the stars are those
we have forgotten
both living and dead,
floating in clustered constellations
not labouring in rows-
with hair growing grey
and teeth going rotten
singing songs, God’s godless pray.
harvesting crops.
chants drowned in clocks
of tobacco and cotton,
the peasants and slaves of civilised nations
duped by liberty
in recent history-
dug out canals, made railways and roads
out of tarmac to tread-
into factories
like tribal junkies
hooked on cheap gin and beer instead
of joining the cholera’s watery dead-
ten to a room in a slum and lead-
like human batteries,
sleeping without moonlight
on sarsen stones,
or druid voices in their homes-
where thoughts have no dreams or flight,
just sleep, recharge, get bled.
you have to be poor,
to think utopia
can be something real-
not to exploit or steal
that ambrosia aura of women and children and men
for the spoken wages of despair-
that suck you in,
glad but grim
when times’ clock punches that card by the door
and mass myopia
conditions all to labour, keyboard and pen
for food and shelter with a roof and fourth wall
shanty made out of cardboard, wood and tin
in sunny Sao Paolo, where the samba rain leaks in
while orphaned children beg and play
eating the forage of capitalist waste
dodging death squads night and day
imitating Socrates at football to hope to taste
what’s inside the cold, glistening towers
casting invisible powers
behind the smoked glass and soldiers of stone
leaving blood and bleached bone
from over there-
where the ascent of money doesn’t care
about it all
because its infinity is small.
Strider Marcus Jones
Picture By Nick Victor
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.
His poetry has been published in numerous publications including: The Huffington
Post USA; The Stray Branch Literary Magazine; Crack The Spine Literary Magazine;The Lampeter Review and Dissident Voice.
.