money

A Sale on eBay! A Newer Roomba!

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I am happy with my dumb robot vacuum
though I nearly clicked Buy Now
with PayPal credit, thirty-six dollars
over twelve months, which is a more
tantalizing mountain, in increments,
if that’s the route I want to go, though
there have been, in the past two months,
too many sudden changes in my life.
I am reinventing myself, forming
new habits– I make my bed each
morning now that you’re not there
still sleeping when I awake, and
shave my armpits when black hairs
unfurl around my arms. For a while
I have been a wild animal and you
asked who I am now last time
you were over, saying now that we are
not together, you have good traits,
which is a phrase to run through mind
I promised not to think about, but
it’s true, my date– the first after
our ending– asked what are your
goals for your time? And
I blanked, what are my goals?
I had already told her about poetry,
that I am always reaching
for meaning that isn’t there.
I answered I want to reclaim
myself, and she said that’s
a lofty goal, without knowing
what I meant. I don’t even
know what I meant, and that
has always been my problem.
And my allure. We sucked
down cucumber gin and
left each other. Hanging.

(originally published in The Indianapolis Review, Spring 2025)

FWIW

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

All the days of work must one day
mean something, being the bastard
children of capitalism, camouflaged
labor, fingers rough from wanting
to swim financial freedom’s waters,
a belief formed from looking sky-
ward, a cosmic agriculture, roots
ever present beneath (and above)
the stadiums, what temporal
monuments we return to
day after day.

(originally published in The Waiting Room, Summer 2023)

The Parking Garage Beneath Westside Pavilion

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I slept beneath the mall for some time
to avoid the burden of capitalism ha!

if I could that would be glorious to
avoid the landlord hey look I am in

the parking garage what garbage
all these ads for movies I do and

do not want to see but I would
not know I did not want to see it

until seeing that is the predicament
I do not have the cash nor the time

to spend paying for rent give me
gunmetal cement walls six floors

beneath the surface where I drive
to where not even bugs venture

there I am unbound
I fly in my dreams

(originally published in Train: a poetry journal, Fall 2022)

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)

deeply a pot of cheap ramen

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

betting is fun I bet were I rich I would lose a lot
more than now losing’s not a competition though
at its core it is an apple beneath a heap of peaches
shower soap I never liked peaches have you ever
sniffed steam emanating from chicken Top Ramen
it is not clean it is not soap I dispose of everything
the flame I inhale plastic I ingest plastic waiting on
the clock to change from 12:23 to 12:24 I pour my meal
into plate-bowl snorting steam never inhale too deeply a
pot of cheap ramen I know I am saving money I know I am
betting a lot on fake economies blowing my breath onto
unpackaged carcinogens Michael once said in our apartment he
hoped to never see me eat this shit again this was years ago
soggy noodle soup coiled springs I hold in my mouth tongue
salt nothing but the salt I then lick off my chin it’s nothing just
pennies of salt I will be hungry again soon so why must I savor
every writhing U at bowl’s bottom like each bite will be my last

(originally published in Count Seeds With Me [Ethel Zine & Micro-Press], Spring, 2022)

Photonics

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I heard on the radio about a career in photonics
so I did research, and it involves quantum physics
and light manipulation. NPR made it seem like
the simplest shit ever, that if you were good with
your hands you could master it. As a freshman in
high school numbers were jumbled in pre-algebra.
I was the weakest link of the Academic Challenge
team, sitting on the sidelines during the matches.
When does one need an alternate in a trivia
extracurricular? Does someone squint their
brain too hard and need a breather? I’m trying to
figure it out. I coasted through college on a 3.0
because I was expected to go. And one time
the alumni “giving” center called and asked me
for a donation when I lived in my car in California.
I told them I was sleeping by the beaches, eating
canned beans and tuna. They said they were sorry
but could I please spare a twenty? They couldn’t.

(originally published in Green Hills Literary Lantern, Winter 2022)

2.16

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I can’t talk about money I have none
      I am green in love in the black in life

the debt of my ancestors I am
      someone’s deficient ancestor

though my family is dying
                    one at a time deeper

into ground and deeper into soil
                    the sound of my sister

sobbing though she can’t be here
                    at the funeral she would if

she could
                    there’s always next time

(originally published in Ariel Chart, Winter 2021)

Coca-Cola Commercial

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

If I live a modest life I won’t know what it means
when the pipes burst or the banks bust. Either means
money I don’t have. Meat the Earth has. I’ve wanted
to travel but I know airplane fuel results in polar bears
dying on dry soil. Think Coca-Cola commercials with
the Arctic night preternaturally night. No snow, no
snow, and after airtime you crave Coke.

(originally published in Quince Magazine, Fall 2020)