depression

Walking on Pearl Street

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

For a fleeting moment what was it
I felt? Happiness? Ah, in the sun,

an unburdened existence, a voice
behind me kowtowing into his

invisible phone, and I even looked
both ways before crossing Friendship

at the crosswalk– a pedestrian
wearing white shoes long-sullied

from the dramatic act of living,
and a gaggle of bicyclists passed

and I swear I smelled the murk
of sweat but it did not matter,

I was moving through this world
still, almost on a mission, though

I must admit I was aimless,
and still am, but for a second

the sun grazed my skin
to reveal a little light within.

(originally published in Orenaug Mountain Poetry Journal, Summer 2024)

The View at Work: Dump Trucks

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment 
Look at this kingdom of garbage 
trucks. A survey underneath 
the 31st St. Bridge, where I spend
my horrible days collecting.
It is Friday night and there is
pressure to deliver. I told you
nothing we do here is important,
so take a deep breath. Smell
the compost of contemporary
capitalism. My blue brain
has ceased to need a function.
My winter is every man’s
desire for himself. It is waiting
for my back to give and bear
the weight of the waste: 
the compacted nature of my life,
squandering, squandering,
squandering the ineffable.

(originally published in A God You Believed In - Pinhole Poetry, 2023)

Hot Shower in February

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

When I part orange floral curtains
in obscured sunshine, my sadness grows
no more profound. Black hairs
prostrate on the half-wet tub a vestige
of an earlier me. My accordion heart,
my baying accordion heart is
drenched in absolution, the blanket
of suds that coat my state
of being. I wish I could tell
you that everything is okay,
but I look up to the faucet
and the pressure says nothing–
the world is a drowned white
noise soundscape I am trying
to listen through. You are out
there, somewhere. Eyes closed,
the chill haunts me when
the water turns off, as
steam becomes the memory
I breathe.

(originally published in AvantAppal(achia), Spring 2022)

Reasons to Leave

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

cooped in a house this depressed era    winter
summer you say I’m really your friend  I believe
it now but before in the spring    it was pinwheels

could’ve been poets seeking nothing but tea   coffee
chocolates         grand canyon space  understating
worlds of difference     your activism accurate

paintings hang over white   walls      laughter
your echo screams through town I have a bucket
of these memories splashing out      on the short

walk to your place     I can’t stop feeding   monsters
you laugh at me onscreen    onstage
our common ground is both of us   leave as far

as we can go    to stay an other

(originally published in Avatar Review, Summer 2021)

Lost

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

It is depressing to walk outside.
No one of no ones, my formlessness
would be dazzling, if you knew to
look, a vapor in the shape of memory.
I know the sensation of a crowd.
Faraway fear of missing out
in my own backyard– back
to that old mindset. Life of
lives– tenth iteration? I have
planted some sense of evolution.
Everyone’s growing gardens,
hunched over greens
of potted soils, warning
the world of rabbits. I
chase the idea I’ll never
be settled anywhere. Love
to be alone but don’t know
what to do with my hands
when I am. Nor could I be
a surgeon. Or a fisherman–
imagine me, who can’t swim,
casting a net into the lake.
A splash of water and I’m
wishing for a wishing well.

(originally published in Pomona Valley Review, Summer 2022)

Some Crimson Planet

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

When I am lonely,
it helps to not think
of the universe. I imagine

Earth buried in the darkest
cemetery, a headstone
with some space separating

it from the next.
I know there must be a
tenderness quotient

in the cosmos, a rose
on some crimson planet
blooming tall to wave

at me, its petals drifting
aimlessly through
a garden of light-

years. This distance
is more collective
than we know.

(originally published in South Florida Poetry Journal, Fall 2020)

A Morning in Knox, PA – September 2020

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

can’t risk having you fall in
           it’s the same blue blood buzzing everywhere
a spider’s on my face and all I see is dusk
     and lavender cornfields
you would tell me  if (I made your)  birthday a ruin, right?
you’d come out of (your   hole in) the ground,
help me navigate through      pink-spiked weeds?
every step I take close     bullfrog leaping into    moss
to escape me   I get it   I don’t know if it’s my intention
misplaced or if my body’s just unable to execute
       the further I walk from the house a little more it rains
       moths displaced little insects winging away
       each further step I take toward the lake

(originally published in Ginosko Literary Review, Fall 2021)