loneliness

Forgotten Beach

/ James Croal Jackson / 1 Comment

I cannot open my eyes, nor hear the flapping
of wings, nor feel the earth beneath
the forest. I pray that I may never return to
this sinking world– I can’t imagine the thoughts
I’d think alone, resting in the sun
and letting the surf wash over me.
It’s too far to come back home and still be safe.
I’ll light another torch,
and carry a prayer that will burn forever
in the river. From rocks I will dig
and dive in. When I sink, I know
I will never return.

(originally published in Bruiser Mag, Spring 2023)

House of Mirrors

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

in this house of mirrors look around you
all around you looks at you if you think

you are out of sight of stars remember
light itself is the mirror the stars

made you the stars own you the stars
constantly surveil you the sun

itself shines its light at you for hours
because it must know you will soon

sin though you never believed in God
the sun will whisper I am your sunshine

your only sunshine and every other
source of light will seem ninety-three

million miles away and in
no rush to reach you

(originally published in Flush Left, Winter 2023)

32nd Birthday (Quarantine)

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

yesterday felt a few years older
but not in a wisdom way rather
the heartburn et cetera & today
we could meet somewhere in
the middle of the highway vines
creeping underneath its floor
boards with boombox boom fire
working no one I know knows
anyone recently & your faces
have faded into pixelated versions
of your best selves I have faith
in you but fuck God congregations
I do not blame ducks for soaring
off ponds at the faintest ripple but
maybe I left home a little too late
I sat in the basement drinking Carlo
Rossi reds I thought then it was now
or never

(originally published in Windows Facing Windows Review, Winter 2021)

Some Crimson Planet

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

When I am lonely,
it helps to not think
of the universe. I imagine

Earth buried in the darkest
cemetery, a headstone
with some space separating

it from the next.
I know there must be a
tenderness quotient

in the cosmos, a rose
on some crimson planet
blooming tall to wave

at me, its petals drifting
aimlessly through
a garden of light-

years. This distance
is more collective
than we know.

(originally published in South Florida Poetry Journal, Fall 2020)

Invisibility (NYC)

/ James Croal Jackson / 1 Comment

Chin on window, I still somehow lost
myself in the crowd: the subway

left me here, at my draped destination. Yet
street guitars and strangers’ chatter echo

in the underground, eardrums thrumming through
this maze of machines: ticket-takers, escalators.

Half-shell, half-mind, I ascend into the grid
of civilization: deadened lego towers, blind

in the clouds, airplanes wending through
faint chemical composition quarter-notes.

(originally published in Pif Magazine, Summer 2019)

Baggage Claim

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Planes fly in circles
all day, all night.

You traveled alone, again.

There’s always one bag
no one claims on the belt.

Movement stops, you wait
in the airport’s clinical lights
while conversations blend to a drone.

Beach bracelets and t-shirts in tow,
others wait for rides in the river of cars.

Passengers from other planes filter in
and tend their incoming sheep.

There are destinations,
but don’t rush.

 

(originally published in 50GS, Winter 2018)

Old Songs

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

on the phone you ask
who old lyrics were written for
I say my writing is not literal
these are imaginary girls

you ask who are these imaginary girls
I say they are lonely
in imaginary ways they alone imagine
the ways they are lonely

I lay under a dim fluorescent bulb
a soft cotton sheet on my skin
digging a deeper crater in my bed
as in a bodiless void

 

(originally published in Bitterzoet Magazine, 2017)