Thanks to Editor Agron Shele for publishing my 5 poems in the superb Atunis Poetry. Delighted.

Strider Marcus Jones (UK)

AUTORE

Strider Marcus Jones (UK)

Published by

agronsh

on

June 14, 2025

Strider Marcus Jones (UK)

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, nominated for the Pushcart Prize x3 and Best of the Net x3, 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; International Times Magazine; 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.

ELSEWHERE, IN ANOTHER PLACE

There’s an evening coming in,
Like wet towels
With heavy jowls,
To snoop, and listen in.

Walking under it,
Intimate in touch and face;
Our mood moves with it,
Elsewhere, in another place.

Thoughts cascade like rainbows,
As words said, reach the sky;
Love touches love, and knows-
Sometimes, there is no why.

Beyond this moment, who can say-
What is meant to be:
In the hot rain, boughs beckon and sway-
Uncontrollably.


SEPARATE PIECES

follow me
down the fathoms
of forgiveness
like ghosts
who heal and hope-
to that room
in the mind
where contentment
resonates
with longing
for love to fill
its vacant chair
and mould it to us both.

i can’t go on
like separate pieces,
that move around each other
but never touch
in their courtship
on the board-
and yet,
so many things
you say and do,
won’t go away
and fill me still,
with points of possibility
as the Great Wheel of Time
revolves
in harmony and confusion.

unconscious moments,
call out
to chance and circumstance
and weave away in dreams-
orchestrating
opening gambits,
to suture sensual seams.
two hands touch
and influence fate
as they move around the squares;
time curves,
then unmeasures words-
and their endless game goes on.


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 treacled 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.


VELVET TANGERINE

i was drinking tea with Dali
in an underworld cafe,
arguing down his table
on General Franco’s hand-
when The Persistence Of Memory
that melts my pocket watch
made time less rigid-
so i fell with names and numbers
into old obsidian dreams-
where your long legs pointed
from six to twelve,
then nine to three
when you bent them-
for me to play and pleasure
each exotic segment
of your velvet tangerine.
Dali left the table
to meet Picasso in Paris,
while my benzedrine mind replaced-
the soft and spent infinity of your face.


DOUBTS AND DEMONS

We all have doubts and demons
About ourselves and life;
But overcome their reasons
And love will conquer strife.

We all want perfections hum,
In a real and abstract way;
But our flaws make us human
And their judgment turns us grey.

Yet, to love and be loved in kind,
Transcends this clouded plain,
And calms chaos in the mind
To co-exist, or wane.