Rectangular Rainbow

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

The clouds induce trance on the drive
home from work today. White sheep pile
atop each other on a ranch in Montana
until the weight of an oncoming storm
that never comes except for a stub of
rainbow that peeks from behind far hills.
In the open stretch of highway it reveals itself
as a rectangle floating in the middle of cerulean,
squiggly lines across it, a glitch of physics
my phone cannot capture. I text you from
the middle lane– soaring eighty– because
you love rainbows. You say you walked
around our block but could not find it.

When I arrive home I am filled with unknown,
spiritual vigor. We split a red, frozen pizza
then leave for a journey following our favorite
clouds above, on high alert for the rainbow.
Guided by pink translucent clouds in blue
outlines, you ask me holistically, what are your
career goals? I can’t stop searching upward,
awestruck by the air and rare beauty
in the world, in the center of our elevated
city of bridges and transitions and roads
that fall into each other in chaos you
must understand to survive. The sunset
is somewhere and I know our clouds
obscure it. I know my career involves
sacrifice but I am chasing film’s thrill.
The whims of our uppermost winds!
I have taken you along.

(originally published in I-70 Review, Summer 2024)

Falling Rock

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

As soon as a stone (from where,
who knows?) cracked my wind-
shield during a delivery I quit

my job as a driver. I zagged
right from the highway’s
middle lane to the median

and set the car in park,
but could not control my thoughts–
chest throbbing, engine thrumming.

I had to step out and breathe
before I could convict the
quartz intending to harm me.

All smooth and small, I was not
sure which was the right rock,
scanning gravel to see several

similar enough. But the wolf
among them, I know, wanted to
break the glass, blind me

and puncture my jugular, only
for me to be saved by a surgeon
who would never fully believe

the story. I avoided death this time,
alive on the side of the road, looking
back in search of a falling rock sign.

(originally published in Bond Street Review, Winter 2021)

The Well

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

     bucket

     hangs

       on

    frayed

     rope

   the old

      man

    could

      not

    recall

   how to

     drop

     arms

    moving

   straight

     down

  how deep

     how

   fragile

  the mind

   is now

  and how

     fast

  it falls

   as soon

     as

  control

   slips

    away

     bits

 of wood

     in

   dark

  water

   echo

       a

  hollow

   splash

(originally published in Willow Review, Spring 2025)

I Never Considered My Grandparents

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Whom I never met, would be buried in Akron,
the backdrop of sleepless drunk nights, wandering
park properties as if I owned them in my boisterous
consumption, alive but for the thrill of spending
time with those I wish eternity upon, gathered
before me the gargoyles, the hellraisers, the love
I could burrow underneath rain-pocked heartache,
one golden anniversary away from immortality
on a slab of stone drunk kids can stumble over
and plant their knees in the recycled mud.

(originally published in Impspired, Summer 2023)

Bro

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Get out of my life with
your blue Trump signs. Don’t
tell me what stakes
you stuck in your front lawn.
Come on. I know you’re not
a boomer. You say we’re at
a crossroads and I gaze
into the neighbor’s yard–
used to be bushes concealing
every outside path. Now there’s
someone on a lawnmower severing
the bonds of grass, in intervals,
each direction I look, each time
I visit home. And we comment
each new motor makes it harder
to reach each other. Mom’s
neighbors want to beat the rain.
We just built this fire in the back
of my childhood home. These
bundles of sticks my mom gathers,
waiting for us to come home
some early October Saturday.
At my brother’s first mention
of herd immunity, my sister
suggests we seek more kindling
in the tall grass. The air is
parched but we must keep
burning. Firewood left from Dad’s
death we’ve already forgotten.
My brother says we’re gonna
lose all this country fought for–
Dad survived World War II
only to shatter his ribs on a fire
hydrant sixty years later. Mom
would not let the coroner dig
into his carcass for an autopsy.
In his later years, Dad would keep
a hose beside our bonfires. Still,
we hunch over heat together,
burning hot dogs on forgotten
skewers. We dredge the past
again: a year after my father’s death,
cooking hot dogs over walnut husks,
one of you said there could be
an industry for the timbered taste
coating the tenuous meat we’ve
shared over the years.

(originally published in Alternate Route, Spring 2023)

It’s Complicated

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Sure, I know the DJ at Belvedere’s tonight
but that is all I have. My body is an ocean
liner that imagined a destination when
departing, but lost its way mid-voyage
while passengers scream it’s okay!
It’s okay!
                  On simple days
I open the window and watch
clouds pass with my long-hair
cat, breathing in the breeze like
we’ve both never been outside
before, trying to find some
comfortable place to rest
with the rail jutting up,
a dull blade.

(originally published in Ink Sac, Summer 2023)

The View at Work: Dump Trucks

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment 
Look at this kingdom of garbage 
trucks. A survey underneath 
the 31st St. Bridge, where I spend
my horrible days collecting.
It is Friday night and there is
pressure to deliver. I told you
nothing we do here is important,
so take a deep breath. Smell
the compost of contemporary
capitalism. My blue brain
has ceased to need a function.
My winter is every man’s
desire for himself. It is waiting
for my back to give and bear
the weight of the waste: 
the compacted nature of my life,
squandering, squandering,
squandering the ineffable.

(originally published in A God You Believed In - Pinhole Poetry, 2023)

Strangers with Appreciation

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

IN BOUNDLESS EXPANSE
BETWEEN JOB AND SILENCE
NOSTALGIA AND THE EVER-
LIVING PRESENT I SIT IN FRONT
OF A PROJECTOR SCREEN
COOLED BY THE WINDOW
UNIT I CAN DERIVE NO
MORE MEANING TO VIDEO
GAMES NO
                               it is the purpose of a stranger to dream
                               for me to be engaged so in his fever
                               your creativity is what I want
                               now that I don’t have the rapturous
                               privilege of losing myself
               but haven’t I
          wrestled with every single
whim every whistle
   of the wind that calls for me
I answer
                               for a little while then reach then
                        ASK NO QUESTIONS
                        FOR ANSWERS I COULD NEVER KNOW
                        THE MEANING OF THE STARS NOR
MY PLACE WITHIN MY BRAIN WHERE
                        THE SOUL SITS
                 it’s sick sometimes in
                 how I want to be someone else???
                 but I look at old pictures of myself
                 and think he’d be so happy to see
                 how unrecognizable he is to himself

(originally published in confetti, Fall 2023)