I'm Getting Old Now
i'm getting old
now-
you know,
like that tree
in the yard
with those thick
cracks
in its skin bark
that tell you
the surface of
its lived-in secrets.
my eyes,
have sunk too
inward
in sleepless
sockets
to playback
images
of ghosts-
so make do with
words
and hear the
sounds
of my years in
yourself.
childhood-
riding a rusty
three-wheel bike
to shelled-out
houses bombed in the blitz,
then zinging
home zapped in mud
to wolf down
chicken soup
over lumpy
mashed potato for tea-
with bare feet
sticking on cold kitchen lino
i shivered
watching the candle burn down
racing to finish
a book i found in a bin-
before Mam
showed me her empty purse
and robbed the
gas meter-
the twenty
shillings
stained the red
formica table
like pieces of
the man's brains
splattered all
over the back seat
of his rambolic
limousine
as i watched
history brush out her silent secrets.
Childhood Fires
late afternoon
winter fingers
nomads in snow
numb knuckles
and nails
on two boys
in scuffed shoes
and ripped coats
carrying four
planks of wood
from condemned
houses
down dark
jitty's
slipping on dog
shit
into back yard
to make warm
fires
early evening
dad cooking neck
end stew
thick with
potato dumplings and herbs
on top of bread
soaked in gravy
i saw the hole
in the ceiling
holding the foot
that jumped off bunk beds
but dad didn’t
mind
he had just
sawed the knob
off the banister
to get an old
wardrobe upstairs
and made us a
longbow and cricket bat
it was fun being
poor
like other
families
after dark
all sat down
reading and talking
in candlelight
with parents
silent to each
other
our sudden
laughter like sparks
glowing and
fading
dancing in
flames and wood smoke
unlike the
children who died in a fire next door
then we played
cards
and i called my
dad a cunt
for trumping my
king
but he let me
keep the word.
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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