Strider Marcus Jones

BIO

Strider Marcus Jones – is a poet, law graduate and ex civil servant from Salford/Hinckley, England with proud Celtic roots in Ireland and Wales. A member of The Poetry Society, his five published books of poetry are modern, traditional, mythical, sometimes erotic, surreal and metaphysical. Learn more at http//www.lulu.com/spotlight/stridermarcusjones1. He is a maverick, moving between forests, mountains and cities, playing his saxophone and clarinet in warm solitude now living in Paris.

In 2014, his poetry has been published in A New Ulster/Anu Issue 27, The Screech Owl, Catweazle and The Gambler magazines; Vagabonds: Anthology Of The Mad; Killer Whale Journal; Dagda Publishing; The Huffington Post USA; Writer’s Ezine; The Poets Haven-Vending Machine Poetry for Change Volume 5, Sonic Boom Journal and The Open Mouse. His poetry has also been accepted for publication in 2015 by mgv2 Publishing Anthology; Earl Of Plaid Literary Journal 3rd Edition; Subterranean Blue Poetry Magazine; Deep Water Literary Journal, 2015-Issue 1; Kool Kids Press Poetry Journal; Page-A-Day Poetry Anthology 2015; Eccolinguistics Issue 3.2 January 2015 and The Collapsed Lexicon Poetry Anthology 2015.

 

 

LIFE IS FLAMENCO

why can’t I walk as far
and smoke more tobacco,
or play my Spanish guitar
like Paco,
putting rhythms and feelings
without old ceilings
you’ve never heard
before in a word.

life is flamenco,
to come and go
high and low
fast and slow-

she loves him,
he loves her
and their shades within
caress and spur
in a ride and dance
of tempestuous romance.

outback, in Andalucien ease,
i embrace you, like melted breeze
amongst ripe olive trees-
dark and different,
all manly scent
and mind unkempt.

like i do,
Picasso knew
everything about you
when he drew
your elongated arms and legs
around me, in this perpetual bed
of emotion
and motion
for these soft geometric angles
in my finger strokes
and exhaled smokes
of rhythmic bangles
to circle color your Celtic skin
with primitive phthalo blue
pigment in Wiccan tattoo
before entering
vibrating wings
through thrumming strings
of wild lucid moments
in eternal components.

i can walk as far
and smoke more tobacco,
and play my spanish guitar
like Paco.

 

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
modeling me
here now, in us
love’s tempest we.

 

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.

 

*****