Strider Marcus Jones's Blog: https://stridermarcusjonespoetry.wordpress.com/

Strider Marcus Jones


Low Vaulted Ceilings


within those man-stone walls
promoting their god
bringing us to him
i told the priest—
you tell us to be content
with poverty
while you live in this big house
throwing us scraps
begged from money lenders.
this is not what Jesus
asked his disciples to do.
this is not what he died for.
he said live amongst us
and share what they have.
the priest,
red with rage,
oppressive and oppressed—
pulled my mam aside
made her shrink in his stare
weep in his words
walk me in our sins
from his dark-damp house of angels.
outside
in feral sunshine
i pointed to grinning gargoyles
chasing chastened shadows
back down primitive paths-
to a cellar flat,
bare bulb dangling
prison beam probing
baptised flesh
and mam tipped tears
soaking into straw mattresses
sucking up cold from the flagstone floor
woodworms eating a Van Gogh table
where six mouths sat
sharing stale bread and cold beans
with whiskered skirting board mice.
years later,
i left Dedalus in Dublin
in the pages of a book
to his epiphany
and Jesuit suit of guilt—
while i quenched
my glistening fruit
in street light ladies—
drenched in smokey curling
dancing clouds
and stories from voices
bouncing off low vaulted ceilings
caressing human in darkness.





An Old Man’s Overcoat


summer wore
an old man’s overcoat
again
this year
roaming emptied streets,
children and neighbours chatting
gone,
reflecting
his reflection
in reflections
where sky meets walls
trapping the watchers
inside curtained windows
behind closed doors
and holes in floors holding pools.

modern mirages of money
infiltrating stone circles,
pass through standing bones
like ring wraiths
possessing the solstice
of reason and meaning
in Us being here,
while my old man, changes his God
dying as he lived
in his house,
skeleton and skin
going to meet the awesome silent ashes
of the man he was
when last summer wore
an old man’s overcoat.





Rubicon of Reason


i am nothing
as usual,
if not, this might as well be mine-
the silent sea
flat calm,
some beans in a hessian bag,
a thought without shape
and no one
down the years
to coddle and be coddled with—

homeless after the harvest
gathered up couples and threw away chaff—
a soft echo in the laughing crowd
that leaves early, sauntering back
through fallow fields in fertile spring
mouthing his mantra
to the deaf darkness-
like a much rehearsed
rubicon rolled in reason
not to be alone.




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
https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogs...

A member of The Poetry Society, nominated for the Pushcart Prize x4 and Best of the Net x3, his five published books of poetry

https://stridermarcusjonespoetry.word...

reveal a maverick, moving between cities, playing his saxophone in smoky rooms.

Poems by Strider Marcus Jones

HOT ROD

fast and furious

archangel in paint and chrome

brings me home-

purring megaphonious,

combusting with sav and sap

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. 

THAT SILENCE WHOSE COLOURS I KNOW

the longer you play

the better you sleep,

so take it away

and beat-

the skin of your drum

with finger and thumb

the horn of your bone

on heat-

until you cum home

alone.

its saner than crazy

but lonely and lazy,

that silence whose colours i know-

without sweet talking

and hands held walking

in rhythms so fast and slow-

and the aftermath,

lying there

on that drenched path

you want to share-

turns over, tiredly

and clicks off the lamp

where you admired me

long, spent, damp.

THE BLUEBELL WOOD

the bluebell wood is coming through,

but I’m not the one you’re going to-

oh no,

my symphony is slow.

loves notes need oxygen for breath

and mine are clotted, clemmed to death-

revoked

hopes

choked

in mangled, mettled mess.

the bluebell wood is waiting

for lovers in their deeper dating,

swaying and intoxicating

natural undress-

while I sit at home and rest

in the belly of old books

with time ticking out of fading looks,

wondering where it’s gone

since two talked past one.

now conversations come like noodles,

light and spiced that leave me hungry

for their quick drawn doodles

absorbed while spongey,

to cohabit and collaborate-

still separate where they wait. 

FRACTALS OF CLARITY

how can i forget

the way she sucks me

while she smokes my cigarette-

tongue strokes

tip pokes

softly round the rim

then deeper in.

the sensual symmetry

of close caressing

fondle messing

with her hair

and gentle bobbing of head

up-down-there,

so much love

i hold, in my hands

between my legs,

sliding out and in

rubbing circles round

the sea sound

collar of her quim.

we make self similarity

in fractals of clarity

lying back,

looking into each other

picking out stars in sky black

drapes that cover

what this does

to us.

OUR TALK

the soft wind, stroking your smiling face,
fingers your fine combed hair, in out of place-
and i know
when you go
nothing can make this mood,
or give its famine food.

our talk, branching through woods and sky
like young leaves, suddenly knowing why-
they need the sun again
to be, and to remain-
more than a copied canopy
to reach the plain out to me.

i lounge, in your living words libation,
with uncommon nouns, uncovered in creation,
and wait for wantings i can be-
where complex minds dwell in that simplicity,
where feelings go to touch
and come to mean so much.

Strider Marcus Jones – is a poet, law graduate and former civil servant from Salford, England with proud Celtic roots in France, 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 x4 and Best of the Net x3, his five published books of poetry  https://stridermarcusjonespoetry.wordpress.com/ reveal a maverick, moving between cities, playing his saxophone in smoky rooms.

“FRACTALS OF CLARITY” by Strider Marcus Jones – MasticadoresUsa // Editor: Barbara Leonhard //

FRACTALS OF CLARITY


how can i forget
the way she sucks me
while she smokes my cigarette-
tongue strokes
tip pokes
softly round the rim
then deeper in.

the sensual symmetry
of close caressing
fondle messing
with her hair
and gentle bobbing of head
up-down-there,

so much love
i hold, in my hands
between my legs,
sliding out and in
rubbing circles round
the sea sound
collar of her quim.

we make self similarity
in fractals of clarity
lying back,
looking into each other
picking out stars in sky black
drapes that cover

what this does
to us.

Copyright © 2026 Strider Marcus Jones
All Rights Reserved

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, his five published books of poetry (https://stridermarcusjonespoetry.wordpress.com/) reveal a maverick, moving between cities and playing his saxophone in smoky rooms.  

His poetry has been published in numerous publications, including Poppy Road Review, The Galway Review, The Huffington Post USA, The Stray Branch Literary Magazine, Crack The Spine Literary Magazine, The Lampeter Review, Panoplyzine Poetry Magazine, and Dissident Voice.

“THE BLUEBELL WOOD” by Strider Marcus Jones

“THAT SILENCE WHOSE COLOURS I KNOW” by Strider Marcus Jones

“EIGHT TREASURES OF SIMPLE PLEASURES” by Strider Marcus Jones

“KNOTS IN STRINGS” by Strider Marcus Jones

Poems by Strider Marcus Jones

Spillwords.com presents: She is a Suffragette by Strider Marcus Jones, a poet, law graduate and former civil servant from Salford, England.

Source: She is a Suffragette by Strider Marcus Jones at Spillwords.com