Marc Darnell is a floor tech and online tutor in Omaha NE, and has also been a phlebotomist, hotel supervisor, busboy, editorial assistant, farmhand, devout recluse, and incurable brooder– leading to near auto collisions. He received his MFA from the University of Iowa, and has published poems in The Lyric, Eclectic Muse, Skidrow Penthouse, Shot Glass Journal, The HyperTexts, Candelabrum, Quantum Leap, Aries, Ship of Fools, Open Minds Quarterly, The Fib Review, Verse-Virtual, Blue Unicorn, and The Pangolin Review among others.
BBQ
Restless Joe rues in red,
grilling for uninvited guests.
Emasculated ego rests
for leaner, happier times, fed
by dreams of getting out and ahead.
He sorts the knives, which is best?
to give a slit, a gouge no less,
to her for barbs gone over his head.
She stamps him as a grade-A git
while beefier neighbors slowly cure
as choicer men. The fact she lied
sears him well, but all on the spit
stays pink, as pride is smoked with cruor
and served, his heart now gristle inside.
Passenger Seat
The year went very well
without you at the wheel.
Months of google searches
found a sliver of truth,
packaged to be purchased.
A feverish week defeated
A, B, and type C flu
as happy days completed
your one-act tragedy.
Happier hours retrieved
poems you swore you threw,
and, on closer inspection,
they weren’t written by you.
Minutes curtly finished
your Mahlerian symphony,
and thirteen dragging seconds,
with half a cigarette,
revised your tired, syrupy
autobiography
with only minor regrets.
For just one year without you,
it certainly was an endeavor,
but you were always timeless,
time’s underachiever.