WEEDS LEFT

 

weeds left,

wilt in the sun

without work and water.

their seeds

are the wild flowers,

waiting for volcanic wind

and ash to fall,

so the fertile cinders

can colonise herbaceous borders

ending the old age

of selfish sediment

treading it down

in molecules of time.

another marxist

dons his trenchcoat

and tears pages from his red book

planting the old words

of revolution

in minds of homogenous compost.

over-privileged gallows begin to swing.

bullets sweat in their chambers

waiting for the right heads.

 

 
THE DARKEST FLOWER IS THE EVENING

again

consensual persuasions

make sensual equations

as we smoke and share a think,

then the same

as she bends over the shingle sink

breasts slapping

on bowl and rim,

peachey buttocks yapping

as i slide in

and out of her velvet purse

each time deeper than the first

two parts making one perfection

of mental physical connection.

 

outsides

i saw two magpies

in the branches of a tree

barbed tower

watching our sharing eyes

shape fractured liberty

slipping the shackles of feudal power.

 

in this then,

i know how all of when

you're gone

reduces me to being one

and the darkest flower

is the evening

opened by your scent

giving everything

and receiving

mine in mind and meldings meant.

 
 

THE TWO SALTIMBANQUES
 
when words don't come easy

they make do with silence

and find something in nothing

to say to each other

when the absinthe runs out.

 

his glass and ego

are bigger than hers,

his elbows sharper,

stabbing into the table

and the chambers of her heart

cobalt clown

without a smile.

 

she looks away

with his misery behind her eyes

and sadness on her lips,

back into her curves

and the orange grove

summer of her dress

worn and blown by sepia time

 

where she painted

her cockus giganticus

lying down

naked

for her brush and skin,

mingling intimate scents

undoing and doing each other.

 

for some of us,

living back then

is more going forward

than living in now

and sitting here-

 

at this table,

with these glasses

standing empty of absinthe,

faces wanting hands

to be a bridge of words

and equal peace

as Guernica approaches.
 

LOVE WANES LIKE OLD NEWS

she left,
without remorse or love to lose-
and cleft
the music from the blues.
bereft,
in melancholy mental muse-
the theft
of love wanes like old news,
and jests
through pain to wear in new shoes-
the rest,
just words in ink and oral clues.


POETS IN THE BACKFIELD

Stay a while?
The subliminal cuts are coming through
These days of deadly boredom,
And poets in the backfield
Writing
Something
Interesting.

 

Hardy,would not like today,
Life's become an angry play;
And our deoxyribonucleic acid
Carries no imagination,
That's not already put there
By a rival TV station.


I can hear you saying,
Yes,but,we have the right to choose:
A color,and a ball of string-
Or poets in the backfield
Writing
Something
Interesting.

 

You said:
"The Golden Bird eats Fish
In South America
And most of the peasants let him,
Because of Bolivar."
Yet,millions starved in Gulag camps,
And Czechs cried fears when Russian tanks,
Thundered through their traumoid streets
Pretending not to be elite.
As one old soldier put it:
"The West and East preach different dreams,
But ride the same black limousines."


Stay a while?
These sheets are cold
Without your sighing skin;
And this poet in the backfield
Is writing
Nothing
Interesting.

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.  

His poetry has been published in numerous publications including: Dreich Magazine; The Racket Journal; Trouvaille Review; dyst Literary Journal; Impspired Magazine; Melbourne Culture Corner; Literary Yard Journal; The Honest Ulsterman; Poppy Road Review; The Galway Review; Cajun Mutt Press; Rusty Truck Magazine; Rye Whiskey Review; Deep Water Literary Journal; The Huffington Post USA; The Stray Branch Literary Magazine; Crack The Spine Literary Magazine; A New Ulster; The Lampeter Review; Panoplyzine  Poetry Magazine and Dissident Voice.