LA

Ramen in Japantown

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I had been eating like shit living
in my car, fingernails full of fungus.
We agreed to meet in Japantown
to enjoy a fancy ramen
but this would be my first
in many years
that wasn’t Maruchan
(cheap crinkly plastic,
cancer-flavored beef-dust
in a sawtooth packet)
& you must be aware the body
struggles to digest it.
During our meal,
two years since
we last talked,
the cheap ramen must have
intermingled in my stomach
with the pork-broth
real deal. I put an egg
on top for authenticity
when you told me you had
just bought Coachella tickets
for yourself & your brother
& I didn’t want to know the
price because I was living
on wages made on the days
I was lucky enough to
find work. Umami
lingered on my tongue
as we ruminated
in silence over
how vast the distance
our lives traveled
in different directions.

 

(originally published in Triggerfish Critical Review, Winter 2020)

An Improv Game

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

an improv game in the living
room I am screaming
someone say I am an alarm

clock or an ambulance
because my brain is hyper-
ventilating in this anxiety

of why-can’t-we-play-beer-
pong on the lawn table this is
Los Angeles and I am scared

of everything (tsunamis
falling fronds off palm trees
car accidents and commitment)

I was trying to make something
anything up in front of you
that’s how we stayed together

for eleven months of I-love-
you yelling sand in our teeth
sunburnt toes on the shore

 

(originally published in The Fictional Cafe, Spring 2019)

Instagram

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Denver’s volcanic sunset
from the parking lot
was a longing

nature
versus
Instagram

and while my traveling
resulted in a love
I cannot
recommend enough

I know it was you
who told me
it was time to leave
the ocean
when

memories
are too nostalgic
to be healthy

(originally published in The Magnolia Review, 2018)

Multnomah Falls Spits Mist onto My Glasses

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Six months after, it was April,
and I still lived in my Ford
after moving out of your house.

I drove to Oregon, found a waterfall
to pose in front of, my familiar wool
and cerulean jacket, a white t-shirt,
my scruffy beard.

In the photograph
the stranger takes,
I smile.

The sun glints off my face.
I wonder what you’re up to
and who takes photographs
of you– is it a stranger?

Am I a stranger now?

 

(originally published in Pif Magazine – Summer 2018)

July

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

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)

Morning Reflection

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I walk waiting for the clarity of nature to upend my core
having forgotten again another grand idea I had the night before

the rain-soaked sidewalk
& deep dent on a passenger door

a two-story house I think is too tall
too wet       bricks and white columns

each window a translucent universe of past
raindrops & the universe everything ahead of you
                                                                     out of reach past the physical

the American flag waves in the wind
black sedans drive to a hair studio

talk show hosts spit they just
spit

& my dream once was to be on television
& in Los Angeles it happened
                                                                    my face on mom’s television

but otherwise forgotten
still signals invisible waves

here I am a field the scribbled wandering
eyes & a blue jay makes a home in a tree

& me in the days I become
when I look in any mirror

 

(originally published in Botticelli Magazine, Spring 2018)

Blendoku

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

We can work on puzzles all day,
watch the patterns move
from one color to the other.

Block colors twist in gradients
until blending into something else.

The sun removes itself
from the scene, shifts
behind a cloud,

creates a change in light,
a block of bricks on a building
slightly darker than the rest.

 

(originally published in SOFT CARTEL, 2018)

North Carolina Wedding

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I don’t know anyone
but the gnats swarming
around me &

the stranger
next to me calls them
wedding bugs

marriage begins with wings
then seeks blood
sucking glimpse of sweat

on skin sugar all the single
guests swat at the air
around them familiar

the way we complain
of heat so beg
for rain to form in

these shrouds of clouds
to cool us down
it’s nice to have something

tangible to wish for

 

(originally published in Razor Literary Magazine, Spring 2018)