Clinton

Warp Whistle

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I thought by now the whistles would warp us
to a future in peace  jump me ahead of this dark

underground level   Mario   I have crushed
enough Koopas to keep my genocidal ancestry

whooping from their battleground graves   didn’t
feel much sanctity from Arlington Cemetery

sorry   when they buried my brother at Ohio
Western Reserve gravestones orderly as pill

bottles on the shelves of corporate pharmacy
what rings in my brain are the gunshots

of old white veterans fired during Clinton’s
final ceremony  bullets whizzing up the sky

just to land on the dirt covering
graves of my genocidal ancestry

 

(originally published in Impspired, Spring 2020)

I am in my blue childhood

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

bedroom, black Walkman
spinning CD-Rs of Mega Man
music. I want to dance–
anything but obsidian.
Scraped knees learning
to ride a bike– bloodstained
handlebars leaving the woods.
I can handle myself better
now, not always falling into
potholes I noticed yesterday.

Last week, driving home
from work in the city,
my tires hissed
as they failed to replicate
their cells, then blew out
in the middle of the road
in the warehouse district.

But I had music going–
OverClocked ReMixes
from Chrono Cross,
which got me thinking
about the Winds of Time,
parallel universes,
the inevitability of Lavos–

I had to call for help.
I spent green youth
cooped in front of
the basement television.

Now, if I were to fetishize
anything it would be
no real consequences–
to the cyclical parallels
of the universe.

(originally published in Dear Reader, Summer 2021)

Silica

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

i carry infection in saliva
like a point of pride

see, my city reeks of bone

tall skeleton skyscrapers
i’m numb again

as dental drill enters me
year after year

what birthed my decays?

raised to desire new
wants every day

wanting even wanting

my dad worked at a ford factory
after the great depression

churned out a new kid
every few years

seasons of rust
spreading on steel

here’s the sunset
he’d wake us to say &

spend the days molding
the yard
rough hands on saw

that was satisfactory
to him

for me oaks are cold towers &
grass not godmade

took a clump in my mouth
from the graveyard as a child &

i swear i tasted
death
but could not digest it

i’m but a skeleton

all life’s experiences
slip through me

masticating childhood
no pondering
the future with mom and dad

scooping fries at ponderosa &

we’d always go for seconds &

mint ice cream after

 

(originally published in Burningword Literary Journal, Fall 2018)

Blue Beetle

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

shining
in the sunlight
of our driveway

I go inside
to tell Dad

come see
what
I
found

no hesitation:
he squishes
its golden
guts out

a thing like
that

he says

is nothing
more
than a nuisance

but I keep
thinking
about that beetle

impossibly one
of a kind

and today
I watched
a boring

black
beetle

scurrying
across
the pavement
of Goodale Park

and disappear
into grass

and I thought

the ground
is teeming
with beetles

if I just dig
a hole
deep enough

I might
be able
to apologize

 

(originally published in Pouch, Fall 2018)

Power Lines

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

electricity in the breath
of memory– the back-
country home mom
owns an endless vista
she has men care for
due to spine drooping
a road on her body
leads to membrane and
dad alive in the sky
looking down on her
fields purple or blue
the empty driveway
anyone’s welcome to

 

(originally published in Apricity Press, 2018)

On the Walk to the Polling Place

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Some birds zigzag
below shrapnel clouds
and others, perched
on limbs, chatter
about migration
in this chill
because the leaves
in your yard
are a different shade
than your neighbor’s,
but each tree
casts its own
ballot into earth
and waits
for the season
to change.
Scrunching
all the dead
beneath your boots
along the way
to the church
with the cookies
and machines,
you pass big,
brick houses
with American flags
and jack-o-lanterns’
sunken smiles
on porch steps
and city workers
who have been
fixing power lines,
building structures,
patching roads
for so many months,
and so many months
to go.

 

(originally published in The Rising Phoenix Review, Fall 2017)

Mid-December

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

The alley is paved with old bricks
blackened by rain. I used to want

conformity, that tidal hope gripping
your gut. You must have a family soon.

Everywhere babies are sprouting
but garden sprinklers are off because winter

is near, crackled dirt longing for storm–
how long since the rough of gale and rain?

Seasons, in these frigid airs. And my seedling
heart stopped growing soon after its first beat.

 

(originally published in The Coachella Review, Winter 2017)

Ghosts

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Heard the word son alone in the kitchen
of my childhood home.

His gravelly drawl was unmistakable.
I waited for him to say more, but

memories of my father are strangers
to each other. And every stranger

becomes a ghost passing
through another stranger’s life.

A wind tapped at the window,
wanted to say something, too.

When he was alive,
I did not listen

until I wanted
and I did not want

until he was silent
in a disposable suit.

I gave it a shot: pressed my ears
against the shingles, cold.

The wind
mimicked ghosts.

 

(originally published in In-flight Literary Magazine, Fall 2016)