Strider Marcus Jones

The Samaritan Machine

 this field pond

is only my

dissolved

imagination-

thought drops

of summer rain

making fractal ripples

drumbeat on skin.

a portal shared

with cawing crows

reveals

who scams and snoops and shoots

in contract conversations.

this Windsong

of Virginia Creeper,

ruling Bear and Wolfsbane

rustling in black bamboo

trusts its Samaritan Machine

telling it who to redact

in this imposed

dystopian

equilibrium

of dumbed-down masses

worshipping Carousel. 

The Mad Hatter Hiding in Dark Matter

in our house

i binned the radio

for playing Strauss-

left the suited rodeo

of casino Faust

and shot the gentry shooting grouse.

into the wild garden

without spun jargon

we went

through rusting arch of rose dissent

onto the precipice of peace

where slush borders grip and grease

like usurping tectonic plates

shapeshifting smaller states.

their innocents bombed and dispossessed

join our shoaled oppressed

of obedient possessed-

while The Mad Hatter

hiding in Dark Matter-

says blame them, instead of Strauss

in suits playing casino Faust

and enslaving gentry shooting grouse.

The Mess of Thrown Off Clothes

i listen

to your love beads glisten

in the flotsam

of my room-

we make them

from samurai sword folds

at forge and loom

in the mess of thrown off clothes.

so many smoke me kisses

at portal doors,

and mithril wishes

on primitive floors-

take us back again

through heath and fen

to imitate

lost landscape-

cycle

and circle

sky and stone

outside and home-

in love in less

with your heavenliness,

and loneliness

durable under duress.

HOT ROD

fast and furious

archangel in paint and chrome

brings me home-

purring megaphonious,

combusting with sav and sap

thirsty for long tip and lap

that i glimpse

peeking into warm grill chintz-

then she lifts her corset bonnet

and lets me touch her glinting bones

secreting home spun

pheromones

attracting, like moon and sun-

mysterious

and mnemonic

old senses,

fallow and fenced

soon become drenched

quiller and squirter

in that linguistic converter-

glow mapping,

overlapping,

slowly blown

in the metronome

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 chameleon

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.

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, and nominated for both the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, his five published books of poetry Strider Marcus Jones Poet reveal a maverick, moving between cities, playing his saxophone in smoky rooms.