Thrilled to have five poems published on Poetic Galaxy Atunis. My thanks to Editor Agron Shele.

Strider Marcus Jones (UK)

Strider Marcus Jones (UK)

POSTED ON JANUARY 23, 2024 BY AGRONSH

MEPHISTOPHELES IS NOT ABOUT



this coffee is hot-

but paradise is cold,

and Mephistopheles is not

about, tempting me with gold

and pouting pleasures of the flesh

with their alluring mesh-

so Morpheus to hold

in broken secrets being told.



this dreamer in his underwear,

parts from the bottle, and leaves it there-

some touched,

not much

with stale camembert-

no fun alone,

moving around inside, unknown-

disturbed from bed to chair.



it synchronizes well,

how past and present both compel

a sleep on understanding-

the beat of love with sand in

the texture of its taste,

trapped in silence,

waxed to waste-

with nothings nonsense

in its face.





PARADISE OF ABYSS



opening old years

self similarity

untreated

is repeated



in a dirty

old paper rag

skin inky

and bloated with sag

full of swag

from eavesdropping ears

holding fears

the evidence said

deleted or deliberately

left in bags to lie dead

by compromised cops Met in the city.



close secret

policy briefings

disguised as drink and eat

social meetings

in elite

homes

move in and out of step

so utterly

and fluttery

her red hair

so well aware

of its butterfly effect

sending stooges and editors’ hacking

with immune transnational backing

two murdered angels silent phones

and others, famous or unknown

muckraking sad or sordid stories

and abusing soldiers shilling glories.



another summer Family dinner

butchers democracy

into a loser and winner

plutocracy

of front row millionaires

sitting and blurring

for fat cats punting

and purring

aped by the rootless

and lootless

rioting and burning

because nothing is theirs

in this towering

new world’s derivatives and shares.



wilful blindness

is a smug jest

of i confess

without punishment

for the richest

ten per cent.



wearing his blue clown pants

the red face rants

it wasn’t me

i didn’t do His dance

by giving my less vetted We

friend a second chance.



this quiff boss

salesman’s gloss

tries to bury the pattern

of before

in after what happened

hiding more

covering it fast

in long grass.

going back is forward now

Tom exposing understanding how

the past came to this

paradise of abyss.





CLAY AND WOOD



remember me

in clay

and wood

the way

we made free

complete love

on the floor

and kitchen table

against the door

and in the cradle

of an old armchair

in timber moonlight

and sun streaking bright

through branches of tousled hair-

and yes, it changes

and rearranges

these same more

intimate compartments

with other shared escarpments,

but we can still adore

the way our words and skin

age at their core

with meaning

like your fingers

modelling me

here now, in us

love’s tempest we.





STANDING STONES



i can still smell his shirt

when he tramped home from work

and slumped down beside us

in his chair,

lips cracked, shaking cotton fibres

from his tusselled hair.



he was like that:

never wore a vain hat,

or mask to hide the man he was

and what he was

from himself

or anyone else.



he told me my first joke,

showed me how to roll a smoke

in his thick, stained fingers.

oh, how his voice echo lingers

sowing moral ethics

into politics-



through the night,

like Lenin, in reason and fight,

making Attlee and Bevan’s lintels

bridge

the standing stones of Marx and Engels

over my youth.



rising like monolith’s

of truth,

opposing the dangers

of privileged

abyss,

i watched, his turned wisdom change us

into opposite strangers.





Us



we are composed

out of the fate of stars

a light dark light so old

and tuned that regards

most of Us as Other

peasants

who are clothed

without privileged presents

to burn wood in cracked stoves

under crumbling cover.

stitched to Their time

we entwine

in our own interpretation

of this spinning station.

only burlesque bright skies

and the iris flowers of abandoned eyes

can change the fixed views

of a selfish landscape

into united hues

of equal state.

our reality is broken-

we are the hosts

and ghosts

who have been stolen

the violated tokens

of corporatist totems

screen greed being traded

and invaded

then beaten for protesting by police

working for the Thief.