Author: James Croal Jackson

March 16, 2020

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I read that gun store
sales have surged, that

they have lines around the
chopping block. So we

decide when shots
rupture our street,

we’ll drive to my mom’s–
far from any city–

instead of hiding in a
closet in our basement

of centipedes.
Should we go there now?

No, we should wait it out.
We uncork a white wine

and play twenty games
of Trouble. Hours of

moving plastic pieces in
circles. Though trapped

in a bubble, the die
dictates our every move.

 

(originally published in Capsule Stories, Spring 2020)

Self-Isolation (Day One, March 14, 2020)

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Hands are raw from cheap soap
and scrubbing. We’re jobless now
so here’s the sink full of
better times we’re rinsing.

Let’s rearrange the living
room, drag the couch
from the side wall
to the back wall,

place the coat rack
in a different dusty corner,
treat the TV like
the god it wants to be.

There will be many
forms of worship,
this distancing.
Books. Cooking.

Writing. Pining.
Finally, I have time
to make music
and poetry but

I can’t put my phone
down– notifications
for each cog of society
as it breaks down.

You ask
should we hang
art on the walls?
I ask, what art?

 

(originally published in American Writers’ Review, Summer 2020)

New Year’s Party – Dining Room

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Nothing to start conversation with
but the glow of television, hors d’oeuvres

the crowd devoured and I could only stand
and gape at the electric wiring strung along

the ceiling that led to the hanging light
fixture, a metallic apple dimmed. I wanted

to talk about architecture but felt wildly
inadequate due to the bricks missing

in my brain, hammers clanking where
words should, my mouth full of nails.

(originally published in Poetry Super Highway, Summer 2020)

Trimming Trees

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When my father retired, he could not end
the work– sunrise blurred to sunset
sculpting trees within the canvas of our yard.
Soon, he said, you will wear my work
on your hands. But after he passed, my hands
would tremble leaning ladder onto tree,
snipping branches off the living
limbs.

(originally published in U-Rights Magazine, Fall 2020)

2020

/ James Croal Jackson / 1 Comment

The people I love have never been further
& I’ve never been so nervous this long
not knowing which of the weeks
will be the one I can leave & be bound
to the beginning I will uncork
this love inside me (ever underground
and rooting) such that crowds will be
willed into existence again. But
we don’t need the shopping mall.
Slabs of pumice stone I saw
inside the consumers. Instead
of bedding the concourse
you asked for an airplane
and received as a gift
a ballot. A bailout for the sky
and everything within:
what’s the origin of acid
in the rain? Surely we couldn’t
be so monstrous. I’ve won a
thousand wars these thirty
years but none like isolation.
I’m feeding into the frenzy
like the marketers want me
to. The markets want me
dead, but still they want
my money.




(originally published in Flashes, Fall 2021)

Laundromat

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I want to breathe dirty
cigarette lungs
into the bed grime you say it

is time to bless the sheets
with renewal so we spin
around the laundromat

hand-in-hand do-si-do
though strangers stare
hard monosyllabic

menace to shoe-
dirt joining dust
on the sweaty

floor sex stomps
one body over another
until detergent

soaks threadbare
fabric

 

(originally published in HeadStuff, Spring 2020)