jBPM has support for Pools and Lanes already, however not multiple pools. Both the Web-based and Eclipse-based tooling in jBPM supports Lanes. Since jBPM supports a single process node definition currently only, you can consider the editor canvas itself as a single pool that you can drop lanes into.

HTH

But shoud it be possible to create a single pool and lanes within it and have it to execute?

There is no reason to create a pool because your drawing canvas is already the pool. You can drop into it as many lanes as you wish.

HTH

Just to be clear, is this BPMN2 compliant?

Yes

You probably already know this, but a BPMN2 Process element may not contain "pools" (the graphical representation of Participant elements) only Lanes. Pools are typically used in Collaboration Diagrams (contained by a BPMN2 Collaboration element) to represent the Participants in business interactions.