All Poets are Self-Published

by Pat Darnell

an old city
is basically
a graveyard

monuments
and headstones
on square plots

a pedestrian
maze of sorts
of building spots

plastic pots
with sprigs
and trees

water always
running free
to its on level;

all creation
is clueless
in a life it revels.


Copyright © 2010-11 Patrick Darnell

Supreme Sob Story

Who are you really --
what is it you do out there?
From this loftiness it appears
prophets' scattered lives
are destroyed.

Frail prophets; are you daft?
Fragility ate up lives?
Unable, or unwilling,
to stand against and
forswear, and repudiate
technologies in recant ...
... Face in face-off, while
stolen by unknowable
and cowardly villain;

Sneaky Demon's, role models --
surgery to deceive
rejuvenation twist
promised reconciliation,
names you cannot unsay --

Confectionery cake
a brittle layer like
two dimension bas-relief
over soft core of humans' stakes

on Supreme Secret plates --
secrets you depart with;
low tech solution for
high logic-techno pith; --
and hardships abated
for your prophets-in-waiting.




Copyright © 2010-11 Patrick Darnell

Sean Tudor the First

Highly accurate
guesswork, describes
terror Tudors feel
flying above us
untethered to
Mother Earth.

Rolling, rolling, rolling
like Vampire bats
slaves of endless
ersatz

Wages of their sins
is of course death
Death is final
frontier, unless ...

... Tudor, it will take
you seven hundred
generations to
spend that wealth

Sons' and daughters'
immortal souls -- what?
Still secret to you?
"Come with me:" said Jesus
"Behind me Satan!"

There might be hope for
Sean Tudor the First.

Copyright © 2010 - 11 Patrick Darnell

Conversation at the Army Surplus Store

"You didn't have
a childhood did you?"

"No."

"I mean; you were
born to a bunch
of goons -- siblings,
all nervous
about their
birth-rights?"

"Uhmmm -- yep!"

"What are you laughing at?"

"Mullie."

Copyright © 2010 Patrick Darnell

It isn't Always Pretty

Copyright © 2010-11 Patrick Darnell

Fran

When serpents
attack back
and lead to
a whole new
story ...

So that Fran can
end it, or not,
anymore than
she could have
it started  ...

We are all
on the same side.
'Truth is:' that
truth is
a harsh villain
to those
who lie.


Copyright © 2010 Patrick Darnell

Having been born human
and never known the Earth
never saw it's green
never filled lungs
with its air
never felt the sun
radiance on his face

Traveling the cosmos
as a star struck being
always seeking a place
a place to know
as home

This is how it is
from earliest time
from Adam to Enoch
from son to son

Having arrived
breathing in paradise
savoring fruit of earth
drinking its wine
then is a human born.



Copyright © 2010 Patrick Darnell

I'm almost not Dead Yet

I'm almost not dead yet
-- dead is real final --
but alas' I'm not
there yet

I guess I'm just
not there yet

I am pulling out
my eyebrows
and I'm lying very still
listening to TV persons gab on

Talk about who walks about
many bloody segues
I'm like antlers on a wall
watching seagulls set up a queue

I'm almost not dead yet
guess' be alive I will
as long as I have eyebrows
as long as there's face
... on a clock

life went by fast
I was twenty, then way past --
hung out to dry at fifty-five --
need an air lift out of this flood.

Copyright © 2010 Patrick Darnell

A Bookshelf

Somewhere there is
a bookshelf with
the very book I need

The very book that when
its pages turn
reveals just what is --

Just what is
in the very way
that I need this day
to contemplate,
while I perambulate
and be complete.


Copyright © 2010 Patrick Darnell

Sustaining an Unplanned Life

We
en-route
to truth
scampering
past trickery
skulduggery
maneuvering
past lavish lies

Finding a grove
of sweet-gum tree
and hickory
ancient elders
masters of sky
in shadow we hide

Then we re'lize
that we can grow
Sunflowers in
our own front yard
we don't hav'ta
go hide so hard.

Copyright © 2010 Patrick Darnell