friends

Wildwood

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Let’s go to Wildwood and get lost in
the rough waves of September. Stand
further from shore than ever, where
water’s shallow, sand firm though
fine enough to spiral into thoughts
where its strength dissipates and you
sink into a rough wave. Sometimes
what you need is to be pummeled by
the Atlantic. If you are not careful,
you could drown, but in the cerulean
calm of caesura, waves break all
around and forgive you. When
it is offered you want the air frigid
in the warmth of your sequence
of days so it can thrash the
fragileness of body and you will
not know what you have craned
your neck for. You’ll pull out
binoculars to view onlookers
on a distant, speeding sailboat
and you will see your life,
how fast it will pass.

(originally published in Stink Eye Magazine, Fall 2022)

Tetris

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I am reading old journals, putting
pieces of my past in place–
a series of staircase Tetris shapes,

a broken board mixing L.A. palm
fronds with bad haircuts Dad
gave me, but we needed to save

money, and I was bratty. I wanted
video game anime hair but got slanted
bangs laughed at by classmates and

teachers (who would never admit they
found it funny). I knew, and still do.
Sharp laughter edged in memory. I

want to say I’ve gotten over it. Over
all of it. But I still hold the smoky
gray of Nintendo controller in both

hands, and I am trying to move the pieces
where they need to go– but I am
older and life is faster, blocks falling

into places I can no longer find them,
stacking dark spaces to the top of my
screen after these earlier, easier years.

(originally published in Bond Street Review, Winter 2021)

The Sword of Light

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

This fixture you forgot
on your back patio.

You say you are confused–
how did that turn on? It has

been months since I last visited.
I say the light is a metaphor

for our friendship. Big plants
sit in chairs in your brown-fenced

garden. Don’t know how close
to be anymore. Never get too close.

A tomato vine peeks from a planter
above you. Gardening’s a hobby,

inching toward the thirty you fear.
An August birthday during the lost

summer and you toss a squeaky
blue ball in my general direction,

more wildly as the night goes on,
and Lola retrieves it every time.

You say she slept upstairs with
you for the first time. We joke

she didn’t fall immediately, that you
had to tell her to turn the television

off, stamp her cigarette out. With our masks,
I only see your eyes smile. I hope you notice

mine. It is dark, as it has been for months,
and we try to stay illuminated, despite

these killer particles suspended
somewhere in the talk between us.

(originally published in Bindweed Magazine, Summer 2023)

Facebook Dating

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Don’t you want to date everyone you’ve ever known?
Here’s a way:
I’ve got a secret
admirer. So do you
& you & you & you you you you you you you.
Your heart is an information superhighway
                               you’ve followed
                                to the Pacific, at least,
                                  & swam & swam & swam
                                       to be lost in blue
                                       endless scrolling
                                       you like & wow &
                                                                     love.

(originally published in Setu, Summer 2020)

Silicon Valley (Season One, Episode Eight)

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

When you see me on screen–
with blue jacket and plastic
glasses– listening to Zach
Woods brainstorm a plan
to pivot Pied Piper into
an app that can attract
rodents– like the fairy tale,
you’d think this guy on TV
is one lucky bastard.
But you probably didn’t
notice, because you don’t
know me, and you see hundreds
of people on screen
living the dream every day.
And you can see me in season
two and the first episode
of the show, ever–
the very first scene,
during the Kid Rock
concert– on stage with a
hundred other extras, and–
at the time, I had
just moved to Los Angeles,
and the background roles
I had been cast for
resulted in me
on a projector!
My friends at home
who got used to me
no longer being able
to meet them drunk
at Highland Tavern on
Mondays were now not
completely surprised
to see me rewindable
in their living rooms.
I felt destined for great
things, marked this only
the beginning, like
everyone else chasing
dreams in the city of angels.
But all I could afford to eat
were packets of beef
ramen, boxes of blue
Kraft mac and cheese
with water instead
of milk– no butter.
Hard-boiled eggs
kept me alive
long enough
to come home
to show friends
who were getting used
to me being able to
meet them drunk at
Highland Tavern on
Mondays my favorite clip–
with blue jacket
and plastic glasses,
I listen to Zach Woods
brainstorm a plan
to pivot Pied Piper
into an app that can
attract rodents–
like the fairy tale.


(originally published in Statement Magazine, Spring 2023)

The Wedding Poem

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I was asked to write a poem
      to read at your wedding.
I have been writing for weeks.
I don’t know what I’m trying to do
      but I know it’s something new.
Mostly the poem has become my life.
Mostly it’s a poem of longing
      for what the poem in me longs for.
Mostly it is a poem of the fight between desire
      and desire.
Mostly it is a poem of desire
      from the poem’s point of view.
Maybe the poem is a poem of love.
Though like most loves, the poem is a little
      exasperated.
The poem seems at the moment
      to be in the middle of a struggle.
The poem says the poem is struggling.
The poem says it wants more
      than this.
The poem wants to try and try again.
The poem wants you
      to write a new poem for it.
It hopes it will then write a new
      vow.
I don’t know why I made myself
      the center of this.
I don’t know why I seem to be
      the only person in the poem.
How’s this: I said I was going
      to love you forever.
I believed it.
I believed in it.
I didn’t expect the word forever
to seem anachronistic.
What do you mean,
      forever?
Who told you
      the wedding poem is for you?
Who told you the wedding poem
      has to mean anything?
The wedding poem is a poem
      about the poetry we dream.
I see you on the stage.
You are on the stage with me.
You found a poem you loved
      and someone reads us its vows.
We try to see the future.
We try to see the poems we are
even though we might not know them.
We try to see the future.
I try to see the future.
We try to see a poem about to happen.
This is a poem about the dream.
I try to see a poem about to happen.
This is a poem about to happen.
It has become a poem for you.
It has become a poem for me.
This is a poem about the poem that isn’t
      yet.
I struggle to see a poem
      about to happen.
I struggle to see the poem about to happen.

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

After the Election, 2020

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

it’s OVER

whelming

darkness

the creeping red
into the garden. the blossom
     I align with the ocean
in its magnitude of idealism

I align with my self-
deprecating friends
my honest to
whatever god makes
them actually brings
them happiness I want
to live a little less
for my own interests
if I can help
you bring yourself
to light instead I
think you can call
the results
a little more
often, the god
of who we want
to be, the presidents
we are

(originally published in The Los Angeles Review of Los Angeles, Summer 2022)

Jessie Must Think I Am Pathetic

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Another gray sky day, empty gas tank worries in the countryside
nowhere don’t you long for my touch? Oz runs just far enough
for the bone against the backdrop of my outstretched arm
hand out fingers extended & I don’t know where I stand with Jessie
except she must find me pathetic as she walks into water under the
influence of Dr. Dog & now she swim-dances the past three days she’s
walked along the rock edge of the pool. & now I need to text Tony Z.
what’s a man most afraid of? I’m getting used to inadequacy. Oz brings
his bone to the other side of the fence. Jessie says she misses the green,
the pool purified at the beginning. Sara throws pong ball through
the hole of a lime lifesaver floatie and a butterfly metaphor soars
above the water. Have you ever almost drowned on drugs? I don’t
recommend it. The lesson is gravity’s not the occasionally falling apple
but the drifting leaf toward the other side, whatever the definition. September
third and we just got our first sunburns. Hannah leaves the house after
work and like a magic trick, three pong balls appear in the water
and the sun reveals itself a moment. Oz lays in the grass in front
of me before a philosophical discussion about casserole and how to cope
with beans bought at the beginning of pandemic we will never eat.

(originally published in KNOT Magazine, Fall 2021)