2008 Fragment (College)

I heard on the radio about a career in photonics
so I did research, and it involves quantum physics
and light manipulation. NPR made it seem like
the simplest shit ever, that if you were good with
your hands you could master it. As a freshman in
high school numbers were jumbled in pre-algebra.
I was the weakest link of the Academic Challenge
team, sitting on the sidelines during the matches.
When does one need an alternate in a trivia
extracurricular? Does someone squint their
brain too hard and need a breather? I’m trying to
figure it out. I coasted through college on a 3.0
because I was expected to go. And one time
the alumni “giving” center called and asked me
for a donation when I lived in my car in California.
I told them I was sleeping by the beaches, eating
canned beans and tuna. They said they were sorry
but could I please spare a twenty? They couldn’t.

(originally published in Green Hills Literary Lantern, Winter 2022)

April 14, 2008

August 9, 2024December 15, 2022 / 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)

Denial

November 19, 2023July 1, 2020 / James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

beer pong in daylight the yelling
sun chastises our weekday conundrum
of pennies thick-rolled in bank
accounts worth splashed gravel

I lose more than nostalgic games
and afternoons used to be the goal
was get plastered now there are
lingering lips on plastic cups

that need the wastebin
no one wants to clean up

(originally published in Hamline Lit Link, Spring 2020)

Beer Pong

November 17, 2023February 15, 2024 / James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

beer pong is concentric
angles & behind-the-back
a miracle of physics

not that I understand
the finer maths of sport
I held an endless reservoir

of alcohol schoolnights turned
blue-lipped and blurred
pages flipped to I-don’t-know-

how-I-got-here one time
awakening on a bed of roses
at the belly of Constitution Hall

staring to the vacant moon
soaked in sticky juice a book
with its pages torn out

(published in HAD, 2022)

College Freshman

May 21, 2023May 15, 2023 / James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

partying was the new
beginning growing up how birdlike
I rose from the ash of a suburb
to learn a new suburb how limiting
to be alive in a time of bubbles
floating in a happy blur
chemically unwell
days to pop

(originally published in Erothanatos, Spring 2020)

Capstone

March 10, 2023December 21, 2021 / 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)

NYE, 2010

January 15, 2023January 9, 2023 / James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

that was the monochrome new year
I reached for your leg like a frog with long
tongue and you were on
the couch flyswatting everyone

the walls were drunk too the way
we behaved in the wild dorms
animals celebrating the turn of a page
the setting of the sun it was winter

in Berea and we held each other
like it would never be warm
again we caught snowflakes on
our tongues left black bottles in dead grass

(originally published in Datura, Fall 2019)