though i am a lake
or the idea of
one, without water, just
a depression
in the face of earth, potential
a pool waited to fill, like
charisma, that energy could
spark a room full of
doubt, a many-roomed doubt
full of one, such a hole
where say i live
(originally published in Nixes Mate Review, Spring 2019)
I was searching, too,
having lost the will to film
when I left Los Angeles. So
when you and Kim hid bags of
Haddad’s M&Ms from the other,
I learned it’s okay and rare
to find such sweetness inside
the seams of a rolling chair.
And when I watched you
climb desks and tables
to seek an advantage
inside the pillar, the cords,
the tethered lights– which
resulted in a broken device–
it was never malicious,
wasn’t some power play
I’d become accustomed to
in this industry, just a game
that ended when Janice
emptied bulk bags of the candy
over our desks because
even I was in too deep and,
yeah, it was hilarious. Now,
as we clean our desks to leave,
we find stray M&Ms buried
under paper stacks that serve
to remind, if for a moment,
that you are my friend.
(originally published in Eunoia Review, Winter 2019)
because Greg today got inducted into the Academy
downstairs at work they say drink as much as you
want this quiet wild hour of comatose fluorescents
after the first champagne they mention the blue
cooler stocked with ice-cold IPAs & I know I will
reach into the frigid cell & corkscrew open a Doghead
with these incorporated strangers I have come to want
to know & if there were an Oscar for spills I would
by now be adorned in gold instead of wishing
for potential future accomplishments to seep in
like rivers running opposite directions to form
a body instead of letting anxious moths eat me
from inside perhaps I’m ready to be removed
from this rusting rack so reality can tailor me
(originally published in Goat Farm Poetry Society– Edges Zine, Winter 2019)
Let go
of Los Angeles.
Of the shore
or the dream
of water. Night
sky the black
granules. Negative
film reel. Prints
in sand. Bare
feet: where to
wander
next?
past the corner of this house’s Kubrick architecture
on the couch a bundle of eyes
a slopping visual stain
but it’s true. my vision is blurry
I spent the walking sidewalk
grapes inside my right cheek
thinking how I want to win you.
so romantic, you
with a stranger in my house
about to
dine on the fruit of
ancient gods and I am laughing
now to have the ghost
within my walls, my green
heart long and longing
lunging out my chest
it sticks to paint
like spaghetti
(originally published in streetcake, Summer 2018)
Evenings in the video lab laughing at ourselves acting in
perpetual circles the clicks of play and rewind in a dialogue
with eternity rectangular how to zoom into self with microscope
both of us learning but look at you now in the fighter jet
sky tethered to wirings of small precise instruments of war how
we live in the perpetual unknowing state of I want you always
to come home even not to me because back then
every small moment was contained in its forever
(originally published in Street Light Press, Spring 2018)
summer mugs me every time
muggy breath and hug of sweat
so hug me hold me let me know
I’m not a cloud who will sink
into a vapor or wave hissing mist
an atmosphere of melancholy hot
days that teleports me to L.A.
stargazing fame because anyone
who meant anything existed far
away celebrities or friends who
wait when you come home to drink
torpedoes in the square then explode
with laughter when telling them how
you lived everyday in a pile of socks
and neverending sunshine
(originally published in Abstract Magazine, Spring 2018)
You cut my face
from a magazine,
pulled tanner grass
in L.A.– how you
lose your sense
of color with nothing
but blue sky and sun
and sidewalk cigarette
stains, everyone dead
in their own way.
(originally published in Califragile, Fall 2017)
& part of her phrase of course is
if you can’t handle me at my worst
but there’s a left turn into darkness
no one wants to take &
the signal’s jammed so no one knows
the direction anywhere anymore
just a mirror of the night
reflecting night, a ninety
degree warming sadness glued
onto a body. one silhouette
low into evening, a heat repenting
unknown sin, a snake slithering
out from its hole into you
(originally published in Gyroscope Review, Fall 2017)
you
painted
my head
white
soft hands
planted roots
on my scalp
spring warmth
cherry blossoms
in your laugh
petals
on our tongues
(originally published in Gnarled Oak, Summer 2017)
James Croal Jackson 