Thrilled and honoured to have my poem Mirror, Mirror published by great Editor John Patrick Robbins on The Crossroads Literary Magazine on 29th January, 2026.
Thursday, January 29, 2026
Mirror, Mirror By Strider Marcus Jones
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, 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: The Huffington Post USA; The Crossroads Magazine, The Stray Branch Literary Magazine; Crack The Spine Literary Magazine;The Lampeter Review and Dissident Voice.
Honoured to have my poem Come and See published by brilliant Editor Barbara Leonhard in the superb MasticadoresUSA.
MasticadoresUSA, poem, poetry, Treasured Contributors
“COME AND SEE” by Strider Marcus Jones
Posted by Meelosmomon30 January, 2026
you don’t have to be extreme
to be content,
other forces feed
this show-
they build on what has been
and mingle with consent,
then roam the rivers we invent-
using nature and nurture’s seed
to make it grow.
unshade your grey, reclusive hours
and play your made, profusive flowers
all the way:
don’t let regret upset your dream-
it’s all its light has been
and makes what it empowers
from today.
but hark at me!
not knowing
what i’m sowing
day to day
deliberately-
and yet, i know it’s coming,
comes from going
out of me-
into its tomorrow,
with all its sleeps of sorrow
entangled in its tree,
what i don’t make, i borrow-
come and see.
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. Strider, a member of The Poetry Society, has five published books of poetry, revealing a maverick who moves between cities and plays his saxophone in smoky rooms. His poetry has been published in over 200 publications worldwide, including Dreich Magazine; dyst Literary Journal; Impspired Magazine; Melbourne Culture Corner; Literary Yard Journal; The Galway Review; Cajun Mutt Press; Rye Whiskey Review; The Huffington Post USA; The Stray Branch Literary Magazine; Crack The Spine Literary Magazine; and Dissident Voice.
Delighted to have my poem A Woman Does Not Have To Wait published in the superb Suburban Witchcraft Magazine Issue 11 in December 2025. My thanks to brillliant editor Mirjana M.
https://suburbanwitchcraft.com/issue11
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.
thats when i hear Gerschwin
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.
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 https://stridermarcusjonespoetry.wordpress.com/ reveal a maverick, moving between cities, playing his saxophone in smoky rooms.
Thrilled to have my 2 poems The Samaritan Machine & The Mad Hatter Hiding in Dark Matter published in Be About It Press. My thanks to Editor Alezandra Naughton.
https://beaboutitpress.substack.com/p/the-samaritan-machine-and-the-mad
two new poems by 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.
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, 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.
Honoured and delighted to have 5 poems published in Ranger Magazine, Issue 13. Congratulations to all contributors and thanks to brilliant editor David A. Bishop.
https://www.rangermagazine.net/issue13
https://www.rangermagazine.net/jones_issue13
#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.
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