alcohol

Cheap Cider

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

An apple a day keeps the doctor at bay–
OK. OK. This is becoming a problem.
I consume my only fruits on
an ABV chart and my whole life
is a waiting room, waiting waiting

waiting for the bad to come of this but
no DUI for me, I drink cheap ciders
and call for Ubers. Recently
a roommate said a keg he bought
was in his budget. I got a ledger
myself, lists of places my friends
go when they want to get wasted

so I budget my time for that despite
the knowing knowing knowing
to keep this up means I’ll
need to budget the liver.

(originally published in Academy of the Heart and Mind, Fall 2020)

Sunday

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Doesn’t matter how much dark red
wine you drink, the clock always

ticks westward to the setting sun,
the city lights flickering on when

lips are dry and winter recesses
so blackbirds can meander across

the morning’s bluegray sky then
perch along powerlines to watch

as you walk to your car this warm
January morning, beads for eyes

everywhere

(originally published in The Academy of the Heart and Mind, Fall 2020)

Inadequate Help

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I counted twelve hundred drops of rain
to cull the drought in the desert

but at some indeterminate future
coordinate. There isn’t even a crowd

to be lost in anymore– human bodies
dissipate into pixels on a stuttering

screen. Listen to her voice. Listen
to his voice. What we are drinking

when we speak is a potent purple
cocktail: dragonfruit, chia,

pineapple, banana, ginger,
vodka, rum. I know you

are close when you made it
but the rain’s still far away.

(originally published in San Antonio Review, Fall 2020)

Shots

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

At the bar, I ask if you want shots.
You say, no– 2X, so I ask is that Dos
Equis? We laugh, then you tell me

2X is an IPA from Southern Tier.
When I order PBR you fire back
I don’t do that shit anymore.

At our table you lean into me,
staring at the red, paint-splattered wall.
You say I went to school with someone

who was killed in the shooting last
weekend. I think– there were two–
then ask if you’re okay. You

cock your hand on my thigh
and lift your bottle to toast me–
our clink of drinks a cold hard

cheers to the body of a rifle.
The skin through the holes
in our ripped jeans is heavy

against each other. You whisper in my ear
the world has too many people.
You shoot to the opposite

side of the table and ask,
how many people have you had sex with
who are dead? I say none that I know of.

And knowing you want me
to ask you, too, I mouth,
you?

Your smile loads a magazine,
amber bullets in your eyes–
you flash me the peace sign.

(originally published in Red Eft Review, Summer 2020)

On Twitter Yael Asks to Be Messaged a Secret

/ James Croal Jackson / 1 Comment

So: since I stopped drinking,
my sugar-craving’s intensified
tenfold. This volcano-
shaped silhouette inside me
needing peaked with white
sweet snow. Now no one knows
but you– I went to Kroger
in this cold April rain past
bleating trains and dovetailed
straight for the candy and cookie
aisles. I took advantage of the
sales, stocked Oreos and Hershey’s,
went to self-checkout. I did not
want a stranger to know my blue-
bagged shame that began
unwrapping in the car,
bar after bar, but here
you are.

 

(originally published in Hamline Lit Link, Summer 2020)

I am waiting for my habits to change

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

but I keep bingeing the same drinks.
Fireball, Tito’s, more and more–
I tap my feet, wait by the window
for the workweek to end to meet
unknowns at bars. I blackout blind
myself into the mistakes I always
make– my legs pressed against yours
in the Lyft, I want to say I don’t want
tonight to be a ghost that haunts us,
but I don’t move. I don’t say anything.

 

(originally published in Datura, Fall 2019)

Drinking a Rhinegeist Truth

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

10:33 AM on July 4th
                  & if that ain’t some
                  gunslinging fortune

     my drinks have teeth
                      can’t mix with coffee

I am trying to stay awake
                      I am trying to stay

a firework of politically conscious
colors

most mornings the soup of ritual

I gnaw at the aluminum’s tab
                      when my beer has ended

I am not satisfied
                            no
                                 I am not satisfied

with this ending

 

(originally published in Datura, Fall 2019)

Pre-Alcoholic

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I wish I could tell it better. As
this is a poem. Just
at my desk in rainy

January thinking about
the last night of last year,
when I did something that made me

examine my drinking. I know
I am supposed to talk about what.
So this must be frustrating, the

vagueness. It wasn’t a car crash,
necessarily. I didn’t kill
anyone but, perhaps, the old me,

now a zombie walking
out the dregs of the new
year and hovering

outside my door. He wants
to knock. My knowing his
wanting to knock is

his knocking. And if
I haven’t killed anyone
yet, maybe it should be him.

But I can’t bring myself
to do it. I stopped hard liquor.
And beer, for now. Forever,

maybe. Just saying it
is gunpowder on my tongue.
I can’t stop eating candy,

and I’m very thirsty. But
is selfishness refusing to call
Kaveh’s wolf a wolf? Like

pre-diabetic. What will
kill me is the refusal
to kill.

(originally published in Red Rover Magazine, Spring 2021)

Alcoholic Thoughts

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

It’s early and I
can’t fall back asleep– maybe, before work,
I can enjoy a beer or two.
                                          [I deliver food]

Cut to: work
It’s slow.
               Maybe I can sneak home
               and have a can in the car.

The depth of craving
                   I scoff and deny.

What keeps me going is each lap’s checkered flag–
if you can get to February, you can drink. [my partner]

Cut to: February [sober]
I don’t think we should drink.
We can wait another month.

It’s Saturday night and I have drymouth
and the house crawls with

bottles, chasers, faucets, an empty
champagne bottle on display on a table.

Such is a trophy. Gold-adorned
bubbly. I can tell you the kind
of night it was that drank it:

ordinary.

I was how I was.
Who can I become?

 

(originally published in TreeHouse: An Exhibition of the Arts, Summer 2019)