gig

The End

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

                                         After Matt Hart

seems like a good time to say
I spent months feeling helpless
looking forward

to this indeterminate light
we’ve been dreaming about
this industry

affects people
like a natural disaster
rolling through our days

until The End
rejuvenates us
makes us hungry

for The Beginning
a road trip a flight
a movie night haven’t

had one of those
in a while     a cold
drink to jolt me

alive        alive
until the dead
extend a hand

to bring me back
and I reach
for it too

(originally published in Delta Poetry Review, Summer 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)