couplets

For Exercise and Variety

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

walking around my home wearing sun
glasses FitBit records silent steps on white

wood floors creak a silver SUV whirs past
window no peephole a dead end slightly

darker shade how my eyes reckon
in multiple lights their very veins

stretch and pulsate spectrum my entire
field ever present ever pressured

the world in layers I perceive body
as hunger pushing into all frames

of frames of knick-knacks I need to
donate but fear the gift-givers will find out

one may ask that yodeling pickle wasn’t
good enough of course not what was ever

its purpose but to transfer to another hand
or be buried deep in dry and dying land

(originally published in Academy of the Heart and Mind, Spring 2023)

On Earth, We Travel a Thousand Miles Every Hour

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

                          For David and Anna

Rain is never insurmountable,
and the sun never gets old,

though we plan to, together,
to grow with green things

sprouting at our feet. We
watch new trees become

wise while the landscape
shifts, as it must, and though

Earth spins briskly– almost
beyond what we can fathom–

it has order, being as small
and in love as we are.

We stand on our plot
of land, firm though

flung through time and
space, the universe we

made forever expanding.

(originally published in The Vineyard, Winter 2023)

Balance

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

bubblegum, bean
or J for jelly bean

and the first letter
of your name

your bent elbow
your bent knee

upside
down

interpretations. the morning
of early language

the balloon is red
your eyes black

the sky red
your eyes white

the sky white
your eyes red

black drape of night

white rainbow
white sun

everything between
the margins of the

mental spiritual
physical colorful

hangs in
the balance

 

(originally published in Vamp Cat Magazine, Winter 2019)

Two Workouts

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Sara dances to a Zumba video on her laptop
at the kitchen table I eat chocolate chip cookies

the dog gets too close the moment she kicks air
he walks to a window to study his reflection I inhale

as Sara does the dog stares back exhales my reflection
consuming me but soon my body how my feet are bare

on coffin wood and Sara throws punches while dough
collapses in my fingers before I move grease to mouth

yes yes YES alongside the workout instructor to techno
beats a pitch of butter sugar flour down my gullet

I have accomplished an entire row from the baking pan
Sara says that’s enough but she means her water break

many minutes into sweat an eternity away from ending
she says her stomach hurts and I get it, mine too

(originally published in Indiana Voice Journal, Winter 2018)

Anywhere, USA

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

11PM and the street is bleak
in this unseasonably cool May

these parking lots are vast
national parks of the suburbs

their Joshua tree streetlights
ubiquitous luminescence

a steady stream of street cars
these wild intractable headlamp

eyes they know where they’re going
that’s what makes it sad everywhere

McDonald’s flags waving half-mast

 

(originally published in The Tau, Summer 2018)

Slosh

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

too cozy walking autumn sunshine
creepy crawlie park time dusk

windy waving weeping nights
moonlit musk and tone

misty writing personalities
hard ego ergo wiring

impatient dollars dining doling
drinks to wine’s slow timbre

crowds working loud writing
sheets of many selves

 

(originally published in Neologism Poetry Journal, Winter 2018)

Rotor

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

If you drive a car whose
combustion confuses fuel

for air, the engine will quiver
along smooth concrete.

At certain speeds, a clanking
rotor is similar

to the natural cadence
of heartbeats in embrace:

amplitude becomes a deafening
in the stillness of night.

Let a rotating machine of mass
be mounted on a stiff spring

to fix support. The pieces
must move vertically in

a single degree of freedom
even if the rotor is unbalanced,

its hypnotic center missing
one valve’s intake,

forgetting the other’s exhaust.

 

(originally published in Lakeview International Journal of Literature and Arts, Summer 2017)