Relationship

Hot Sauce

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

You know how much is too much but
you shake the bottle anyway over browned

grilled cheese sandwich and bite in.
The things you think you can get away with–

oh, the tiny fires you’ve stepped across in
the temple of your longing. Little dabs of red

on canvas– the meat of the situation is you’re
taken but, Lord, the flame goes hallelujah blue.

I’m speaking a poetry of pigs. Relationship
as slaughterhouse. Relationship as bacon

you want to slather lust all over.

 

(originally published in Adelaide, 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)

Square Cafe

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

pancakes we talk heavy locomotive engine
steam billows out this whale blowhole this
top of mind wisp say something anything
wrong always sugar sweet the stacks
I want to speak doesn’t connect you eat
a hole through final pancake as to
puncture the flour we had bloomed
over the last year and half eternity
we could lose in the vast distance
across the table cerulean walls
surround us in new distance
enclosed and suffocated open
air a quiet din to gorge last
bites by window sunlight
your blue marble eyes I
can’t meet halfway
mumbling

 

(originally published in 24hr Neon Mag, Winter 2019)

An Iceberg Splits from Antarctica

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

           the cicadas are out
           early don’t be
           alarmed by the
           coming swarms                              build a memory
                                                                      of winter build
                                                                      a memory of here

                                                                                I loved what we had

                                                                                        cold glove
                                                                                        in warm hand

                                            but now when growing old I know
                                            I didn’t do enough to do my part
                                            the wandering joyrides burning ghosts of
                                            dinosaurs from gunky lungs of millennium
                                            sedans cigarettes in our mouths tv the endless
                                            bedlamps they say sleep is best in total
                                            darkness o how I wasted more than I knew
                                            on those daily long commutes

(originally published in Orange Quarterly, Winter 2019)

In Pittsburgh, the First Time,

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

you told me Friendship is a road
split by two roads, parallel to Liberty,
and I told you that was a poem,
but you said, no, I’m just giving you
direction, and I looked up from your eyes
to the green sign reading Friendship Ave
and knew what you meant. Friendship–
we had yet to spend our first night
in the city, one that would end in
a dark cocktail bar for a dance party
that never materialized. In the morning,
we rode rented bicycles with bent
spokes and a click in their spinning
and I could only follow your lead
and cycle through streets still unfamiliar
to me– we weaved through lonely roads
to the Strip District, then stopped
at the Sixth Street Bridge to admire
the glimmer of the river that warm
winter day and continued until
we found the hill to Randyland
too steep to ride so, off our bikes,
we walked side-by-side up the path
until reaching our destination;
we locked our broken bikes
and kept walking.

 

(originally published in Bindweed Magazine, Winter 2019)

Further, Further

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I know the pang of distance / ghost of friendship cold air
conditioned inauthentic rumblings no more / passage into
the familiar / sea / a yellow boat rocks near the Atlantic
shore / I evade the sun / seek any shade to shield myself
of affection / affected by the moon / far apart again no /
                                                                   vacation for the heart

 

(originally published in The Blue Pages, Summer 2018)

Sticky Rice

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I don’t remember what I said but it stuck
with me and we laughed and sometimes
we saw the future full of starfish clinging
onto timelines we never had because I left
corrupt with stinging jellies I ate of them
often the sea the seaweed the sticky floors
I understood what we were stepping on

 

(originally published in Bitterzoet Magazine, Summer 2018)

You Say the Songs I Like Are the Ones I Can’t Sing

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I process major key as minor,
slink into couches to cry at any
gushy thing on television. Before
bed I write pages to process the
day in journals only I will read.
You say I’m genuine only when
drinking. Love is ambiguous yet
I try to process how to manage
a relationship while singing
lyrics wrong to songs I need
to learn to know you.

 

(originally published in Fourth & Sycamore, Summer 2018)