Friday, March 1, 2024

STRIDER MARCUS JONES

 



Lothlorien

 

i'm come home again

in your Lothlorien

to marinate my mind

in your words,

and stand behind

good tribes grown blind,

trapped in old absurd

regressive reasons

and selfish treasons.

 

in this cast of strife

the Tree Of Life

embraces innocent ghosts,

slain by Sauron's hosts;

and their falling cries

make us wise

enough to rise

up in a fellowship of friends

to oppose Mordor's ends

and smote this evil stronger

and longer

for each one of us that dies.

 

i'm come home again

in your Lothlorien,

persuading

yellow snapdragons

to take wing

and un-fang serpent krakens,

while i bring

all the races

to resume

their bloom

as equals in equal spaces

by removing

and muting

the chorus of crickets

who cheat them from chambered thickets,

hiding corruptions older than long grass

that still fag for favours asked.

 

i'm come home again

in your Lothlorien

where corporate warfare

and workfare

on health

and welfare

infests our tribal bodies

and separate self

in political lobbies

so conscience can't care

or share

worth and wealth:

 

to rally drones

of walking bones,

too tired

and uninspired

to think things through

and the powerless who see it true.

red unites, blue divides,

which one are you

and what will you do

when reason decides.

 

It's So Quiet

 

it's so quiet

our eloquent words dying on a diet

of midnight toast

with Orwell's ghost-

looking so tubercular in a tweed jacket

penciling notes on a lung black cigarette packet-

our Winston, wronged for a woman and sin

re-wrote history on scrolls thought down tubes

that came to him

in the Ministry Of Truth Of Fools

where conscience learns to lie within.

 

not like today

the smug-sly haves say and look away

so sure

there's nothing wrong with wanting more,

or drown their sorrows

downing bootleg gin

knowing tomorrows

truth is paper thin

.

at home

in sensory

perception

with tapped and tracked phone

the Thought Police arrest me

in the corridors of affection-

where dictators wear,

red then blue, reversible coats

in collapsing houses, all self-made

and self-paid

smarmy scrotes-

 

now the Round Table

of real red politics

is only fable

on the pyre of ghostly heretics.

 

they are rubbing out

all the contusions

and solitary doubt,

with confusions

and illusions

through wired media

defined in their secret encyclopedia-

where summit and boardroom and conclave

engineer us from birth to grave.

 

like the birds,

i will have to eat

the firethorn

berries that ripen but sleep

to keep

the words

of revolution

alive and warm

this winter, with resolution

gathering us, to its lantern in the bleak,

to be reborn and speak.

 

Pyramid Prison

 

in detritus metronomes

of human habitation

the ghost of Shelley's imagination

questions the elemental,

experimental

chromosomes

and ribosomes

of DNA,

reverse engineered

that suddenly appeared

as evolution yesterday.

 

her monster mirrors dark wells

of monsters in our smart selves,

the lost humanity and oratory

that fills laboratory

test tubes

with fused

imbued

genes

to dreams

of flat forward faster

distinction

to disaster

and barbarism's

ectopic extinction.

 

this is our pyramid prison,

where all souls

and proles

climb the debased

opposite steps of extremism,

like Prometheus Unbound,

defaced

sitting around

the crouching sphinx

abandoned by missing links.

 

free masons of money and wars,

warp the alter of natural laws,

so reason withers

and wastelands rust-

no longer rivers

of shared stardust

 

in the equal symphony of spheres

in space,

filling our ears

with subwoofer bass,

definitive

primitive

medieval

evil

waste.

 

This Is The Field

 

this is not the field

for truth to grow in.

it's furrowed lips are sealed

with knowing

nothing can sing

in the wrong wind.

 

the crop is stunted

self expression blunted

opinion gagged

and head sagged

waiting for the final blow

from the farmer's shadow.

 

the field hands

cut to His commands

and every leathered face

has served in it's place

like all the others, for centuries

in these peasant penitentiaries,

 

without bolting

or revolting

in union, except for Loveless's Tolpuddle few,

who knew what to do

but were jailed, or transported

and thwarted.

 

this is the field

to refuse to yield

in. at Peterloo, sabres slit gullets,

and now, tear gas and rubber bullets,

try to abolish workers’ rights,

but our solidarity is stronger and fights.

 

We Move The Wheel

 

we move the wheel

that turns through each mistake,

giving motion

to the roles we chime

until both trickle out of time

like brittle steel

that rusts and breaks

into lapsed devotion.

 

less, or more,

you imagined it was sure

sharing the road

with you,

treading under dark, grey and blue

sky, wondering where it went going

to unfold

in fates wind blowing

fondling your full face

to some top-to-bottom place.

 

we have moved the wheel,

only to reveal

our high Metropolis

is still the same Acropolis

of extremes and obscenes

spreading gangrenous genes.

 

we have separated Dream from Time

and live in mirages

like Bacchus and Libera

duped in an era

condoning crime,

altering the images

of it's illustrious self

stealing the wealth

of massed, divided synergies.

 

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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