Hopper's Ladies

Strider Marcus Jones

you stay and grow more mysterious
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. but

gutting you
with gossip’s knife.

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Strider Marcus Jones is a poet, law graduate, and former civil servant from Salford, England with proud Celtic roots in Ireland and Wales. 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 the USA, Canada, Australia, England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, Spain, Germany; Serbia; India, and Switzerland in numerous publications including Dreich Magazine; The Racket Journal; Trouvaille Review; dyst Literary Journal; Impspired Magazine; Literary Yard Journal; Poppy Road 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; The Lampeter Review; Panoplyzine Poetry Magazine; Dissident Voice.

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