If California’s the Dream, Keep Dreaming

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I arrived a grown child, thinking
this the place where everyone was

a star or– at least– a surfer.
I am neither. Every year

I look back and say my god! I’ve stayed
the same. For example: four billion years ago

I was a molecule in primordial soup,
spinning and swirling. Four billion years later,

I am a clerk at a convenience store, stocking lube and smiling.
Now? I am on the couch watching BoJack Horseman,

eating canned tuna and wondering if I am him.
Or– wait. I am in my car, stuck in traffic, honking

at a red light. Hell, I am driving a lemon,
barefoot in smog. This may be

a dream, but I feel cheated these days,
even if the sun shines– and it does– too brightly.

(originally published in Sunhous Review, Fall 2024)

Interview Season

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

You didn’t take me seriously
when I said I was qualified.
It’s okay. Money grows

on certain trees, and people
like you pluck them leaf-
less. I want to hold the roots

in my hands, my long and
hardened hands. I want to make
a phone call on your behalf.

I wish I had a trust
fund. Someone I trust
to grow within me.

A seed that sees
how dark the world
becomes without

the light to grow,
planted anyway.

(originally published in Poetry Pacific, Spring 2025)

Industry Burnout

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I am not this negative.
I look at Post-It note
days and see a march
of white beneath, my life
before me on corkboards,
dilapidated. I used
to joke easily in this junk-
yard, chasing wayward
clouds in the sunset,
in awe of our city’s
little skyscrapers
over shards of broken
bottles on asphalt.
And you’d join me,
too, running across
the parking lot,
the cars rolling
over blue bridge,
roaring, as we
were under it
at the mercy
of an aged
but comforting
infrastructure.
I don’t know
if I have changed,
or if the world
is wearier, how
I don’t even
look for the
weather when
I open
the door
to leave.

(originally published in A God You Believed In, Fall 2023)

Northbound on I-279 in November

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

the leaves are changing and so
is our relationship the bare arms
exposed green and red forging
forward to the next when you want
the open road it was always what I
wanted though I’d never admit that
hurtling toward work the everyday
mundane our infrastructure finally
I do not know what is beyond
the next bend construction cones
over grass long forgotten words
another dead deer on the left side
of the highway where I have
traveled often just to get here

(originally published in Orenaug Mountain Poetry Journal, Fall 2024)

Dynamic

/ James Croal Jackson / 1 Comment

Whatever power dynamic carburetor heat engine
lightning car accident awestruck hum? Sign me
off of your autographed lemons. Peach sticki-
ness on the homefront wonderwall water cooler
laughability. The job’s a job don’t make it
awkward staircase holly oxen pulling the cart
up the hill, old buffalo, the sneering stare,
the huff of whoever is there.

(originally published in Ballast Journal, Summer 2023)

Forty Years From Now, This Poem Will Make Sense (Disregard if Forty Years Have Passed)

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I am sentient
enough– half-
asleep at the
wheel

I already
miss you
if I miss
my turn,

misguide
my controlling
hands into
another lane.

I have a tote
of sorrows
lugged
into a luggage,

third floor closet,
plastic blue bag
crinkling
in the night.

I wish–
I want–
you never
to read them.

This is a message
to me
from half
my current age–

though revelation
is what
I want
to avoid,

it is now
(was?)
true.

(originally published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Fall 2023)

The Way Out

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Lilly asks as we leave
the Highland Park pool

do you need
a dinosaur figurine?

I look at the lost
and found table

she points to, and
I make mental dots

for sprawling trinkets
that must have meant

something to someone,
once, trying to determine

what she means by dinosaur–
is it the green color shining

off plastic rings? The fake
bird feathers? She points

again and this time I follow
to a rubber Tyrannosaur, no

ambiguity, Yes, my cat died
this morning. Yes, right after

the break-up. Because I fit what
doesn’t make sense into butterflies,

love, and the stillness around me.
You ask, can you envision

our future together? I see it
in our palms: a tree with a million

branches, and on the other
hand, a tree with a billion

branches, and on another,
a tree full of open hands.

(originally published in Dandelion Scribes, Spring 2025)