I was going to throw away the water

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I was going to throw away the water
bottle then the river spoke: DO NOT
SPIT GUM INTO THE URINALS.
I was transformed. Red bumps rose
along the collar of my hand and I
scratched until boredom overtook
the revelation, the epiphany being
waste is measured in days I do
what I don’t want to be doing.
Rise with me past the prehistoric
era. I’ve chewed on ash rocks
for eternity. Dentistry
has not been kind. The drills
are getting longer, the routines
blurrier, my eyesight already
a ten twenty or whatever
the technical term for
poor, as in destitute,
as in the cursive graffiti
on the side of a brick
house on the road I live on,
the one-word message
sprawled in yellow
teeth I see every time
I smile widely
in a mirror,
any time I disappear
into a ripple.

(originally published in Unlikely Stories Mark V, Winter 2023)

Copley Place

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

always sing-song through cacophonous crush
            living – divorce drugs rising sea

in your tiny upstairs apartment you recommended me self-
help
            and to your pug, too

before we walked through an abandoned train
in the rain    kissed in the presence
            of four-tiered mahogany

totem pole   eight eyes surveillance for us   was
the summer I was temporary on this earth

I could arrive on a plane   share a maple blondie
at the Earth Fare’s café      and go to your unfurnished

Copley place   my ego was a red giant   of course I’d go
supernova    become a noble gas    Narcissus

needed others stars to become a constellation
           and vast darkness

(originally published in Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo, Spring 2024)

Making Meaning Quarantine

/ James Croal Jackson / 1 Comment

this repetitive block of Earth
same moon I hear the fucking
crickets chirping in my LOUD
LAPTOP FAN fog fog forget-
me-not forget me I can’t even
see my fucking FAMILY MY
FAMILY LIVES other lives
in this forsaken simulation I
live wildly too I experiment
mac and cheese with minced
garlic and parsley but it is still
Kraft no not still it is MAGIC
anything that sustains me is
MAGIC no MAGIC is LOVE
what LOVE keeps me alive is
NECROMANCY okay now
watch me unscrew my head and
place it on your porcelain plate
and let me TELL you
a SECRET after DESSERT
                                   I’ll wait

(originally published in Oddball Magazine, Summer 2024)

25th

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I wore a gray-black striped shirt. You made
me a cookie dough ice cream cake. We drank

Rebel IPAs that ended with a stabbing pain
in your stomach. You asked, are you mad I can’t

sleep with you? We drew a storm with cigarettes,
exchanged darkened clouds in our back alley.

And yes, we smelted iron before we slept,
and through this photo, I remember.

(originally published in Setu, Fall 2024)

Ratskeller

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Half-fear a chandelier falling
one’s made of tusks
beside portraits of goblins
on the wall time-greened
goblets containing mysteries
oil paintings can’t answer
I was reluctant but we
had a loud seat at the
last table, the closest
in our observable universe
(a prophet holds a decade
old brochure, taps her shins
the same dance I thought
I made up last week clapping
and hollering) the room a loud
bluebell wreaths of light
trees of a traditional
American mindset (all
garbled rebirth and sin)
What can’t an accordion
do? The accordion is new
a drone of pressed blackberries
on a machine in engineered air
in which your crumbled piece
of paper reverses its
timeline (the pen
we belabored to find
behind finished wood)
going as far back
as to the simple
piano (all string and
hammer) whoever
doesn’t sweat
by the end of tonight
isn’t worth my time

(originally published in Poetry Super HIghway, Fall 2024)

No Matter How We Love

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

reservoir fading skies
the greenest pine
needles tarantulas or
wedding vows jodhpurs
light silk sweat turtles amid
mountains two ducked hearts
murder in love a frozen deer
splinters of metal your abandoned
democracy you begin to run your
arms through the mists smugness
aloft the fruit of late season you
awake to feet of crystal stone
naked on a grass paradise plot
of your father’s estate how creeks
know of the sky’s smallest leaves
and their immense heart scents
of smoke the golden brown
of the soil actually stars
and no matter how we love
it does not end like a song
our tears pour but the storm
yes the storm dissolves
over us like fireworks

(originally published in Sybil Journal, 2025)