film industry

The Film

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Sometimes I sit at a café window
watching pedestrians pass and I think

all the people in this life I’ll never
know, these strangers in the space

we share, an unseen assistant
director setting up the scene and

critics will leave harsh reviews for lack of
dramatic irony, or subtle comedy, whatever

the previous scene sets up, or seemed to
be leading to, but the longer I move

through its runtime, the more I fear
a lack of coherence, that Chekhov’s

son never grows into what Chekhov
demands– the boy dies a few acts

later, randomly, and still the film marches
on, aiming the lens high toward some plastic

profundity with its pervasive god
and blue sky gazing through a tall

circle of trees, leaves swaying, keyboard
guitar, so frustrating, and later will be an op-ed

from the Production Coordinator that outlines
the sacrifices needed when the rented lens

shattered, dropped from a rooftop, costing a
hundred thousand, and the producers had yelled

about budget cuts yet still wanted an endless
duration, excess cast members extricated with

no follow-up but others too much, your dead
dad referenced with each hailstorm, you grow

tired of the metaphor then sit in the park
watching people pass when a past lover

from act twenty-seven enters stage left
with a pup and you wave, a stunt, restless

limb, in case she asks, which she won’t,
she’ll avoid eye contact because she is

no longer in the contract, can’t say a word
without pay, but still she will

wonder if you are the same actor,
and I’ll have to rewind a long while

to see if you are.

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

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)

Leaving Work

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I.

After these exhausting days
who knows why I yell to no one
the things I yell on the way
to my car after work: gravel
grass and hill road buzzing
in the deepening sunset.

II.

The only relief I ever feel
is sunlight on my face
when leaving work–
the temporary confusion
of unsheathing one
unwanted part of me.
The breeze
greets me
like a once-friend,
my name
on the tip
of her tongue.

III.

Each minute– each second– beyond
when I am supposed to leave
wilts me. I look longingly out
the window mud-
stained in sunlight
I did well in the past
to ignore.

IV.

I get upset
having to spend
the remainder of
my meager self
racing
the end of day
light. I fight
my way through
traffic lights,
red in surrounding
eyes– to arrive
at my familiar
steps, already at
the foot of dawn.

V.

Morning
has that air
I like– half-
asleep possibility,
a natural neutrality,
a newness only possible
half-dreaming
beside the waving
branches.

VI.

Tonight, I spend my time
on an ice cream cone
with you. Under the full moon.
It makes my teeth hurt
but worth the work
a random hour a week
or two ago, when I was
sitting at my desk, wanting
nothing more than to come home
and see you.

(originally published in Statement Magazine, 2023)

Cookie Cake

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I cut cookie cake with plastic butterknife
a birthday my age is showing not my celebration
in the office a long way to the center I repeatedly

say I slice some New York pizza I shape
a biscotti I am the awkward focal point
struggling through the cake rock my boss

offers me a Swiss army knife I refuse
she swears it’s clean the PEOPLE want
a show they want to see struggle I

bellow hands shaking through thick paper
plate after plate she says I’m impressed
you didn’t break and my piece is

so sweet I can barely eat I
do it anyway the work
I put in deserves dessert

(originally published in Squawk Back, Fall 2022)

Aging / Dying

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

You age and dye clothes the actors
wear, and when the old thing breaks,
we talk a washing machine between us.
I hold company money– someone else’s
wealth– without knowledge or specialty.
You say the replacement must not have
sensors. And you must be able to
manipulate the water level. These, you say,
are the only requirements. Everything
else can be jazz. Copper chords I
know. I riff on melodies in my head.
Soon the machine will have to be
unhooked, and I know little
useful of hoses, washers, inlets,
pumps. If it were just about
water– and shapelessness–
I could close my eyes
and submerge. But
it’s about spin, the pirouette
inside that makes it work
after the basin fills with
soil and sweat, a
pool of clean chemicals
and dead things all
scrunched together–
close the lid to hear
its tender agitations
before its heartbeats
turn frantic. The cyclone
within gathers wind of
frantic thoughts that
entertain the idea of
waking one morning,
fresh off a sharp night-
before fight in the kitchen,
and ripping all clothes
off hangers to jam
in a suitcase so that
when you wake, too,
you’d see my clothes
as a hole where they used
to hang and you’d ask
what are you
doing / what are you
doing? and I swim
up to the closed lid,
telling the world
th-thump, th-thump,
my fingers prying
and pulling.

(originally published in WordCity, Spring 2023)

Career

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

After I axed past the tree-lined path, I turned
the wrench that opened safes of gold with my own
hand. And then I hired someone with wrists

of a little more tension. I should have
never slept in the bed of wealth. I should have
known, in the night when every dreamer is

dreaming, I would sink deeper into that
endless hole of jagged desire until
I was thrust like from a slingshot

through my roof into a room
of mirrors where I seemed to be me,
but adorned in glimmering garbage.

(originally published in Academy of the Heart and Mind, Winter 2021)

Sixty-Hour Workweek

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

the work never ends got slurry
in my mouth called schedules or
points of reference for words
beyond words I say can’t
capitalize on limited resources
I have a tiny appetite you said
after twelve hours repeatedly
you are disappointed in the
remaining hours what’s sunlight
what’s wind got to do with well
being the highlight of my week
was assembling a black leather
gaming chair I like to wine
and dine in slow interior dying

(originally published in Rabid Oak, Summer 2022)

Salmon

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Chadwick
refused to shoot
until he had a salmon omelet.

I drove Hollywood Boulevard heat
asking restaurant to restaurant who would
cooperate

until finally a place
(since shut down)
said, yeah, we’ll
put salmon

in an omelet
for thirty-five
dollars.

And now, my boss
demands salmon
with lunch.

When there’s no salmon
at the nearby Giant Eagle he asks
Why are you in ghettosville?

I drive to the suburbs,
walk into the seafood section
and buy bags of pink flesh

hanging on a refrigerated
display for onlookers to ogle.

(originally published in Pomona Valley Review, Summer 2020)

The Producer at the End of Pre-Production

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

gorge on whoppers we’re making a movie

this bag of salmon we’re making a movie

sleeping pills we’re making a movie

thirteen hours plus we’re making a movie

I won’t eat pizza we’re making a movie

Caesar salad in the storm we’re making a movie

no one goes home we’re making a movie

watery leftovers we’re making a movie

dropkicked phones we’re making a movie

at the paper cutter we’re making a movie

beets at crafty we’re making a movie

there’s nothing to eat we’re making a movie

thousands of packages we’re making a movie

we’re making the movie Monday what will you be doing

are you going to miss us we’re making the movie

(originally published in Mad Swirl, Summer 2020)