bwu

April 14, 2008

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

after inflatables
        and Friday night I went to the House
        after making fun of King
        Kong with the brothers
                Dance Marathon we first talked
                then went to Pizza King with Dabs
        accepted oxygen in my water as trees
        dead napkins we returned to Constitution
                played sober via HORSE
                with bottle and recycle bin

earlier I helped Gary with the Poker Mixer
           it was either the cheesy bread
           or Gatorade that got me
     we went to Walgreen’s for beef jerky
           along the way we stopped at Sara’s for Orloff
           at Fisher’s for refried beans

(originally published in Literary Forest, Fall 2022)

Capstone

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

among the blue desks was a meager
audition for adulthood crumpled

into a mess of wooden shadows reciting
barbell lines on the film school second

floor (stair steps closer to Orion) how
I was dreaming young of the world’s

grand magnanimousness suffused
with balloons that smelled of palm frond

everglades my school-sanctioned camera
would record the nightglow trees by lights

of Coe Lake where it snowed pine cones
in the backyard of my mother’s house

where acres stretch forever rugs of green grass
and hunger the endless hunger for somewhere

anywhere else

(originally published in KGB Bar Lit Mag, Spring 2021)

How to Be Proud

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

As I waited for my burger at Northstar
I saw they had copies of The Bitter Oleander,
and on the first page was the work
of my first poetry professor.

Buzzing on metaphor,
I sent an email to tell her
that they’ve also published me before
but it has been a couple of years.

She told me
to sleep it off.

 

(originally published in EgoPHobia, Spring 2018)

Sunny Days

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

In memory of Chris Hull

friends don’t
wait for rainy days
to die
there is never
a metaphor
in the weather
the sun laughs
as it always does
when I receive the call
I find the nearest tree
to brace myself
with shade
it’s the only darkness
seventy-six degrees
warm breeze
the car
approaching the hospital
still takes her living
to work
at being alive

 

(originally published in Muddy River Poetry Review, Spring 2017)