Delighted to have 2 poems – Salted Slug and Ever After Tomorrow published in Dreich Magazine’s themed chapbook Afterwards. Thank you to brilliant editor Jack Caradoc. .

https://hybriddreich.co.uk/dreich-themes/

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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 Michaelangelo took years to paint,
in glorious colours, now flaked and full of hate.

the lights of our plaeides went out,
with no new songs to sing and talk about-
suspended there
inside sobs of solitude and infinite despair-
like soluble syllables of barbiturates
in exhaust fumes of apology and regrets.

you left me prone-
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.

EVER AFTER TOMORROW

throw all your dreams
in a bottle of river-
so they can sink
and drag you down slow;
pick out their seams,
make them gone from the giver-
over the brink,
but dont let it show.
drowning, just drink-
you’re a spectral forgiver,
shades have the means
to laugh at each blow-
life is to think,
it is for the beginner,
but less than it seems
ever after tomorrow-
the cover of sleep screams
awake and gives her
love with body, scribed with ink
inside a rainbow.

Copyright Strider Marcus Jones

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