memory

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)

Boneless / Bells

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

What is special to me may not be to you.
Wings the heat you burn overtakes you every
bend of tongue the mouth and heart I am muscle.
The sun in excess beats heavy on fingers
playing games on calculators in memory. The bell rings
from one era to the next and the textbook of learning
splits in half. In high school you wake up
an hour before being woken up. This is a
relationship mathematically unreasonable.
Split your brain first then your body then time.
Ahead is an entire cardboard runway to burn.

(originally published in Scarlet Leaf Review, Spring 2021)

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)

Finding a Game Token in My Change Jar

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I shuffle through memory for
a single midnight. What did we do

at school? Redeem gold tokens
at Swings ‘N’ Things? Cleveland led

me to lake by leash. We listened to Feist
among lilacs and buttercups. We lived

near the airport, never flew. I shouldn’t
keep money for unusable transactions. What

a concept, after the drinking started. If darkness
is inevitable, please invite me to your party.

(originally published in Dear Reader, Summer 2021)

Beer Pong in Your Basement

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I was new to this
kind of longing

sticky all my fingers
on red fingernail cups

but I was a visitor I was a loner
I lived in my car

a couch was a luxury
four cats purred and clawed

at me I couldn’t sink anything
into the drinks. I sank

but made myths I missed
everyone in Akron everything

that happens to you
sticks to you. swish

there was a way to
live in all places at once.

Pittsburgh Columbus Akron
Los Angeles. my memories

are mine and they are selfish. I cling
to what I forget which is what

I drink away which is all
the spills over all the years

I haven’t yet wiped clean.

(originally published in The Seventh Quarry, Summer 2023)

Moment (October)

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

        spring wind
palette of butterflies
                golden hour

                         the shuffled-card memory
                         flipped through photos
                         the month passed

(originally published in The Field Guide Magazine, Fall 2023)

A Year

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I wish it were impressive, my insistence
to gnaw at the root of what clings to me,
whatever doubt’s the day’s soup.

A kind of droning in my soul that rings
and bleats. Speaks for me when I must
be spoken for, my might in a cave.

I long sometimes for lonelier days. Too much
noise in the knock of someone else’s luck,
a hardwood for human myth.

Grant me humility to do no wrong. I had a year
to get everything right, and still I waited past
the crow’s deadline, let the line fly

recklessly into the lake.

(originally published in Nauseated Drive, Winter 2022)

Hog

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

there is no wrong way to eat
a hot dog there is no right
to eat a dog there is no hot
dog hot popsicle of pig
meat slathered in existential
ketchup bread-claustrophobic

                                                                    *

         once on a drive home from Central Catholic
         I stopped at the Dairy Queen Drive-Thru
                 and asked for hot dog wrapped in lettuce
                 I was more hypochondriac at sixteen
                 than at thirty-two anyway the kid
                 at the window said they couldn’t
                 but I insisted and the manager
                 smuggled the long sizzling dog in wet
                 lettuce I carry that shame in the trash
                 bag of my trunk to this day

                                                                    *

        pig meat
                       pig meat
                                       in a sleeping bag of green

                                                                    *

        there is no way to eat a dog
        there are ways to eat a hot dog
             I am a bog I am the bog I am
breakfast lunch dinner brunch midnight snack
  everlasting bun communion holy
water life I down through days and lick my fingers
after rough vigorous handwashing
               I’ve opened plastic package
               set skillet to flame
               lain logs on drizzled oil

                                                                    *

                       the celebrity chef in my mind
is me I documented cooking when I lived
in my car. That was my true potential. Oh, swine,
               you’re years beyond capable
yet I drove halfway across the country
to do what competitors do, which is down
hundreds of you. Joey Chestnut the undisputed
master after decades of dogs.

                                                                    *
                    Went to a dollar dog minor
                    league game twenty cents per dog flies
                    buzzing in orbit of condiments
                    five the limit at the window so all
                could see I had the buns. One each for
                     STRENGTH. ACCEPTANCE.
                        CONFIDENCE. GRACE.
                                   AMBITION.

                                                                    *

One inning was all
it took and I was alone in my new
                        city full of my father’s love
                        of baseball and barbecues. Now
                        there was an undisputed grill master.
                        Everyone knows one. I am not one.
                        There is no way to cook.
                        There is a way.
               Wayne was over and we flicked
               lit matches with our middle fingers
               from thumbs into ready
               charcoal to get the grill going.
We walked away and waited for
an action-movie explosion
but there was no ignition.

                                                                    *


                                                                                     My whole life I have been walking
                                                                                     away, not turning back to look.

(originally published in HAD, Summer 2022)