February 2019
Marc Darnell
marcdarnell@twc.com
marcdarnell@twc.com
I am a custodian and tutor in Fremont, Nebraska. I have been a hotel supervisor, phlebotomist, editorial assistant, farmhand, busboy, pizza-maker, and volunteer comedian to everyone in my life. I've published poems in The Lyric, Skidrow Penthouse, and Shot Glass Journal. I don't have a book out and don't know how to go about doing that.
Note: I like responding to poems and seeing what the poet's response will be. Although I live in a populous city -- Omaha, the poetic community seems a little sparse here, though there is a writing group I will attend to get connected, but at V-V I know I can talk to a poet about their piece of work, and every time they respond. It can be lonely to not have other writers in one's life, but here I can communicate all across the country. That's the secret gold of the internet.
Note: I like responding to poems and seeing what the poet's response will be. Although I live in a populous city -- Omaha, the poetic community seems a little sparse here, though there is a writing group I will attend to get connected, but at V-V I know I can talk to a poet about their piece of work, and every time they respond. It can be lonely to not have other writers in one's life, but here I can communicate all across the country. That's the secret gold of the internet.
a cappella
This is a song for someone,
maybe you,
when the walls come in and the floor falls out.
Behind these words hear the lonely mouth
caged and blue,
singing a song for someone--
you? -- who was never anyone
lucky in love, and never knew
exactly when the walls came in and the floor fell out,
who only pounds and shouts,
for whom true
love never comes, and someone
asks why you're still alone,
and the best you can do,
without letting the floor fall out,
is ask if they hear that mouth faint as a flute
as they read this poem too,
unless they found that someone
before the walls came in and the floor fell out.
I Was Just A Kid
I married the night at twenty,
jumping right in, Vegas and all,
too young to know what I wanted,
the night older, more experienced,
but it hid a lot from me
behind its red neon irises
and black and blue promises.
Its boozes and smoky syllables
attached to me and almost killed me,
as did love I found in ditches so deep
I woke with teeth knocked out
and scars from torn beer cans.
Night is now distant, unpredictable,
not simply romantic like the moment I first
committed to be with it through thick and thin,
but there's been too much thick, and I'm so thin
from trying to look cool and tough for it.
It's a shell, no matter how
I try to impress it or get one embrace,
or the love back that I gave it all those hours
in love letters under sheltering light--
light invented just to handle night's shiftiness.
Who needs that?
Marriage is companionship and security.
Last week I turned to the night in my bed,
already awake and looking at me
like it thought I was its putty forever,
and asked which of us is moving out,
since I've been seeing the day for quite some time.
© 2019 Marc Darnell
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