Strider Marcus Jones (Western Voices 2022)

Bio: 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.

 
POVERTY FEEDS PARADISE

If you want to see poverty 
Don't send your Inspectors to a cleaned-up estate. 
Send them to a real slum 
That's almost falling down, 
Full of heroin-heads and criminals 
Who prowl around the town. 
If you want to see poverty, 
That cannot be escaped- 
Send them where the walls rain in, 
And people live in crates; 
There's lots of them in Britain- 
Where graffiti thatches bricks, 
And muggers lurk on blacked-out stairs 
With guns and knives and sticks. 

If you want to hear poverty, 
Ask the mums and dads, 
Whose teenage sons and daughters 
Sniff cheap glue in carrier bags; 
Or dodge all the dog shit, 
And ask young mums-to-be, 
Why they find a friend in suicide 
On social security. 
It's a walk tall, talk scared apathy 
when verbal violence meets- 
In smoke-free pubs 
Where hoody-thugs deal drugs 
And rule the streets. 

A time bomb is running. 
A social conscience gone- 
Dog eat dog lives on. 
Bad day coming. 
*** 


OLD FLOWERS

old flowers
bloom in the after hours
trailing scent-
and their words still drawn
fill the night and dawn
the way they went.

new to ours,
coffee shops and church clock towers
remember those times spent
in warm
touching’s born
out of movement.

tempting rain showers
in silent bane's empty hours
shuffle and lament-
the thoughts swarm
and mind-bed warm
coupling of consent.
***


I FOLLOW YOU INTO NIGHT

i sense you in summer wind
and try to redefine the Other ring
that binds us
in this tormenting
show of come and go
that minds us.

in the sentence of a sound
i hear your pain
then turn its fate around
to break the blame
mending happenings
and broken strings.

footfalls confide
in shadows that duet in our divide
on a bridge where dark persuasions swallow light
i follow you into night
through corridors uncurtained dreams
in tapestries and surreal scenes.

that corrugated face of time
marks motions set to mime-
on the balcony of fate he leant
where rites and runes evoked her scent-
to hear the music in her ways
smile and quicken upon his gaze.
***

2 comments :

  1. I especially like "Poverty Feeds Paradise," and "I Follow You Into Night." Both poems do what good poetry should do: depict the universal human condition. "Poverty Feeds Paradise" is an apt portrayal of the social scale, and for anyone who has experienced poverty, the point is driven home. The "Night" poem deals with the human condition of love, or want. Longing is portrayed here in the descent into almost a form of surrealism. Well done on both!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you Ralph for your truly insightful comment and observation. Most appreciated.

    ReplyDelete

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