Visigoth Rover
i went on the
bus to Cordoba,
and tried to
find the Moor's
left over
in their
excavated floors
and mosaic
courtyards,
with hanging
flowers brightly chamelion
against
whitewashed walls
carrying calls
behind gated iron
bars-
but they were
gone
leaving mosque
arches
and carved
stories
to God's doors.
in those ancient
streets
where everybody
meets;
i saw the old
successful men
with their
younger women again,
sat in chrome
slat chairs,
drinking coffee
to cover
their vain love
affairs-
and every
breast,
was like the
crest
of a soft ridge
as i peeped over
the castle wall
and Roman bridge
like a Visigoth
rover.
soft hand
tapping on shoulder,
heavy hair
and beauty
older,
the gypsy lady
gave her clover
to borrowed
breath,
embroidering it
for death,
adding more to
less
like the colours
fading in her dress.
time and tune
are too planned
to understand
her Trevi
fountain of prediction,
or the dirty
Bernini hand
shaping its
description.
On The Train To El Chorro
on the train to
El Chorro
something cut me
loose,
and i left this
tomorrow
of my youth-
in the twilight
of a lake,
in the sky
mountains break,
rock chasms of
echo and truth
brought me to
young olive groves,
standing like
soldiers in sun-starched rows,
ripe for some
buyer and vendor
to trade them
and train them
so profits
accrue-
in the style of
Milo Minderbender
dealing in Catch
22,
when women loved
like floozies,
and sat at the
back at the movies-
showing me what
to do.
time turned each
page
of idealism's
rage
into cynicism's
age-
on each point of
winding track
as i thumbed
back
through the book
of that tomorrow
on the train to
El Chorro.
The Ascent
Of Money
the stars are
those
we have
forgotten
both living and
dead,
floating in
clustered constellations
not labouring in
rows-
with hair
growing grey
and teeth going
rotten
singing songs,
God's godless pray.
harvesting
crops.
chants drowned
in clocks
of tobacco and
cotton,
the peasants and
slaves of civilised nations
duped by liberty
in recent
history-
dug out canals,
made railways and roads
out of tarmac to
tread-
into factories
like tribal
junkies
hooked on cheap
gin and beer instead
of joining the
cholera's watery dead-
ten to a room in
a slum and lead-
like human
batteries,
sleeping without
moonlight
on sarsen
stones,
or druid voices
in their homes-
where thoughts
have no dreams or flight,
just sleep,
recharge, get bled.
you have to be
poor,
to think utopia
can be something
real-
not to exploit
or steal
that ambrosia
aura of women and children and men
for the spoken
wages of despair-
that suck you
in,
glad but grim
when times'
clock punches that card by the door
and mass myopia
conditions all
to labour, keyboard and pen
for food and
shelter with a roof and fourth wall
shanty made out
of cardboard, wood and tin
in sunny Sao
Paolo, where the samba rain leaks in
while orphaned
children beg and play
eating the
forage of capitalist waste
dodging death
squads night and day
imitating
Socrates at football to hope to taste
what's inside
the cold, glistening towers
casting
invisible powers
behind the
smoked glass and soldiers of stone
leaving blood
and bleached bone
from over there-
where the ascent
of money doesn't care
about it all
because its
infinity is small.
STRIDER MARCUS JONES
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. A member of The Poetry Society, his five published books of poetry
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; Our Poetry
Archive; 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.
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