The Sculptor

November 21, 2025June 14, 2023 / James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I walk on the bridge between your eyes
and stumble over branches on the railing.
The heavy lumber is thick with overgrowth.
Too many weeds spread onto the bark.
You’d cut your hands if not careful. But you are
so your hands are smooth during the burden of work.
You want to work. You want who touches your hand
to feel you have made something, to have been
a part of something, if not revolution. You are
a smoky rotor churning out how to be
forgiven. You are the steel in the sound,
the righteousness of summer. Windmills spin
in perpetuity– the chisel rests.

(originally published in Discretionary Love, Spring 2023)

The Photographs of Layzerus

July 4, 2025April 21, 2023 / James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

were supposed to have fountains
not just in Santa Clarita, but
in Akron, too, a missed
moment against a brick wall
of self the undermined
understanding of art
versus creator, physical
creation versus memory
music I sang to create
a sentiment of dust

(originally published in EgoPHobia, Summer 2021)

Eyes (Mine)

December 4, 2024December 20, 2021 / James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

If I tried to count how many nights I’ve wandered
alone to find myself, it would be on more fingers
than all my family has. If I were worried
only about eyes on walks stalking me–
if I hadn’t watched The Lion
King at seven, and my father hadn’t died,
and my brother– I wouldn’t be present
in this field of wild cleavers with my Mufasas
whispering weeds in the moonlight. Always
that breeze tickling the hairs across
my skin. That’s why I don’t walk
barefoot in the grass– I don’t trust strangers’
hands, so I count tendrils on everything green
in the dark that’s growing, wondering
if you remember how long it took
for me to learn to tie my shoes. The laces
multiplied in my field of math
I fumbled over. My hands, I could
never be precise enough to be
a mechanic, or a surgeon.
We were in the basement and
oh, you were so patient,
television glowing and muted. Dark
news and wave band static. These
negative film reels roll to nights
embedded in memory when I try
to sleep, when my lids are full
of images. I can’t believe I’ve stared
at the surface of the moon so many nights
over the years and just now saw
there is your face. My face.

(originally published in Hello America Stereo Cassette, Spring 2021)

rust goggles

June 26, 2024October 12, 2021 / James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

art began as a war against walls
everything in a painting was in danger of being lost
every object that has been moved each

that has been smoothed every piece
outlined was once a living breathing being
water can dissolve rocks

paint on a canvas can bruise
an audience can be traumatized by art that is not lost
intertwining history with the present

is the divide between
good times things
and bad times things

               good times being the sky painted with eyes
               and bad times the sleepless nights we want
               a different kind of archive

art being our act of evasion

(originally published in RASPUTIN, Winter 2020)

Kusama

May 1, 2024October 11, 2021 / James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Opening blinds in the morning–
infinity mirrors. Sunlight off passing
cars a recollection, each yesterday
our mirrored era. To become
so ubiquitous in the freckling
of city streets, the raindrops
forever dotting concrete–
momentous the window
I each day enter, the full
world a symphony of
repeating balloons.

(originally published in Trouvaille Review, Fall 2020)

Piss Christ

August 20, 2023July 24, 2020 / James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

At Tango there’s a half-full bucket under the urinal
yet no one wants to talk about Piss Christ at the
dinner table. It’s the eve of Christmas Eve and
you tell me my family is your family. I don’t
want to eat the bucatini anymore. The short
rib in grease is a clog the whipped ricotta
is trying to lubricate down my gullet.

We don’t want dessert at Grandpa’s. The
cookies are rolling stones and I can’t
mention Piss Christ. Everyone sits in
a circle and talks accomplishments.
The architect, the dancer, the lawyer.
My name is in the credits of a movie.
Who cares? No one can talk about
drowning.

Everyone talks about wanting Yang Ming,
but it shut down. Because of the rats and
flies and spider webs and black mold
and uncovered fruit and the workers not
washing their hands after trips to the toilet.
I want to go, too. Seems like a great place
to talk about Piss Christ.

On Christmas morning we open presents
and Liz mentions a chef from China she
wants to reconnect with, but his restaurant
closed. She’s not sure what part of China
he’s from, or even the spelling of the place.
This spurs talks of other defunct restaurants,
which returns us to Yang Ming. Michael
mentions the urinal at Tango with the half-
empty bucket beneath. Of course I snapped
a photograph. Of course I show everyone.
Mathew says this reminds me– what’s that
piece of art? And I respond Piss Christ!
But everyone’s thinking of Duchamp’s
Fountain, and we all take another bite
of the home-fried bacon and golden
scrambled eggs, seeped in a tradition
that will seemingly last forever.

(originally published in Harbinger Asylum, Spring 2020)

You Leave to Make Art in the South

June 25, 2023April 23, 2020 / James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

      humid
          green
        swamps
    a riverflow
  of talent
      the sediment
         of the world
             gone well
                   past
                 my flaws
                   I wish
                 still for contact
             this accident of
          longing a lesson
      in how not to be alone
                    through the lens
                              of canvas