pageSize=4 “Once, poets were magicians. Poets were strong, stronger than warriors or kings — stronger than old hapless gods. And they will be strong once again.” ―Greg Bear Lothlorien Poetry Journal is a contemporary literary journal featuring free verse/rhyming/experimental poetry, short stories, flash fiction, video poems and occasional interviews with poets. Journey with us on the road to poems that linger and haunt https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/ In Sentient Souls – Volume 4 of Lothlorien Poetry Journal, seventy-seven renowned poets and authors bring you mesmeric poems and stories of fantasy and folklore, dystopia and nature, with magical realism and anything hiding deep in-between the cracks. Lothlorien Poetry Journal nominates for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Help spread the beauty of Lothlorien Poetry Journal. Submit, follow, join the site and invite your friends. Copyright 2021. All Rights Reserved. The artists have reserved their right under Section 77 Of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the authors of their work. Cover black and white photograph by Markus Zaiser ISBN 978-1-7948-8738-1Editorial Poem by Strider Marcus Jones                                           

Thank you to the following esteemed poets and authors for your superb poetry and stories in Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 4 – Sentient Souls. You have my sincere respect and appreciation. I am honoured to publish your work. ~ Strider The POETS/AUTHORS John Drudge Rose Mary Boehm John Doyle Sara Clancy D. R. James Elle Renee Morgan Steve Klepetar Margaret Kiernan Bruce McRae Catherine Arra Ken Gosse Miriam Sagan Tohm Bakelas Adele Ogier Jones John Grey Amrita Valan Danny D. Ford Mihaela Melnic Jason de Koff Gulchehra Asronova Louis Kasatkin Angel Edwards Michael La Bombarda Yuu Ikeda Alec Solomita Susan Tepper Johanna Antonia Zomers Sheila Tucker Tom Montag Afiah Obenewaa Adrian David Andrena Zawinski Greg Patrick Ursula O’Reilly R. W. Stephens pj johnson Stephen House Patricia Walsh Scott C. Kaestner RC de Winter Stephen Anderson Kathryn Ann Hill Chris Campbell Linda Imbler Catfish McDaris Jana Hunterova & Mark Blickley Nicholas Alexander Hayes Agnes Vojta Alan S. Kleiman Cornelia Smith Fick Math Jones Candice James Michael J. Leach Sadie Maskery Richard D. Houff Josie Di Sciascio-Andrews Rustin Larson Lilija Valis Nodirabegim Ibrokhimova Chad Norman Kaci Skiles Laws Shelby Stephenson Rafaella Del Bourgo Jonel Abellanosa Lynn White Lawrence Moore Aysegul Yildirim Sherzod Artikov Michael Igoe Geoffrey Prince Chae Paterson

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 3Flowers in Stones May – June 2021https://www.lulu.com/en/gb/shop/strider-marcus-jones/lothlorien-poetry-journal-volume-3/paperback/product-5n5zzz.html?page=1&pageSize=4

Lothlorien Poetry Journal is a contemporary literary journal featuring free verse/rhyming/experimental poetry, short stories, flash fiction, video poems and occasional interviews with poets. Journey with us on the road to poems that linger and haunt https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/ Discover poems of enchantment, fantasy, fairy tale, folklore, dreams, dystopian, flora and fauna, magical realism, romance, and anything hiding deep in-between the cracks. Lothlorien Poetry Journal nominates for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Help spread the beauty of Lothlorien Poetry Journal. Submit, follow, join the site and invite your friends. Volume 3 of Lothlorien Poetry Journal features 240 pages of scintillating poetry and fiction from 61 world renowned poets and authors living in the U.S.A., Canada, Australia, England, Ireland, Peru and many more countries where poetry is a literary force for seed change in society. Enjoy this exciting blend of poetic styles and the sharing of cultural diversity that brings us all closer together in our rapidly changing world. If you like contemporary world poetry, this book is perfect reading for poets and fiction writers and those new to both genres. It is an excellent resource of teaching materials for teachers and students alike and will inspire the reader to enjoy writing poetry and fiction with confidence.

lorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/ 

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Tweets by LothlorienJ

Editorial Poem by Strider Marcus Jones

 

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 2 – Bard Songs and Tales                                                    

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 2 – Bard Songs and Tales

March 2021 – April 2021https://www.lulu.com/en/gb/shop/lilija-valis-and-michael-lee-johnson-and-lynda-tavakoli-and-kevin-m-hibshman/lothlorien-poetry-journal-volume-2-bard-songs-and-tales/paperback/product-kgyg8r.html?page=1&pageSize=4

Edited by Strider Marcus Jones Paperback

Lothlorien Poetry Journal is a literary journal featuring free verse/rhyming/experimental poetry, short stories, flash fiction, video poems and occasional interviews with poets. Journey with us on the road to poems that linger and haunt https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/ Discover poems of enchantment, fantasy, fairy tale, folklore, dreams, dystopian, flora and fauna, magical realism, romance, and anything hiding deep in-between the cracks. Lothlorien Poetry Journal nominates for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Help spread the beauty of Lothlorien Poetry Journal. Submit, follow, join the site and invite your friends. Copyright 2021. All Rights Reserved. The artists have reserved their right under Section 77 Of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the authors of their work. Cover Image – Pete Seeger Banjo, Annie Leibovitz. ISBN 978-1-300-15598-0 “If you have the words, there’s always a chance that you’ll find the way.” ― Seamus Heaney, Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney.

Details

Publication DateAug 25, 2021LanguageEnglishISBN9781300155980CategoryPoetryCopyrightAll Rights Reserved – Standard Copyright LicenseContributorsEdited by: Strider Marcus Jones, By (author): Kevin M Hibshman, By (author): Lynda Tavakoli, By (author): Michael Lee Johnson, By (author): Lilija Valis

Specifications

Pages252BindingPaperbackInterior ColorBlack & WhiteDimensionsCrown Quarto (7.44 x 9.68 in / 189 x 246 mm)

Lothlorien Poetry Journal’s second published volume of poetry and prose features the exceptional poetry and fiction of 72 internationally renowned poets and fiction authors. Join us on our journey in Bard Songs and Tales. Be moved and inspired by their sublime individual poetic voices from every continent and discover that there is more to life that unites us than divides us..~ StriderThe Poets: 

Kevin M. Hibshman Lynda Tavakoli Michael Lee Johnson Lilija Valis Joe Kidd Antonia Alexandra Klimenko Peter Magliocco RC deWinter John Drudge Jessica Stilling Kushal Poddar Margaret Kiernan John Grey Adele Ogier Jones Brian Rihlmann Kashiana Singh Donny Winter Pam Muller Stephen House Mary Grace van der Kroef Christopher Barnes Heather McQueen David Callin Patricia Walsh Steve Klepetar Jyoti Nair Moe Seager Bern Butler Jon Bennett Anabell Donovan Tom Montag Katherine Suto G.J. Hart Maisie Russel Terry Wheeler Iolanda Leotta William Derge Susan Tepper Glen Wilson Julie Stevens David Butler Pratibha Castle Kevin Ahern Christina Martin Laszlo Aranyi Dana Trick Stephen Paul Wren Allison Grayhurst Ken Gosse Tim Goldstone Catherine Zickgraf James Walton Joan Leotta J.D. Nelson Angel Edwards John Maxwell O’Brien Roisin Browne Oz Hardwick Gordon Ferris Richard D. Houff John Patrick Robbins Gerard Sheehy Rie Sheriden Rose Paul Koniecki Judith Skillman Robert Pegel Benjamin Adair Murphy Catherine Strisik Alec Solomita Afiah Obenewaa Gregory Brendan Patrick Anca Vlasopolos

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 1 – The Fellowship of the Pen

Selected Submissions from January and February 2021 

Paperback and E-book Now Available at Lulu.com

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Edited by Strider Marcus Jones

Lothlorien Poetry Journal is a literary journal featuring free verse/rhyming/experimental poetry, short stories, flash fiction, video poems and occasional interviews with poets. Journey with us on the road to poems that linger and haunt https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/ Discover poems of enchantment, fantasy, fairy tale, folklore, dreams, dystopian, flora and fauna, magical realism, romance, and anything hiding deep in-between the cracks. Lothlorien Poetry Journal nominates for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Help spread the beauty of Lothlorien Poetry Journal. Submit, follow, join the site and invite your friends. Copyright 2021. All Rights Reserved. The artists have reserved their right under Section 77 Of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the authors of their work. Cover Image – Arno Rafael Minkkinen Self-portrait, Foster’s Pond, 2000. ISBN 978-1-008-90450-7 “There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven’t met ” Yeats.

Details

Publication Date7/14/2021LanguageEnglishISBN9781008904507CategoryPoetryCopyrightAll Rights Reserved – Standard Copyright LicenseContributorsBy (author): Lauren Scharhag, Steve Klepetar, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Attracta Fahy, Antonia A Klimenco, J S Watts, Scott Thomas Outlar, Lorraine Caputo, John W Sexton, Louise Ceres, Moe Seager, Christine Tabaka, John Drudge, Denise O’Hagan, Edited by: Strider Marcus Jones

Specifications

Pages228BindingPaperbackInterior ColorBlack & WhiteDimensionsCrown Quarto (7.44 x 9.68 in / 189 x 246 mm)

Lothlorien Poetry Journal’s first published volume of poetry and prose features the work of sixty three internationally renowned poets and authors. Join us on our journey in The Fellowship of the Pen. Be moved and inspired by their individual poetic voices from every continent on Earth and discover that there is more to life that unites us than divides us. 

The Poets: 

J S Watts Steve Klepetar Lauren Scharhag John Drudge Antonia Alexandra Klimenco Gopal Lahiri Adele Ogier Jones John Grey Ceinwen E Cariad Haydon DAH Louise Ceres Michael Minassian Simra Sadaf Moe Seager Patricia Walsh Scott Thomas Outlar Yuu Ikeda J D Nelson Fotoula Reynolds Terry Wheeler Denise O’Hagan Max Heinegg Attracta Fahy Stephen House Lorraine Caputo Ryan Quinn Flanagan Laily Mahoozi Christopher Cadra Christine Tabaka G J Hart Lynda Tavakoli Prithvijeet Sinha Elizabeth Mercurio Robert ( Roibeard ) Shanahan Christina Martin Tim Heerdink Isobel Granby Poul Lynggaard Damgaard Jeanna Ni Riordain Tom Montag Susan Tepper John Patrick Robbins Angel Edwards John W Sexton Soodabeh Saeidnia Jonathan Butcher Patricia Nelson Michael Durack Kathryn Crowley Roger Haydon Sultana Raza Januario Esteves Margaret Kiernan Grant Tarbard Greg Patrick Marie C Lecrivain Steven Fortune Iulia Gherghei Arik Mitra Lisa Reynolds Ken Gosse Bruce Morton Will Nuessle

Editorial Poem by Strider Marcus Jones

Thrilled to be interviewed by Mitali Chakravarty in Borderless Journal April 14th, 2022 – When a Hobo in a Fedora Hat Breathes Tolkien…

https://borderlessjournal.com/2022/04/14/when-a-hobo-in-a-fedora-hat-breathes-tolkien%ef%bf%bc/

INTERVIEW

When a Hobo in a Fedora Hat Breathes Tolkien…

‘My Lothlorien is a more peaceful world, with more tolerance of other individuals and cultures. Not perfect by any stretch but a place where people laugh, have their neighbours back and work with each other. A place of social justice and equality, music, poetry and art.’

In conversation with Strider Marcus Jones

i’m come home again

in your Lothlorien

Strider Marcus Jones wrote these lines about an idyllic utopia that was named Lothlorien by JRR Tolkien in Lord of the Rings. Jones writes beautiful poetry that touches the heart with its music and lyricality and recreates a world that hums with peace, beauty, acceptance and tolerance – values that have become more precious than gems in the current world of war, strife and distress. He has created his own Lothlorien in the form of a journal which he has named after the elfin utopia of Tolkien. An avid reader and connoisseur of arts, for him all his appreciation congeals in the form of poetry which draws from music, art and he says, perhaps even his legal training! Let us stride into his poetic universe to uncover more about a man who seems to be reclusive and shy about facing fame and says he learns from not just greats but every poet he publishes.

What started you out as a writer? What got your muse going and when?

In my childhood, I sought ways to escape the poverty of the slums in Salford. My escape, while gathering floorboards from condemned houses every winter and carrying them through back entries in crunching snow to our flat, above two shops for my dad to chop up and burn on the fire was to live in my imagination. I was an explorer and archaeologist discovering lost civilisations and portals to new dimensions our mind’s had lost the ability to see and travel between since the time of the druids. Indoors I devoured books on ancient history, artists, and poetry from the library. I was fascinated by the works of Picasso, Gauguin, Bruegel and many others and sketched some of their paintings. Then one day, my pencil stopped sketching and started to compose words into lines that became “raw” poems.  My first mentor was Anne Ryan, who taught me English Literature at High School when I was fourteen. Before this, I had never told anyone I was writing poetry. My parents, siblings and friends only found out when I was in my twenties and comfortable in myself with being a ranger, a maverick in reality and imagination.

When I read your poetry, I am left wondering… Do you see yourself in the tradition of a gypsy/mendicant singing verses or more as a courtly troubadour or something else?

I don’t have the legs to be a courtly troubadour in tights and my voice sounds like a blacksmith pounding a lump of metal on his anvil.

I feel and relate to being gypsy and am proud of my Celtic roots passed down to me from my Irish Gypsy grandmother on my Father’s side who read the tea leaves, keys, rings, and other items telling people’s fortunes for years with scary accuracy. I seem to have inherited some of her seer abilities for premonition.

Like my evening single malt whiskey, age has matured the idealism of my youth and hardened my resolve to give something back to the world and society for giving me this longevity in it. The knocks from the rough and tumble of life have hardened my edges, but my inner core still glows like Aragorn’s calm courage and determination in the quest to bring about a more just and fairer world that protects its innocent people and polluted environment. Since Woody Guthrie, Tom Waits and Bukowski are influences I identify with deeply, I suppose I am a mendicant in some of my poetry but a romantic and revolutionary too, influenced by Neruda, Rumi, Byron, and Shelley shielded by The Tree of Life in Tolkien’s Lothlorien:

THE HEAD IN HIS FEDORA HATa lonely man,cigarette,rainand musicin a strange wind blowingmoving,not knowing,a gypsy caravanwhose journey doesn't expectto go backand explainwhy everyone's ruts have the sameblood and vein.the head in his fedora hatbows to no one's gripbrim tilted inwardsconcealing his vineyardsof lyrical prosein a chaos composedto be exposed,go, gitawedand jawedperfect and flawed,songs from the borderlessplainwhere no one has domainand his outlaw witmust confessto remaina storytellerthat hobo fellaa listening barflyfor a while,the word-winged butterflywhose stylethey can't close the shutters onor stop talking aboutwhen he walks outand is gone.whiskey and tequilawith a woman who can feel yainside her, and know she's not Opheliaas ya move as one,to a closer and simplistic,unmaterialistictribal Babylon,becomes so,when she stands, spreadall arms and legsin her EskimoGaladriel glow,sharing mithril breath,no more suburban settlementsand tortured tenementsof death,just a fenceless forestand mountain questswith a place to reston her suckled breasts,hanging high, swinging slow.war clouds HARPthrough stripped leaves and bark,where bodies sleeping in houseboat bonesreflect and creak in cobbled stones:smokey sparks from smoked cigarsdrop like meteorites from streetlight stars,as cordons crush civil rightsunder Faust's fascist Fahrenheit’s. one more whiskey for the road.another story lived and toldunder thatfedora hatinhaling smokeas he sang and spokestranger fellastoryteller.

You seem to have a fascination for JRR Tolkien. You have a poem and a journal by the name of Lothlorien. Why this fascination? Do you think that JRR Tolkien is relevant in the current context? We are after all, reverting to a situation similar to a hundred years ago.

Yes, on all counts. Tolkien and his Lord of The Rings trilogy have been part of my life since I first read one summer when I was twelve years old.  My young mind, starved of adventure and elevenses in Salford’s slums, willingly absorbed the myths and magic, lore’s and legends beguiling me to enter the ‘Age of Man’. This living in a time of relative peace alongside other, more ancient races with musical-poetic languages reflected part of my own reality in living through the Cold War decades under the impending doom of nuclear annihilation where daily life often felt the shadows cast by the Cuban Missile Crisis, war in Vietnam, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, and famine in Biafra.

Sauron’s evil eye and invading armies echo an outgoing President Eisenhower’s ominous warning to curtail the influence and corruption of the banking-military-industrial-complex. Instead, Martin Luther King and President John F Kennedy were assassinated and a surveillance state and gilded slavery ideology is being imposed globally using artificial intelligence. Ancient civilisations in Iraq and Libya have been destroyed for control of oil and to maintain global Petro dollar power. Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings is just as relevant today in Ukraine, Yemen, and Syria and as it was through the slaughters of Verdun, the Somme and Flanders Fields. It is a warning that good must prevail over evil and this burden is borne by those with courage and conviction who cannot be corrupted.  

What is your Lothlorien? What does poetry mean to you and your existence?

My Lothlorien is a more peaceful world, with more tolerance of other individuals and cultures. Not perfect by any stretch but a place where people laugh, have their neighbours back and work with each other. A place of social justice and equality, music, poetry and art. It is no place for racism, sexism, ageism, corruption, or war. A kind of homestead with birdsong, forest, mountains and rivers, preferably in the French Pyrenees or Alaskan Bush. A place of words composed into poems and stories read and spoken, passed down and added to by each inspired generation in the Native American tradition. Poetry is all about communication and community in my existence. We are caretakers of our words and the world.

You have used Orwell, Gaugin and many more references in your poetry. Which are the writers and artists that influence you the most? What do you find fascinating about them?

Individuality of expression through fiction, poetry, art and music fascinates me. Now, at 62 years of age so many have influenced my poetry with or without me knowing or realising it. These include:

From the past – Chaucer, Tennyson, Shelley, Keats, Blake, W.B. Yeats, Auden, Langston Hughes, Hart Crane, Sexton, Plath, Kerouac, Heaney, Lorca, Orwell, Dickens, Dylan Thomas, Tolkien, Steinbeck, Heller, Donaldson, P.D. James, Ian Rankin, Vonnegut, Dostoyevsky, Rilke, Rumi, E.E.Cummings, Neruda, Leadbelly, Robert Johnson, Miles Davis, Thelonious  Monk, John Coltrane, Dylan, Tom Waits. So many.

From now – They know who they are. I have published their work in Lothlorien Poetry Journal.

You play instruments — saxophone and clarinet? Does that impact your poetry?

Saying I play instruments is a huge stretch of the imagination. I get strange notes out of my saxophone and clarinet that must sound like a hurricane blowing in anyone’s ears. My black Labrador, Mysty, covers her ears with her paws but I enjoy trying to play. I love jazz music, anything from the 1920s to early 70s, but Miles Davis, Monk, Coltrane, Mingus, and Ornette Coleman took jazz music to a level that transcends mortality.

Jazz music continues to be a profound influence in my poetry. I will explain how.     

Does any kind of music impact your writing?

In some way, unbeknown to me, jazz music, particularly that of Davis, Monk and Coltrane runs parallel to and interweaves with the rhythms of how I think when I write poetry. It closes my mind to the distractions of the outside world. The sound of those perfect and imperfect notes opens a door in my mind, I close my eyes, float into this dark room and my senses fill with images and words, which hover in the air like musical notes where I conduct them into rhythms and phrases bonded to a theme. Some become poems, others disintegrate into specks of dust, the moment gone. Sometimes, the idea and train of thought sleeps in my subconscious for years. This happened with my poems “Visigoth Rover” and “Life is Flamenco” which come from   my sojourns randomly wandering through Spain but were born years later listening to Paco playing Spanish guitar and Flamenco music which is another key influence in my poetry.

VISIGOTH ROVERi went on the bus to Cordoba,and tried to find the Moor'sleft overin their excavated floorsand mosaic courtyards,with hanging flowers brightly chameleonagainst whitewashed wallscarrying callsbehind gated iron bars-but they were goneleaving mosque archesand carved storiesto God's doors.in those ancient streetswhere everybody meets-i saw the old successful menwith their younger women again,sat in chrome slat chairs,drinking coffee to covertheir vain love affairs-and every breast,was like the crestof a soft ridgeas i peeped overthe castle wall and Roman bridgelike a Visigoth rover.soft hand tapping on shoulder,heavy hairand beauty older,the gypsy lady gave her cloverto borrowed breath, embroidering it for death,adding more to lesslike the colours fading in her dress.time and tune are too plannedto understandher Trevi fountain of prediction,or the dirty Bernini handshaping its description.LIFE IS FLAMENCOwhy can't i walk as farand smoke more tobacco,or play my Spanish guitarlike Paco,putting rhythms and feelingswithout old ceilingsyou've never heardbefore in a word.life is flamenco,to come and gohigh and lowfast and slow-she loves him,he loves herand their shades withincaress and spurin a ride and danceof tempestuous romance.outback, in Andalucian ease,i embrace you, like melted breezeamongst ripe olive trees-dark and different,all manly scentand mind unkempt.like i do,Picasso kneweverything about youwhen he drewyour elongated arms and legsaround me, in this perpetual bedof emotionand motionfor these soft geometric anglesin my finger strokesand exhaled smokes of rhythmic banglesto circle colour your Celtic skinwith primitive phthalo bluepigment in wiccan tattoobefore enteringvibrating wingsthrough thrumming stringsof wild lucid momentsin eternal components.i can walk as farand smoke more tobacco,and play my Spanish guitarlike Paco.

Tell us about how music and language weaves into your poetry — “i’m come home again” — there is no effort at punctuation — and yet the poem is clear and lyrical. I really love this poem – Lothlorien. Can you tell me how you handle the basic tool of words and grammar in your poetry?

In my mind, music is poetry through sound instead of words. Like words, the combinations of notes and pauses have intricate rhythms and phrases. In many of my poems like “Lothlorien” and those above, I weave the rhythms and phrases of jazz music or Spanish guitar and words together with run on lines so there is no need for punctuation. This gives these poems, and many others a spontaneity and energy which feels more natural and real and has a potent, more immediate impact on the senses and emotions when combined with images and happenings. This whole process feels natural to me. It began in my early twenties, when I was listening to old Blues and the likes of Leadbelly and Robert Johnson alongside Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Tom Waits and Neil Young. These are the raw underbelly notes of my pain and anger at the world. Jazz is the mellow top notes. I hope this makes sense. It is hard to explain something that is natural to and part of who I am, so forgive any lack of clarity.

Sometimes, I just like to add a moment of mischievous fun to a serious poem as in these two:

REJECTING OVIDthe fabulous beauty of your face-so esoteric,not always in this place-beguiles me.it's late, mesmericsmile is but a base,a film to interfacewith the movements of the mind behind it.my smile, me-like Thomas O'Malleythe alleycat reclining on a tin bin lidwith fishy whiskers-turns the ink in the valleyof your quillsinto script,while i sitand sipyour syllableswith fresh red sepals of hibiscus,rejecting Ovidand his Amoresfor your stories.OLD CAFEa rest, from swinging barand animals in the abattoir-to smoke in mental thinksspoken holding cooling drinks.counting out old coppers to be fedin the set squares of blue and redplastic tablecloth-just enough to break up bread in thick barley broth.Jesus is lateafter saying he was comingback to share the wealth and real estateof 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'sand it's institutions of Moriarty's.some shepherds’ sheep will do this dancein hypothermic trance,for one pound an hourlike a shamed flower,watched by sinister sentinels-while scratched tubular bells,summon all to Sunday servicewhere invisible myths exist-to a shamed flowerwith supernatural powercome the hour.

How do you compose a poem? Is it spontaneous or is it something you do? Do you hear the lines or voices or is it in some other way?

Most poems come from life’s experiences and observations of people, places, nature, and events. These can be from the past, or present and sometimes premonitions of the future which often overlap depending on the theme/s and where I want it to go.

When it comes to composing a poem, I am not robotic, and neither is my Muse. I have no set time and never write for the sake of writing something each day which I find disrupts my subconscious process. A poem can begin at any time of day or night, but my preferred time to think and write is mid-evening going through to witching hour and beyond. I put some music on low, pour myself a slow whiskey and sit down in my favourite chair with pen and folded paper. I never try to force a poem. The urge to write just occurs. I don’t know how, or why. It just happens. My subconscious finds the thread, thinks it through and the poem begins to unravel on the page. I care about the poems since they care about the world and the people in it. So, I often agonise for days and in some cases years, over lines and words and structure, crossing out words and whole lines until they feel right. Editing, and redrafting is a crucial part of the writing process and requires courage and discipline. Butchering your own work feels barbaric in the moment but enhances your poetic voice and strengthens the impact of a poem on the reader.

You are a lawyer and in the Civil Service in UK. How does law blend with poetry?

I am a law graduate and retired legal adviser to the magistrates’ courts/civil servant who retired early. I have never practiced as a lawyer.

I never think about law when I write, but I am sure the discipline brings organisation to the orderly chaos of Spinoza’s universe that resembles the space inside my head.

Tell us about your journal. When and how did you start it?

I started Lothlorien Poetry Journal in January 2021. I publish the online rolling blog of poetry and fiction and printed book volumes — currently standing at eight issues featuring established and emerging poets and fiction writers published on the LPJ blog.

We are a friendly literary journal featuring free verse/rhyming/experimental poetry, short stories, flash fiction, and occasional interviews with poets.

We love poems about enchantment, fantasy, fairy tale, folklore, dreams, dystopian, flora and fauna, magical realism, romance, and anything hiding deep in-between the cracks.

I publish Lothlorien Poetry Journal periodically, 4-6 issues every year. Contributors to each issue (selected from the best work published on the Journal’s Blog) are notified prior to publication and receive a free PDF copy of the issue that features their work.

We nominate for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.

 What do you look for in a poet as a publisher?

I look for a poet or writer’s distinct voice, that spark of originality in their theme/s, the rhythm and musicality in their language and phrasing.  I have no boundaries as to style, form, or subject – prose, rhyming, free verse, sonnets, haiku, experimental or mavericks who break the rules and write about the darker underbelly of society – if it is good and not offensive, racist or sexist Lothlorien Poetry Journal could be the natural home for your work. The best way to find out is to come to Lothlorien, have a read, and decide to submit.

LOTHLORIENi'm come home againin your Lothloriento marinate my mindin your words,and stand behindgood tribes grown blind,trapped in old absurdregressive reasonsand selfish treasons.in this cast of strifethe Tree of Lifeembraces innocent ghosts,slain by Sauron's hosts-and their falling criesmake us wiseenough to riseup in a fellowship of friendsto oppose Mordor's endsand smote this evil strongerand longerfor each one of us that dies.i'm come home againin your Lothlorien,persuadingyellow snapdragonsto take wingand un-fang serpent krakens-while i bringall the racesto resumetheir bloomas equals in equal spacesby removingand mutingthe chorus of cricketswho cheat them from chambered thickets,hiding corruptions older than long grassthat still fag for favours asked.i'm come home againin your Lothlorienwhere corporate warfareand workfareon healthand welfareinfests our tribal bodiesand separate selfin political lobbiesso conscience can't careor shareworth and wealth-to rally dronesof walking bones,too tiredand uninspiredto think things throughand the powerless who see it true.red unites, blue divides,which one are youand what will you dowhen reason decides.IN THE TALK OF MY TOBACCO SMOKEi have disconnected selffrom the wire of the worldretreated to this unmade croftof wild grass and savage stonemoored mountainsset in seablue black green greydyed all the colours of my moodand liquid language-to climb rocksinstead of rungsliving with themmoving around their settlementsof revolutionary random placefor simple solitary glory.i am reduced againto elements and matterthat barter her body for foodteasing and turningher flesh to take words and plough.rapid rainslaps the skinon honest handsstrongly gentlewhile sowing seedsthe way i touch my loverin the talk of my tobacco smoke:now she knowsshe tasteslike all the dropsof my dreamsfalling on the forestof our Lothlorien.

Thanks for your lovely poetry and time.

(This is an online interview conducted by Mitali Chakravarty.)

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Really chuffed to have 10 of my poems published in and be interviewed by editor Hezekiah Scretch in Issue 10 of Fleas on the Dog online. Congratulations to all the poets and authors in this brilliant issue and to editors Tom, Charles, Joey, Hezekiah, Janet

https://fleasonthedog.com/

https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/9a0949f4-1d2a-4a7c-b9fb-a96b9b6bd861/downloads/P_5%20_10%20Poems_%20by%20Strider%20Marcus%20Jones.pdf?ver=1636847122728

1opoems = (5) poems + 5 = TEN poems…..
By Strider Marcus Jones

WHY I LIKE IT: Poetry Editor HEZEKIAH writes… Strider Marcus Jones plays on words
like an inveterate, pathological lyre as he bows and strums us, plucking me, at least, from my
melancholy melodies, monotonous monotones and doggerel doldrums with his mellifluous meter
and tone. (I spitefully longed to eliminate at least one of his ten poems, but woe is me.) His
imagery is imaginatively immersing; his phrasing and figures of speech overflowing; and, his
symbolism, story, syntax and sound spill over the page with cascading cadence in a most
spellbinding scintillating style. (Besides, he owes me money and cheats at cards.) Here is a
sampling of the scoundrels verse: “to watch you / swan turned shrew- / hairbrush out all
memory and meaning,” “the heart of truth- / intact in youth,” A “Savage” homage to Gauguin:
“beauty and syphilis happily cohabit,” “inseminating womb / selected by pheromones”
(Presumably referring Paul’s pursuits after he left the banking business.) Lots more gems here,
but don’t underlook ‘IN THE COME AND GO, I MIND YOU’ If I understand anything about inyou-end-oh, the double entendres are delightful… Nice tribute to Tolkien in there somewhere too
for you LOTR devotees. Strider’s light, slight-of-hand writing is as masterful as his pockets are
shallow and his head is swelled…
(Spacing is poet’s own.)HS

SALTED SLUG

your words stung,
and hung
me upside down, inside out,
to watch you
swan turned shrew

hairbrush out all memory and meaning,
from those fresco pictures on the wet plaster ceiling

that my Michelangelo took years to paint,
in glorious colours, now flaked and full of hate.
the lights of our Pleiades went out,
with no new songs to sing and talk about

to hear deaths symphony alone,
split and splattered, opened on the floor,
repenting for nothing, evermore

like a salted slug,
curdled and curled up on the rug

to melt away
while you spoon and my colours fade to grey.
the heart of truth

intact in youth,
fractures into fronds of lies and trust,
destined to become a hollow husk

but i found myself again in hopes congealing pools
and left the field of fools
to someone else

and put her finished book back on its shelf.

CHILDHOOD FIRES

late afternoon
winter fingers
nomads in snow
numb knuckles and nails
on two boys
in scuffed shoes
and ripped coats
carrying four planks of wood
from condemned houses
down dark jitty’s
slipping on dog shit
into back yard
to make warm fires
early evening
dad cooking neck end stew
thick with potato dumplings and herbs
on top of bread soaked in gravy
i saw the hole in the ceiling
holding the foot that jumped off bunk beds
but dad didn’t mind
he had just sawed the knob
off the banister
to get an old wardrobe upstairs
and made us a longbow and cricket bat
it was fun being poor
like other families
after dark
all sat down reading and talking
in candle light
with parents
silent to each other
our sudden laughter like sparks
glowing and fading
dancing in flames and wood smoke
unlike the children who died in a fire next door
then we played cards
and i called my dad a cunt
for trumping my king
but he let me keep the word

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.

WOODED WINDOWS

as this long life slowly goes
i find myself returning
to look through wooded windows.
forward or back, empires and regimes remain
in pyramids of power
butchering the blameless for glorious gain.
feudal soldiers firing guns
and wingless birds dropping smart bombs
on mothers, fathers, daughters, sons,
follow higher orders
to modernise older civilisations
repeating what history has taught us.
in turn, their towers of class and cash
will crumble and crash
on top of Ozymandias.
hey now, woods of winter leafless grip
and fractures split
drawing us into it.
love slide in days
through summer heat waves
and old woodland ways
with us licking
then dripping
and sticking
chanting wiccan songs
embraced in pagan bonds
living light, loving long,
fingers painting runes on skin
back to the beginning
when freedom wasn’t sin.

OVIRI ( The Savage – Paul Gauguin in Tahiti )

woman,

wearing the conscience of the world

you make me want
less civilisation
and more meaning.
drinking absinthe together,
hand rolling and smoking cigars

being is, what it really is

fucking on palm leaves
under tropical rain.
beauty and syphilis happily cohabit,
painting your colours
on a parallel canvas
to exhibit in Paris
the paradox of you.

somewhere in your arms

i forget my savage self,
inseminating womb
selected by pheromones
at the pace of evolution.
later. I vomited arsenic on the mountain and returned
to sup morphine. spread ointments on the sores, and ask:
where do we come from.
what are we.
where are we going.

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
re-wrote 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 encyclopedia

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.

MIRROR, MIRROR

mirror, mirror,
in the hall
age comes to us all,
and looks wither
through the play
of years slipped away,
away
in the lapsed lingo of street
and road,
where tangents meet
and move with innocence
up summits of experience
told,
whose fruits we eat
then weep
when they implode.
these reflections
in this autumn of adventurous directions,
mean more
standing in the door
of ebb and flow
watching people come and go
wearing introspections
of what they know
after listening to a stranger’s small confessions
on midnight radio.

THE COMET OF HER WORDS

he sheds his matelessness
and shapeless
statelessness
undormed
to lie with her undressed
in woods earth warmed.
after drinking
and thinking
in the hollow trunk of an ancient tree
she reads
his tea
leaves

and he hears
her nature in the pattern
of her years,
saying now we happen
and the comet of her words
weaves its sentences
in his,
let’s go of bleakness
walking through wilderness
light footsteps in senses.

IN THE COME AND GO, I MIND YOU

in the middle, where i find you,
i wriggle in behind you
all the way.

in the come and go, i mind you,
what we were is reconciled, you
let it stay.

this template, for being tender,
is our state to remember
into grey;

beyond the time of soil and ember,
into nothingness’s timbre-
be it, play.

LOOKING IN LOVE’S GLASS

looking in love’s glass
at what we have drank
and haven’t drank
to quench our thirst
slow and fast
not the first
not the last-
beauty is flesh
is your womanliness
and i find
your mind
grows branches into mine
we climb

so compatible
and indelible,
to others forgettable
crashed dream
on screen

we know
we go
out of scene.

THE POET SPEAKS:

I like the company of people but prefer solitude. I like to listen to people talk, the way they see it
and say it. For me, poetry spans our past, present and future. These poems, and those in my
books, are about the themes of love, relationships, peace, war, racial, economic and sexual
equality, cultural integration, poverty, mythical romance, the magic of childhood and experience
of growing old as a Bohemian maverick. The strings of chance and consequences meld with
music and art in Spinoza’s orderly chaos of the universe.

Life is hard and uncertain for most of us now, but also rare in our corner of the universe, so I
strive to express my own understanding of it. Thinking time is my creative cove. My English
teacher, Anne Ryan inspired me to write poetry when I was thirteen. The poems have grown with
me and reflect much of who I am now. Some poems sleep for years. Mere jumbles of words,
themes and rhythms in subconscious gaseous clouds. Their form and meaning evolve in
Spinoza’s orderly chaos. Other poems just happen, triggered by a single word or phrase, a
sound, smell, or shape that relates to something from our past, present, or future. Writing a good
poem makes me feel like the artist who can paint, or the musician who can play – joy in creating
something that others enjoy and feel inspired to try doing themselves.

My first poetical influences were the Tin Pan Alley lyricists and composers like Sammy Cahn,
Cole Porter and Rogers and Hart. I love the fun, rhythm and interplay between lyrics and music.
Bob Dylan, Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen influence my poetry in the same way, allowing me to
experiment with metaphor, form and rhythms.

Relationships and love are one of the main themes in my poetry. Two books which have travelled
with me through life are Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy and Tess Of The D’urbervilles by
Thomas Hardy. Tolkien’s Lord Of The Rings trilogy is a big influence on some of my work.
My favourite poets who have influenced my work include: Shelley, Keats, Yeats, Auden, Dylan
Thomas, Bishop, Szymborska, Langston Hughes, Plath, Art Crane, Larkin, Forough Farrokhzad,
Neruda, Rumi and Heaney.

What inspires you?

Salford – my home town. My working class Irish and Welsh roots. My Muse and Children. The
natural and industrial landscape. Archaeology. Astronomy. Social history. The struggle to
overcome adversity and oppression. Contemporary poet, musician and artist friends. Trying to
play more than three notes on my saxophone and clarinet. Working on my next poem.

Who are some writers you admire?

Adding to those previously mentioned – e e cummings, Bukowski, Brian Aldiss, Chaucer,
Marlowe.

What is your writing process?

I write most days with pen on A4 paper folded into quarters. Strings of ideas and phrases. Any
time of day, but I prefer the evening and through the night. Some poems survive the first draft.
Others go through minor edits to language, theme and structure. Some get butchered and others
are sent to hibernate until I return to them.

AUTHOR BIO: Strider Marcus Jones – is a poet, law graduate and ex civil servant from
Salford, England with proud Celtic roots in Ireland and Wales. A member of The Poetry
Society, his five published books of poetry https://stridermarcusjonespoetry.wordpress.com/
reveal a maverick, moving between forests, mountains, cities and coasts playing his saxophone
and clarinet in warm solitude.

https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/9a0949f4-1d2a-4a7c-b9fb-a96b9b6bd861/downloads/I_2%20_Interview%20Poetry%20Editor%20Hezekiah%20Scretch%20.pdf?ver=1636847122656

INTERVIEW—Issue 10 (Poetry)
Poetry Editor Hezekiah Scretch with Strider
Marcus Jones

Greetings, O Glorious Bard!
Tom and Charles asked (or was it badgered) me to select the poet of my choice for the Poetry
Interview to be published in Issue 10 (November) and you were the one.
If you’d be interested in participating I’ve some questions for you about your poetry and your
writing in general. I am brashly smitten by your work and all I want to do is read more, more and
more.
Answer as you please. There is no word count so your answers can be as long or a short as you
like. I would need them no later than October 31 ( if I’m not to end up in the dog house with its
flea-infested mat). Looking forward to hearing from you.

HS: Can you describe what aspect of your nature draws you to write poetry?

SMJ: I have always been sensitive to people and my surroundings and often sense things before
they happen. My father thought I had inherited this mild psychic reaction to things and situations
around me from my Gypsy grandmother. Perhaps, and with the forward looking Aquarian in me
and my two Piscean fishes – one swimming through radical and unnatural changes into the
future, the other time travelling back into the past, writing poetry has been my natural form of
expression about the interconnectedness of Life, Nature, Science and the Arts.
I believe that most things are sentient – the universe, people, animals, bees, the mountains,
forests, bodies of water, air and land. In the distant past, we understood this and that the
symbiotic relationships once formed co-existed with each other. Through the quest for progress
and profit, humankind has lost its way, thinks it is smart enough to go it alone and rule like
usurping Gods over everything else. Myths and Legends exist as warnings from the past.
Humankind wants the power and discards everything else. I explore these metaphysical
relationships when I write poetry and feel their influence on the world.

HS: The breadth of your writing is replete with classical references and metaphysical
reflections; do you find such profound thoughts intrusive in your day-to-day life and feel obliged
to exercise them on the page…avoiding costly therapy sessions?

SMJ: I am not a classics scholar and knew nothing about my metaphysical reflections until a
novelist friend pointed them out to me. I write what I feel and sense, often in fluid stream of
consciousness. I hate punctuation – it looks like dirty marks in a poem – when you think and the
lines come in your mind, you don’t think capital letter, comma full stop. The run on lines, line
breaks and where the thought ends are the natural punctuation and rhythm in my poems. I like to
leave the reader some freedom to interpret this in their own way. Classical references, I have
absorbed subconsciously on life’s road sometimes pop into my head as I write. I don’t know
how, or why and I am just as likely to reference Monty Python underpants, Thomas O’Malley
the Alley Cat, Tom Waits and whisky, Monk’s jazz or Picasso’s and Hopper’s paintings and
Birlini’s sculptures in a serious or comical way. I don’t find them intrusive in my day-to-day life
– more like old friends meeting up in a café cos it’s been a while. I don’t know any poets who
can afford therapy sessions. A therapist would need a therapist after a consultation with a poet.

HS: Do you set scheduled time aside to write your poetry? Or, like a saxophone, you just pick it
up when the mood striker joneses you?

SMJ: I prefer to be a free spirit, not a robot. I have no set times to write, but am a nighthawk –
love the quiet hours to write or play my sax and clarinet badly.

HS: Can you attribute your muse in part to your legal training, blowing into brass instruments,
civil service or some other tragic event?

SMJ: Like most people, I absorb what life throws at me and try to stay strong. I am not afraid to
change the road I’m on and have done so when the road forks in this lifetime. My muse has a
will of her own and the urge to write just occurs. I don’t know how, or why. It just happens at
any time and place, so I always have a pen and scrap of paper in my pocket with other man-junk
to scrawl down the idea or opening lines. My legal training and civil service work has given me a
forensic way of thinking mellowed by listening to Jazz and tooting my sax.

HS: Who do you like to read or have been influenced by in your writing?

SMJ: From the past – Chaucer, Tennyson, Shelley, Keats, , Blake, W.B. Yeats, Auden, Langston
Hughes, Hart Crane, Sexton, Plath, Kerouac, Heaney, Lorca, Orwell, Dickens, Tolkien,
Steinbeck, Heller, Donaldson, P.D. James, Ian Rankin, Vonnegut, Dostoyevsky, Rilke, Rumi,
e.e.cummings, Neruda..so many.
From now – They know who they are. I have published their work in Lothlorien Poetry Journal.

HS: Do you as often labour over lines or do they more so flow as you go once the spirit moves
you?

SMJ: Most poems start off as a thought or idea coiled tight, like a clock spring or ball of string. I
don’t force the process. The subconscious finds the thread, thinks it through and the poem begins
to unravel on the page. When I was younger, I tended to let it just pour out and the poem was
what it was. I did not have the craft or discipline to edit it. I have lugged around a hold-all full of
journals and notebooks, with over 800 poems I wrote between the age of 13-25. Bad poems with
some half decent ideas that make me cringe and want to burn them. Since then, I have tended to
care about the poems since they care about the world and the people in it. Now, I can labour for
days and in some cases years, over lines and words and structure, crossing out words and whole
lines until they feel right now and after I have popped my clogs. Butchering your own work feels
barbaric in the moment, but enhances your poetic voice and the honest impact of a poem on the
reader.

HS: Last question. How do you feel about growing old?

MSJ:
“yéni ve lintë yuldar avánier”
-“the years have passed like swift draughts”

Peace, Love and Light,
Strider

Lovely work, Thanks for an illuminating interview!
Hezekiah Scretch
Poetry Editor/FOTD

Delighted to have my poem Dark Drawn Man published by The Piker Press on 11th November, 2021.My thanks to editor Sand Pilarski.

http://www.pikerpress.com/article.php?aID=8769

Dark Drawn Man Strider Marcus Jones       

Dark Drawn Man


dark drawn man
in two – legged sedan,
Diogenes least
the more i am.
a worn down crease —
opens
like blotched butterfly wings,
that drop in tokens
on imaginings —
lost, but living
through drought and giving.

dark drawn man
of wiccan, glam
rock and folk —
who likes a smoke;
hermit and ham,
sometimes a dam
for the waterfall
of it all —
bohemian and gothic,
romantic, hypnotic,
un-photographic
hates cam.

dark drawn man
whose thought beats flam
on sticks
of words
his focus and blurs
without tricks
of prussian blue
and cadmium red
the way Modigliani drew
his mistress on his bed.

Sophocles was right!
the darkest days, catch chinks of light —
running out of Ram,
but love is who i am.






Article © Strider Marcus Jones. All rights reserved.
Published on 2021-11-08
Image(s) are public domain.

Thrilled to have my poem The Portal in the Woods published at The Piker Press online. My thanks to Editor Sand Pilarski.

http://www.pikerpress.com/article.php?aID=8767

The Portal in the Woods Strider Marcus Jones       
The Portal in the Woods

Seeing somnambulist sunrise
Through open window
Touch your face
After love rides
On moon tides
In ebb and flow
At tantric pace —
Love resides
Tasted
No asides
Wasted
Spices of the flesh
Soaking rooms in Marrakesh
How I ate your truffle in Zanzibar
While you smoked my long cigar.

Back home —
Tribes of bloods
And druids roam
Seeking out the overgrown
Portal in the woods
Where we hondfast
In this present of the past
Dance chanting
In stone bone circles
Like ooparts
Practicing
Magical arts
Settling
What chaos hurtles —
Reconnecting rhythms
In living and dead
To those algorithms
In nature’s head.

We are rustic —
Romantic
In land and sky
The    air    fire    water
To warriors who slaughter
If Us or Them must die.
We wake
For clambake
Pleasure
In a cauldron lake
Of limbs together
Then cut sods of peat
From the bog under our feet
Exposing the pasts
That never last.






Article © Strider Marcus Jones. All rights reserved.
Published on 2021-10-11
Image(s) are public domain.

Delighted to have 3 Poems published in Dreich Magazine 10 Season 3. Congratulations to all those included and my thanks to Editor Jack Caradoc.

SPANGLED IN MY CELTIC CROSS

put your remark

in the breach

of my heart

and reach

to my head.

make love to my core,

in the land of my lore

this said-

in fields in summer

in woods in the fall-

with you, then me, under

it all-

the sensual cloud

calling wild out loud-

then bodies spent

on the grass all bent

talking in mulchey tones

scenting tree bark and squelchy moss with pheromones.

naked tall bones

hiding in robes of silver birches,

walk with random tribes of bluebells

bringing us to pagan churches-

where we leave offerings

for mineral blessings

on trickling rocks-

like hat bells

and single socks.

at the base,

we looked up at Arthur or Merlin’s face,

trying to rewind

and prime

our supernatural clocks

to that forgotten time

we can’t replace,

but only got

the echo of physical and mental mines

under this surface.

no more homes

gather round the circle stones-

no more druid dreads

to connect our disconnected threads

up on Alderley Edge-

and as we wandered back down

to get on the train out of town,

i felt my ear-ring

while I was thinking-

and found a ribbon of moss

spangled in my celtic cross.

QUANTUM IN SPACETIME

sorrow sings

like medicine in me,

bewitching strings

of melancholy;

heavying fate

like a paperweight-

crushing cryptically.

emotions close

round your briar rose-

ham actors in a dream,

with parts to play

on this Broadway-

sit back, unfold the scene.

given what you know,

besame, besame mucho-

through quantums years in spacetime’s strings

we make each moments grain of sand-

evolve from past to present in our hand

to give this now new meanings.

WILD HORSES

Horses play
Run ragged, roam free,
And after today
Remember me.

Horses run,
And trot, and gait,
Have your fun-
Before its too late:

For time is faster
Even than you-
You can’t outlast her
And mankind too.

Tell the rabbits
And birds and dogs without cares,
To hide their habits-
The world’s not theirs:

For man the hunter
And ender of life,
Is killing the world
With technologies knife.

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.