This Vestibule

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

& within this vestibule the sighing & side-glances,
demands for just-asked-for jackets, & axes dealt
to execs in their excess, & star-born nephews needing
validation; & on this thin strip of wooden walkway,
in the gaze of dead deer, a floor air bubble that shocks
& wilders passers-by who have walked upon it one
thousand times, beside the gunshots on television
(free film school for everyone!) where we have
seen passive-aggression, passing gremlins, & a red-
state journeyman who lusts for connection along-
side extras lost from fittings (if they just turned right
past the blue truck, an open door you can’t see
from here, here, where we have waited for a call
sheet for hours), & once, there was a heavy storm
& we watched a CATERING cone withstand
the rain & hail & screeching wind & we were on the
inside, too, through the glass, rooting everyone on–
yet hollered in catharsis when it tumbled down.

(originally published in Osmosis Press, Fall 2023)

The Doubt That Follows Improv Class

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Projection meaning screen is blurry.
I don’t want any part of.

Correct. I ended improv
class inspecting
my anxious habits–

has it been too long?
my demons asked.

                            I could not
answer honestly. Walked
away and waved
to the prospective
attention of no one.

Still, when clouds
are classically beautiful
I recall the simple mistakes.

No one counts
their turns, no one
passes their
inhibitions.

I scan the sky
for a piece of absolution.

Such indelicate pertinence,
this honest-to-however-many-
times I treat myself
like a stray without looking
away.

(originally published in Yellow Mama Magazine, Fall 2024)

Shoppers

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

At Westside Pavilion, I watch shoppers
walk slowly to their Jubilees, carrying plastic

bags of silk and thread to the thrum of Monday.
I shop enough inside my hungry flesh, living

in my Ford, booking tiny television gigs to
replace my shoes. Sometimes, I am able to

watch myself in the lens of a softer society–
playing voyeur to my temporary belonging.

(originally published in Communicators League, Fall 2021)

In a State of Sin

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Randomness is my passion and if only
you knew the extent of it, the dice
I play in my mind with pseudorandom
number generators to determine what
I’ll even eat sometimes. John Von
Neumann said, Anyone who considers
arithmetical methods of producing
random digits is in a state of sin– what
buzz I get wherever numbers fall, on
my tongue, on my landscape, in
the neurons that tickle my hypothalamus
and its many toxins, drugs, memories…
though don’t read The Dice Man, its
misogynistic determination… a PRNG
chose it for me, I have a booklist, but if I had
a talent for acting I’d have an algorithm
choose what emotion I should play next.
As an amateur how can I mope instantly
when the machine tells me effervescence?
Most of my life, undetermined. Now
to shape my own destiny, one to burrow
me in with beavers and slugs while
I wait for a digit of reemergence.

(originally published in Obsessed with Pipework, Fall 2023)

Cedarville

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Cycling in you stayed to ignite
electricity dark neighborhood wind zapped
on in your humid house the memory
is orange on the porch by the grandpa
scarecrow who greets all genial hearts
that bump and bleat without intention
tiredly you say we never should
have seen their home we could not
convince the world to move us

(originally published in The Gorko Gazette, Autumn 2023)

Gold Hole

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

mosquito in the wind I itch my heavy
soil in the little dynamite world I in-
habit the ghost of some nonsense
brioche a thunderclap stumbling
down the wedding aisle in front
of family some worlds you never
lie about but break you must
pinch the nerve that binds you
and open the gold hole to the
masses that want to help. let them.

(originally published in Bindweed Magazine, Summer 2023)

Some Class

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Several thousand dollars
to become fancy. I wish
(upon wishes) I had
a muted suit to be
a chameleon on the
A-Train. I have sweat
in my pits and hummus
on my breath and the
world is spinning
slowly. Double shift
in opinion: the first
I am blue; the second,
confused. In all aspects
I am overworked,
hungry– eating a wrench
when I should be pulling
my own teeth out.

(originally published in The Gorko Gazette, Fall 2023)

Marina & the Diamonds

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

After our date at Melt Bar and Grilled
cheese grease macaroni and butter saliva
dripped from our lips onto crumb plates
back when Marina & the Diamonds were hip
(if they were ever) in style I wired it from aux

cord to speakers to let you know I am not
a robot in an operatic tone indicating
romantic desperation my circuits buzzing
& I thought during the open-heart chorus
you’d say much more than cool

(originally published in Ygdrasil, Winter 2021)

Cracked Windshield

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Sudden the stone that cracked
the windshield, the storm that
struck the heirloom oak– you
ask for rain, beg for answers.
Soaked hands steer through
the blindness of the blur–
ten years now since Dad
merged into the final lane,
his pass misjudging distance
from collision, and that night
Mom heard a screeching
in her bedroom like a crow
passing from another world,
a bleak siren thrusting her
to darkness her headlights
could not cut through.

(originally published in Kingdoms in the Wild, Winter 2021)