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Local Bar’s Annual Water Balloon Battle

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Yes I am drinking Oktoberfest beer is my raft
But listen Local Bar celebrated birthday number four
And held a water balloon war at Goodale Park
My army heaved water balloons at the other’s soft music
It ended sharply in a siren call of silence
Because we ran out of inflatables
Red blue green yellow scattered in the grass
Parsing through the blades during cleanup
Someone mentioned we’re grazing
While picking up the latex shards
I thought the animals we unintentionally kill!
Deer need stomach surgery after eating sugary fragments
And penguins in the arctic beg us
Please unplug your computers you’ll run out of poetry
Deep recess of eventual yearning
We freeze in the act of self-entertainment
Becoming self-immolators
For the love of a lover or for love of ourselves
We find ourselves stricken by wants we cannot control
And they will come to control us

 

(originally published in Cabildo Quarterly, Fall 2019)

Trunk

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Always having a crush
makes life fun. The pining,

as Vonnegut preached, even
if only for a glass of water.

It was in the parking lot, dark
after shutting the trunk where

we stored your viola. You
hugged me, whispered music.

Your warmth pressed against
mine– epiphany. A concerto

we don’t know the notes to. How
do you shut the trunk to a partner

you’ve stored your notes in for
a decade? I see the complacency.

The spare tire in reach. Our palms
touched each time we switched

our beers. It’s true: one of us will
move soon, and I want to whisper

give me a reason not to.

 

(originally published in bluepepper, Fall 2019)

Valentine Pizza Risk

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

lost last night’s gold after the Adriatico’s pizza
guy gave us a tip: wait
                                          for me to leave

strummed strings past afternoon stairs
mozzarella between our teeth      hands on hips
                                                                              lips and tongue

I was your favorite human for one night out of a billion
you said and said     kept me a dice roll away my bedroom just
                                                                                                      a flick of your fingers

 

(originally published in 8 Poems, Fall 2019)

Writer’s Block

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

You tell me you haven’t
written for a long time.
I know. I know. I know.
Same. We continue on
our personal eternities
into forests to forget we
were a trickling sap
yet draw our bodies
against an oak in a
place where no one
knows. Dark corner of
the dark. I used to feed
on the bark of our getting
to know each other. Fine.
It’s nighttime. A fire
fly ambles through
the air, lands on my hand
and you ask for a jar.

 

(originally published in Tipton Poetry Journal, Fall 2019)

A Note on Jealousy

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

When I ran into Heather at Union and said hello
Jennifer asked who’s Heather with smoke alarm eyes
I said a friend I meant it jealousy is the kind of
thing that puts teeth in a line of vision I was jealous
of your Emi too sometimes one must chomp the
string one time I believed I could love without
caring about the past but stones settled along
the path can still be pushed by gusts under a sky
wherein there is no ceiling or ending except
for the vastness of our longing in space

 

(originally published in The Fictional Cafe, Spring 2019)

Cedars-Sinai

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Vital signs at zero, a squiggly line gone infinity–
guess what I’ve prepared for. An eternity of this
nothingness. I tossed the phone like a grappling

hook at your distance and it caught. You left it
hanging on the bricks, though, and moved to
California, where I used to sleep the streets in

my Ford Fiesta, the same car we drove to Melt:
a time bomb heart attack. How close we were
back then, each deep-fried grilled cheese bite

hushed the thrumming. Fingers greasy– wiped
on napkins, wiped and wiped and wiped.

 

 

(originally published in Hedge Apple, Spring 2019)

July 4th, 2018

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

This era of desperation breeds a palette of better patriotism, our
thieved hearts aluminum recyclables in the midst of a heatwave

rolling across Ohio, and it is true that such inspiration gnaws at
malleable love at such an intersection of life’s humble turntable

of destruction. I want to love my country; in this way, I drink to
brown it out, to fade the familiar affairs. I arrived at the morning

parade slurring words but kissed my friends’ cheeks. We huddled
in the shade waiting for the moment to pass, but it won’t until an

ultimate firework leaves us stranded with a framework, electric
in its ability to ignite. Blueberry the bartender transformed his

truck bed into a wading pool around which we barbecued and
danced, dipping into a camaraderie of bottles and hands, smoke

the ritualized haze of togetherness that allows us to continue.

(originally published in Botticelli Magazine, Spring 2019)

Tuesday Night Karaoke at Hounddog’s Pizza

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Another weeknight. Of course
we’re being responsible. Hell,
we chose the karaoke spot
with the Christians congregating
at a table before the mic. The
first from the group sings
Reliant K; the next sings
Hozier’s Take Me to Church
and they all nod and clap
their hands. I want to
tell them it’s a goddamn
metaphor. The whole thing.
I mean, life. Not simply the
lyrics (although worship
in the bedroom seems
obvious– from Adam’s
rib came Eve, hard, both
of them, I mean they bit
into the apple, crunched
to the core, came hard
in the likeness of God’s
merciless love. But what
these friends mean is
a crucifix hanging
above the bed, in front
of the mirror, so that
they can watch themselves
pray in the presence
of Jesus). I mean I want to
tell them but I don’t say
anything, and they leave
as I hit the stage to sing
Psycho Killer, leave before
I can tell them you start
a conversation / you
can’t even finish it.
You’re talking a lot but
you’re not saying
anything. Run, run,
run, run, run, run
away.

 

(originally published in MORIA, Spring 2019)