covid

March 16, 2020

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I read that gun store
sales have surged, that

they have lines around the
chopping block. So we

decide when shots
rupture our street,

we’ll drive to my mom’s–
far from any city–

instead of hiding in a
closet in our basement

of centipedes.
Should we go there now?

No, we should wait it out.
We uncork a white wine

and play twenty games
of Trouble. Hours of

moving plastic pieces in
circles. Though trapped

in a bubble, the die
dictates our every move.

 

(originally published in Capsule Stories, Spring 2020)

Self-Isolation (Day One, March 14, 2020)

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Hands are raw from cheap soap
and scrubbing. We’re jobless now
so here’s the sink full of
better times we’re rinsing.

Let’s rearrange the living
room, drag the couch
from the side wall
to the back wall,

place the coat rack
in a different dusty corner,
treat the TV like
the god it wants to be.

There will be many
forms of worship,
this distancing.
Books. Cooking.

Writing. Pining.
Finally, I have time
to make music
and poetry but

I can’t put my phone
down– notifications
for each cog of society
as it breaks down.

You ask
should we hang
art on the walls?
I ask, what art?

 

(originally published in American Writers’ Review, Summer 2020)

2020

/ James Croal Jackson / 1 Comment

The people I love have never been further
& I’ve never been so nervous this long
not knowing which of the weeks
will be the one I can leave & be bound
to the beginning I will uncork
this love inside me (ever underground
and rooting) such that crowds will be
willed into existence again. But
we don’t need the shopping mall.
Slabs of pumice stone I saw
inside the consumers. Instead
of bedding the concourse
you asked for an airplane
and received as a gift
a ballot. A bailout for the sky
and everything within:
what’s the origin of acid
in the rain? Surely we couldn’t
be so monstrous. I’ve won a
thousand wars these thirty
years but none like isolation.
I’m feeding into the frenzy
like the marketers want me
to. The markets want me
dead, but still they want
my money.




(originally published in Flashes, Fall 2021)

Two Weeks

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Like yesterday, I say
I won’t leave the house for
spinach seeds. We have to

make with what we have.
I’m listening to Grizzly Bear,
like yesterday. I say

my favorite song is Two Weeks–
eighth-note piano ends for vocals.
I won’t leave the house for,

at best, two weeks after. But
I can’t live on only singing.
Spinach seeds. We have to.

(originally published in Gingerbread Ritual Literary Journal, Winter 2022)

March 15, 2020

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

You say today’s a great day
to walk the cemetery.

So we go. And there are
infectious monsters on our

street, monsters crossing
the intersection, monsters

carrying garbage bags,
monsters driving cars

with windows closed,
staring at us, fellow

monsters. And when
we cross the gate

there’s no one
alive around.

Just hills and hills
of headstones–

all of the dead
a responsible

six feet under.

 

(originally published in Capsule Stories, Spring 2020)

You Are Going to Kill My Mother

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I guess a pandemic’s a time
to get wasted. I want to, too.
Badly. But crowds are universes
of a billion universes,
complex ecosystems in each
of us too small to see.
Most years I squeeze
into the tightest space
to buy the cheapest beer.
But Mom sells colognes
to the relentless public
at the mall, still pointlessly
open.

One of you knows someone
who knows someone
who wants to go out and
smell like sandalwood tonight.
And in the trillions of
tiny transactions we
do not know
happen each time
we step outside,
the actual virus
will make its way
into my mother’s
lungs. When
she– in her mid-
sixties– has to go
to the hospital,
but there’s no
availability
anywhere
anymore
to treat her,
I’m going to
remember what I saw:
you in a crowd at a bar
on your Instagram
stories. And I am
going to blame you.

 

(originally published in American Writers’ Review, Summer 2020)

Float Through

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Today, I slide on slush on my drive. Unplowed roads, slippery odometer–
morning snow surprise. Pittsburgh’s a city of hills unavoidable, and later,

waiting on a grocery pickup, I stare into the rearview mirror at the frost-
tipped pines when a knock on my window removes me from my existential

stupor. I don’t know how to interact anymore. Crank the window the wrong
way. Peppermint mocha, the years past. I bought a latte this morning but did

not know how to order it. The Dunkin teens stared, dumfounded, and it was
a foggy day like this– in which I float through the happenings– that I last

crashed my car. In Los Angeles, I flew down the dry 405, beat after
a long day in a Hollywood studio, and was amazed at the hospital light

brightness as I passed Westwood, like I could snap my fingers and time
would once again resume, while five other lanes of traffic zigged around

me with no regard to my existence. I was like a visitor to myself dragged
back into being with silent smoke pouring out the mouth of my Ford’s

hood. The front was crumpled but the SUV I slammed into appeared
untouched. The sixteen-year-old girl called her dad to ask what to do.

She took my insurance, my number, then drove off with the rest of the
world, as I stood at the side of the highway waiting for someone to

help me go home, still, to this day.

(originally published in the chapbook Count Seeds With Me (Ethel Zine & Micro-Press), Spring 2022)

Blurry

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Home is a little bit blurry.
Mom, I swear to you, it might not be
July next time I see you.

Your digital face is a little bit blurry,
but our lighthouse will always be
the one light in dark through memory,

right? I want to climb the ladder
to surveil the roof. Home has
become a wall of atrophied faces.

(originally published in The Writing Disorder, Summer 2021)

The Bucket

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Ripples of water
extend into days

we are wordless
with each other.

A storm breaks,
a dog whimpers.

We hear the groaning
Earth shifting

over countless hours
into the endless sea.

I’ve had enough
of windows,

where dreams
are a quick glance

over another
unfinished drink

in the middle
of the day.

(originally published in Count Seeds With Me, Spring 2022)