#RANGER

Strider Marcus Jones



Hopper’s Ladies

 

you stay and grow

more mysterioso

but familiar

in my interior-

with voices peeled

full of field

of fruiting orange trees

fertile to orchard breeze

soaked in summer rains

so each refrain all remains.

 

not afraid of contrast,

closed and opened in the past

and present, this isolation of Hopper's ladies,

sat, thinking in and out of ifs and maybes

in a diner, reading on a chair or bed

knowing what wants to be said

to someone

who is coming or gone-

 

such subsidence

into silence

is a unilateral curve

of moments

and movements

that swerve

a straight lifetime

to independence

in dependence

touching sublime

rich roots

then ripe fruits.

 

we share their flesh and flutes

in ribosomes and delicious shoots

that release love-

no, not just the fingered glove

to wear

and curl up with in a chair,

but lovingkindness

cloaked in timeless density and tone

in settled loam-

beyond lonely apartments in skyscrapers

and empty newspapers,

or small-town life

gutting you with a gossips knife.

 

 

The Two Saltimbanques

 

when words don't come easy

they make do with silence

and find something in nothing

to say to each other

when the absinthe runs out.

 

his glass and ego

are bigger than hers,

his elbows sharper,

stabbing into the table

and the chambers of her heart

cobalt clown

without a smile.

 

she looks away

with his misery behind her eyes

and sadness on her lips,

back into her curves

and the orange grove

summer of her dress

worn and blown by sepia time

 

where she painted

his mirth and mess

lying down

naked

for her brush and skin,

mingling intimate scents

undoing and doing each other.

 

for some of us,

living back then

is more going forward

than living in now

and sitting here-

 

at this table,

with these glasses

standing empty of absinthe,

faces wanting hands

to be a bridge of words

and equal peace

as Guernica approaches. 

 

 

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 alchemy's 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?

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. 

 

 

A Woman Does Not Have To Wait

 

under the old canal bridge you said

so i can hear the echoes

in your head

repeating mine

this time

when it throws

our voices from roof into water

where i caught her

reflection half in half out of sunshine.

that’s when i hear Gershwin

playing his piano in you

working out the notes

to rhapsody in blue

that makes me float

light and thin

deep within

through the air

when you put your comforts there.

Waits was drinking whisky from his bottle

while i sat through old days with Aristotle

knowing i must come up to date

because a woman does not have to wait-

until my speech and face is

naked like a grockle

in those other places

we are coming to

under the blue.

it isn't much, but all i have for us-

me, behind this mask of mirrors.



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. His poetry has been published in numerous publications including: The Huffington Post USA; The Stray Branch Literary Magazine; Crack The Spine Literary Magazine;The Recusant, The Lampeter Review and Dissident Voice.