Delighted to have 5 poems published in Issue 40. 2024:2 of the brilliant Rochford Street Review in Australia. My thanks to the editor Mark Roberts. Honoured to be featured.

Strider Marcus Jones: 5 Poems

 

*Rochford Street Review

A Journal of Australian & International Cultural Reviews, News and Criticism.

Current IssueLatest PostsPrevious IssuesExpand submenuAbout Rochford Street ReviewExpand submenuRochford Cottage BookshopStrider Marcus Jones: 5 Poems

by Admin

Dec 082024

MY OLD SOCKS

my old socks
sheath the feet
that fill my boots
to walk on land.

hard hands, sweating like peat,
still break rocks
in imprisoned heat
born trapped roots
in dynasties of the damned.

the faded thread-
diminishes in duty until dead
while famous patterns
conceal what really happens-

their reasons behind closed doors
gain ignorant applause
for wars
and poverty

rising from floors
of serial
imperial
cruel pomposity.

**

The Mad Hatter Hiding in Dark Matter

in our house
i binned the radio
for playing Strauss-

left the suited rodeo
of casino Faust
and shot the gentry shooting grouse.

into the wild garden
without spun jargon
we went

through rusting arch of rose dissent
onto the precipice of peace
where slush borders grip and grease

like usurping tectonic plates
shapeshifting smaller states.
their innocents bombed and dispossessed

join our shoaled oppressed
of obedient possessed-
while The Mad Hatter

hiding in Dark Matter-
says blame them, instead of Strauss
in suits playing casino Faust

and enslaving gentry shooting grouse.

**

THOSE LEAVES ON THE PAVEMENT

from bud to life to death
membranes of breath
rustle
and hustle
for water and wind
in self similarity
without clarity
doing the wrong thing.

each tree, is its own fate
landing in landscape
rooted in class
morphing into towers of steel and glass-
those leaves on the pavement
rejected with resentment
turning brown
no history written down.

some of those leaves
are people we know-
but who perceives
why we let them go,
after mistakes
into what waits
with nothing to show
when time shakes.

**

THE DOOR

the door
between skyfloor
topbottom

is rankrotten

portalbliss
or abjectabyss.

it contains conversations
confrontations,
hiding loves two-ings
in lost ruins-

shuts us inside ourself
with or without someone else.

we,
the un-free,
disenfranchised poor
have no bowl of more-
only pain
on the same plain
as before,
homeless
or in shapeless boxes,
worked out, hunted, like urban foxes-
outlaws on common lands
stolen from empty hands.

files on us found
from gathering sound
where mutations abound
put troops on the ground.

**

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
counterfeit
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.

 —————————————-

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, and nominated for both the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, 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: The Huffington Post USA; The Stray Branch Literary Magazine; Crack The Spine Literary Magazine;The Recusant, The Lampeter Review and Dissident Voice.