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

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Mirror, Mirror #Poem by Strider Marcus Jones

Mirror, Mirror #Poem by Strider Marcus Jones

Posted on October 8, 2026by ovithanos

mirror, mirror,
in the hall
age comes to us all,
and looks wither
through the play
of years slipped away,
away
in the lapsed lingo of street
and road,
where tangents meet
and move with innocence
up summits of experience
told,
whose fruits we eat
then weep
when they implode.
these reflections
in this autumn of adventurous directions,
mean more
standing in the door
of ebb and flow
watching people come and go
wearing introspections
of what they know
after listening to a stranger’s small confessions
on midnight radio.

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, nominated for 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.

It’s So Quiet #Poem by Strider Marcus Jones – The Ovi

It’s So Quiet #Poem by Strider Marcus Jones

Posted on September 26, 2026by ovithanos

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
pencilling 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 encyclopaedia-
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.

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, nominated for 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.

The Path, the Fence, the Fields; Beads on Strings by Strider Marcus Jones

The Path, the Fence, the Fields

we walk by the river
talking inside ourselves,
like rhapsodies in two reflections-
different, but the same.

the path, the fence, the fields-
unknown obstacles that stare
through then, and now, beyond-
have heard love chime before.

ahead the river breaks
going separate ways,
but we stick to the same side
in the willow woods

and farms of flooded fields-
with ascension stroking
each reaction
phosphorous in the rain.

Beads on Strings

a thought about you-
triggered, by the sight and sound and smell
of something else-
brings it all back.
the old brick bridge,
hunch-backed
over the still canal-
reflects on those reflections gone
dark inside me deep-
which spoke prophetic phrases
that echoed on its ceiling
and fused within my own
bead on this simple string of time.
i felt i knew
each sentence in your senses,
and loves rhythms, rapid and relaxed-
made its own ripples, constant then but absent now,
with sanguine words,
and sagacious phrases
vibrating in the chords of air, like music moulding time.

Strider Marcus Jones is a pot, 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 x4 and Best of the Net x3, his five published books of poetry  reveal a maverick, moving between cities, playing his saxophone in smoky rooms.

https://stridermarcusjonespoetry.wordpress.com/ 

Original Art by Kushal Poddar

Let me take you to the area between science and imagination, a poem by Strider Marcus Jones

CALCULUS

Darwin can’t explain the missing link,
and science, did not invent the goal
of faith in how we think-
but Newton keeps us
sane to find the whole
gravity and reason for our role-
in calculus.

science beyond ours does exist,
in un-deciphered hieroglyphs
and alchemies of metals
malleable like petals
on spaceships
crashed in Roswell, gone
to Area 51.

like Dedalus, who prayed too good
through Dublin’s streets
of saints and sinners,
while whores exchanged their treats
for cash, from winners and beginners-
i walked towards the priesthood,
but woke up wet with wood.

i realised, Carlisle was right in saying:
no lie can live forever-
that the Gods we make together
praying-
don’t care or intervene
in human fate and actions-
so Spinoza’s God is seen,

in the orderly reactions
of the universe-
creating life, and waiting hearse-
but metaphors of doubt persist
on the road to Armageddon,
for if physics shapes all of this-
what shapes these cloths of heaven?

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, playing his saxophone in smoky rooms.

Original Art by Kushal Poddar

Art by Kushal Poddar

OLD CAFE

a rest, from swinging bar
and animals in the abattoir-
to smoke in mental thinks
spoken holding cooling drinks.

counting out old coppers to be fed
in the set squares of blue and red
plastic tablecloth-
just enough to break up bread in thick barley broth.

Jesus is late
after saying he was coming
back to share the wealth and real estate
of capitalist cunning.

maybe. just maybe.
put another song on the jukebox baby:
no more heroes anymore.
what are we fighting for-

he’s hiding in hymns and chants,
in those Monty Python underpants,
from this coalition of new McCarthy’s
and it’s institutions of Moriarty’s.

some shepherd’s sheep will do this dance
in hypothermic trance,
for one pound an hour
like a shamed flower,

watched by sinister sentinels-
while scratched tubular bells,
summon all to Sunday service
where invisible myths exist-

to a shamed flower
with supernatural power
come the hour

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, playing his saxophone in smoky rooms.

Three Poems – Ape House Magazine

Three Poemsby Strider Marcus Jones

Ape House

Sep 10, 2026

VACANT ROOMS



take my thoughts with you,
as I cast them into the ocean,
and let the seagulls drown my words,
from cliffs where clouds sweep low.

wild, wind-swept spray, spits
at time turned rocks,
and stands them impotent too-
on sands that shift:

like truths, turned false and cut loose,
like flesh, that fades on a bone bleached sky;
it hurts to set the past free-
and live in vacant rooms.




MEPHISTOPHELES IS NOT ABOUT



this coffee is hot-
but paradise is cold,
and Mephistopheles is not
about, tempting me with gold
and pouting pleasures of the flesh
with their alluring mesh-
so Morpheus to hold
in broken secrets being told.

this dreamer in his underwear,
parts from the bottle, and leaves it there-
some touched,
not much
with stale camembert-
no fun alone,
moving around inside, unknown-
disturbed from bed to chair.

it synchronizes well,
how past and present both compel
a sleep on understanding-
the beat of love with sand in
the texture of its taste,
trapped in silence,
waxed to waste-
with nothings nonsense
in its face.




WHEN YOU CAME IN



the air
tore into shreds
around our heads
in the room
when you came in.
bare
words
flew out of your chair
like accusing,
hysterical birds
and pecked at my plume
of silence
spitting vile violence.
i wore the harness
of your darkness
and pulled its load
of false truth
behind my youth-
you told me i was old
and i lost a tooth.
in the scene, that cut the cable,
while we both sat at the table
in the garden-
love's sour jasmine
drooped,
poisoned in its ruined roots,
then you wept to me
and went to him
tears
trailing,
years
jading,
fading
beauty
again.
that was there.
that was then.
a solar flare
of raven hair
around its star,
last light more magnificent than most,
close
but far.

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.

SHINE Quarterly: Issue 8, September 2026 (SHINE – Poetry): Terrell, EIC Samantha: 9798193522676: Amazon.com: Books

THE PATTERNS

somewhere

in everywhere

everybody

happens

in the patterns,

like flocks

of rocks

gathered to the lobby

of Saturn’s

rings,

graded

and sorted

into ugly and beautiful

useful

things;

all something

out of nothing

but not absolute nothing:

it seems matter

that Mad Hatter

and plectrums of light

make tunes of self similarity settle and fight

repeating this same existence

without remembered resistance.

 

THE SUN DRIPS DOWN

i don’t feel like a stranger

in your ease

as i come to know

your fast and slow

above, below

waves and seas

roving like a ranger.

a draft through the floor

moves the closed to door,

spills wax, wafts candlelight,

and in music more slight

behind words said

becomes a squeezed breeze-

that warms in and out

where all love’s doubt

left and fled.

as the shades of strings we shed,

uncoil and leave our head,

the sun drips down

ultraviolet turning brown

the sated flesh,

whose oliveness

soon condenses,

freeing long suppressed senses

to understand each other’s expectation

knowing love is more than our creation.

 

THIS NOW MY THOUGHTS

this now my thoughts

open at the image of your name

won’t be revealing

the secrets they explain-

do you do the same

on these out walks

remembering the rain

drop fractals on us feeling.

back we go again,

without preachers

or bad teachers,

harvest high with hope

just us and frayed strands

of poetry and bands

on this bridge of notes

our mind spans.

in give we’ve got

the bloom of this plot

in garden to river

shaping start and stop

the melting clock

of body quake then quiver

through the Dreamtime day night

and soul spirit lit by landscape light.

we climb the Orange Rock

to revert back far

but have no Gaelic croft

to live in who we are.

it has changed hands

until the purpose of these lands

shoots dissenting music out of birds

and sucks all truth from ancient words

so existence is

another language.

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, nominated for 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.

I Look Through Pixel Stars by Strider Marcus Jones | North of Oxford

I Look Through Pixel Stars by Strider Marcus Jones

I Look Through Pixel Stars



ensconced in your topiary vegetation,
with the u vowel
and tongue trowel
quickening sensation,
trickles down the eaves
morphia poches,
and smokes through notes
of cuddled conversation-

try to pin me down,
your king without a crown,
from cobbled streets
and communist meets
back then, in the day-
that come to this
metropolis
contorted with decay.

if i know love at all,
it's moat without a wall-
can come and conquer me,
then share soliloquy.
i look through pixel stars,
ignoring clubs and bars,
in seas above the ground-
waiting to be found

in books of chivalry-
embedded into me.
another doing day,
forms and fades away,
as the sky drapes close-
hope constricts, and i compose
these lines of fallow furrows-
my yesterdays, for tomorrows.


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 x4 and Best of the Net x4, his five published books of poetry Strider Marcus Jones Poet reveal a maverick, moving between cities, playing his saxophone in smoky rooms.

Four Feathers Press: 49 poets and artists being published in Turtle Island Poetry #8 (August 2026)

LIFE IS FLAMENCO

why can’t i walk as far

and smoke more tobacco,

or play my Spanish guitar

like Paco,

putting rhythms and feelings

without old ceilings

you’ve never heard

before in a word.

life is flamenco,

to come and go

high and low

fast and slow-

she loves him,

he loves her

and their shades within

caress and spur

in a ride and dance

of tempestuous romance.

outback, in Andalusian ease,

i embrace you, like melted breeze

amongst ripe olive trees-

dark and different,

all manly scent

and mind unkempt.

like i do,

Picasso knew

everything about you

when he drew

your elongated arms and legs

around me, in this perpetual bed

of emotion

and motion

for these soft geometric angles

in my finger strokes

and exhaled smokes

of rhythmic bangles

to circle colour your Celtic skin

with primitive phthalo blue

pigment in wiccan tattoo

before entering

vibrating wings

through thrumming strings

of wild lucid moments

in eternal components.

i can walk as far

and smoke more tobacco,

and play my Spanish guitar

like Paco.

 

THE HEAD IN HIS FEDORA HAT

a lonely man,

cigarette,

rain

and music

is a poem

moving,

not knowing-

a caravan,

whose journey does not expect

to go back

and explain

how everyone’s ruts

have the same

blood and vein.

the head in his fedora hat

bows to no one’s grip,

brim tilted into the borderless

plain

so his outlaw wit

can confess

and remain

a storyteller,

that hobo fella

listening like a barfly

for a while

and slow-winged butterfly

whose smile

they can’t close the shutters on

or stop talking about

when he walks out

and is gone.

whisky and tequila

and a woman, who loves to feel ya

inside

and outside

her

when ya move

and live as one,

brings you closer

in simplistic

unmaterialistic

grooved

muse Babylon.

this is so,

when he stands with hopes head,

arms and legs

all aflow

in her Galadriel glow

with mithril breath kisses

condensing sensed wishes

of reality and dream

felt and seen

under that

fedora hat

inhaling smoke

as he sang and spoke

stranger fella

storyteller.

 

COMPOSERS AND MISTAKES

when I see the evening,

with its ordinary sounds and shapes

so full of unbelieving

composers and mistakes

coming in-

something wakes,

and I begin.

what I can’t affect

is getting colder

as I grow older,

retreating inside-

I could be your wreck

if I was bolder

and called you over,

over this side-

through the honeysuckle arch of midnight,

moon like a lid bright

shield in the sky;

on the grass

where footsteps last

in this light-

making a cast

where you walked by.

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 with 4 Pushcart Prize nominations and 3 Best of the Net nominations, his five published books of poetry  

https://stridermarcusjonespoetry.wordpress.com/ 

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; 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.