Charles Darnell

I walk along a melancholy strand,
Hearing music played too far
To be meant for me.
Drifting down the beach,
...

Ah Jesus! You do me no favors!
You give me life, but not my life!
You raise me up, what am I to do?
You are borne away with the crowd,
...

We tell ourselves that it will come.
It will descend upon us
While we are busy
Or simply laying about,
...

Well Lord,
Here I am in the last scene of that last act.
This how you wanted it, right?
You got your crucifixion
...

In the early morning hours
the blood dries from arterial red
to sullen black
on the floor,
...

“Yahoo buckaroo! ”
Your bare butt bouncing
To the clop of your cowboy boots,
Six guns high in the air!
...

We lay together,
Reclined in dark,
Your silhouette outlined
By ambient light,
...

You lay in all your splendor,
Haughty in your grace
And beauty,
As if saying to Rome:
...

The spray hits you in the face.
The swells bring the distended belly
Quickly up then settles with a greenish hiss,
Another and another.
...

The moon is in its first quarter.
It grows as it crosses the sky
Travels among the background of stars
Shines like hard diamonds.
...

There they go!
I knew it would happen.
They were hanging around
Pecking at the surface
...

A murder of crows
Feast on another kind.
The dried gore
A new dinner
...

In my long sleep.
Cover me with
The warmth of earth.
Grow sweet lilies
...

The guests surround me now,
Here, on this special day.
The priest prays his litany,
Tradition of long years.
...

I

Lord,
Thou art God and I Thy servant,
...

I recall with clarity
So bright I shade
My mind’s eye.
...

Father,
I offer this confession in answer to the purpose of my life.
You sent me in your love before your people
To show them a path to Heaven.
...

Coffee sits cold on the kitchen counter.
I turn the pages of the paper,
Reading just the headlines.
The house is quiet,
...

Beneath a cold sea,
Fathoms down,
She settled long ago.
Breathing water is unnatural
...

-And the sea shall give up her dead
Rev 20: 13

You rock gently on the sand,
...