Hollywood

Rob Delaney

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Hi, I am Rob Delaney.
I am not Rob Delaney

and he would never begin a five-minute set like that,
but before California dangled blackberries
above my granite mouth,

Rob showed us the way and the truth and the life
(John fourteen-six by the score of silent thumbs)

god, twitter fame was the only thing
that could bring us nearer gods we do not believe in

this big bang of a perpetually expanding following
we cannot fully understand

by choice I never listened to robins
conducting high-frequency symphonies

(but I did read Last Call of the Passenger Pigeon
by Daniel A. Hoyt that summer
and could form the parentheses of a whistle
enough to calculate the slow kettle of tea)

my father would sit on a pig stump
(an oak whose life he ended himself)
and watch birds fly the superhighway,
clouds like rush hour in L.A.

like some hippie saint claiming
all that is God
is not man-made

I always thought of bird-watching as a way
for the elderly to augment their loneliness

now all the young men I know
fetishize loneliness in themselves

 

(originally published in LEVELER – Summer 2015)

Clinton, Ohio

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Where I lived was a quiet crescendo
of snow six months of the year
& mosquito summers wearing shorts
into the sweating night

Where I lived had piano thunderstorm concertos
jolting the elderly house’s bones
with frenetic fingers, ivory paint,
red bricks

Where I lived was a lonesome walking trail
where morning chirps of blue jays went unnoticed.
Beds of acorns lined the autumn grass,
a kind of fallout for the process of aging
and the act of leaving

Always, now, in thought, it is a shoebox
of dandelions that writhe when I pet the cold cardboard–
hello, you are home, tonsils– my heart
can’t handle the hand-shaped imprints
from so far away

 

(originally published in Rubbertop Review – Volume VII, 2015)

American Prayer

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Why did an apple tree
grow in my backyard?
That’s where the swimming
pool was supposed to go.

I ask not for much.

A well-placed tornado, maybe.
Another plague, perchance,
to rot its every root.

Then a demon, perhaps.
Lucifer the Lumberjack,
chainsaw in hand,
could tempt the tree
with Eve, eat its fruits,
then chop it down, though
trees don’t love women
like I do.

Look, I know it’s not practical.
Jesus didn’t wear a crown of thorns
from an apple tree
but I bear a malus cross
and don’t want to give money
to a heathen
who cuts down
a tree for me.
I could do that by myself,
if I really wanted to. I really
want to buy that pool.

I’m tired of the silence.
I know it’s easier for you
to use your superpowers
to turn the tree into a Bible
that smells like a chomped-in
red delicious. If you do that
I will sue you.

 

(originally published in Cake & Grapes – Vol. I, Issue II)

Five-Star Hotel

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Starlight is not equal in the petroleum sky.
Homes know the ocean
but not their owners– cliff’s edge.

Striated fireworks stake and fall,
hurriedly carted by fragile marbles.

Oil salts the earth to lust–
a red akin to blood
and romance seen in films,
romanticism violently envisioned
and burrowed for the claw
of the excavator, millionaire muck
gushed from leaking faucets.
The piping is consistent:
the toilets flush twice– to be sure.

These are where the fingerprints mingle
to create their own pulse– voyeur beats.

So fill your tank with Grey Goose.
Drink Utopia first. There is no price
for luxury but the cost in lost days–
my treat.

 

(originally published in altered form in Little River – Issue #4)

Valeria in Hollywood

/ James Croal Jackson / 2 Comments

Unease hangs on fame trees
bespeckled by drooped prop lights
as I leave Valeria in a bus
to act

like she belongs, as if anyone belongs
anywhere, who’s to say what’s right
underneath a moon who lies
to us

every night, concealing
lighted portions of herself, hiding
dusty cratered skin
as dark places in
the midst

of empty spaces
while mannequins remain
tucked behind glass,
wearing gold; exquisite, fit,
staring, wanting, vacant, stuck, cold
in their grim, posed smiles just beyond
our reach

(originally published in NEAT., Issue 5, September 2014)