roommate

To Paige (From Jack), 2017

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

i bark at da ups guy not cuz i guess hes here to mess things up
but cuz hes here every day when ur not    im wonderin y u go

away & y i cant come      i would go anywhere wid u
so y does anyone go anywhere when im content ta sit where da staircase

bends & watch for u     im afraid of knocks sometime somethin
bangin da door of what i name safe    i sense da whole worlds fearin

& i can smell bad from a mile away      deres so much of it i wag my stub
for makin it dis long .    still i hope ull always come back from snow , rain

& surgery so i bark ur name da best i know when u return    tho loud
& disruptive deres no different sound for love jus rattlin da home’s bones astray

wid my voice & wonder if some day itll all collapse sometime inta heaps of
forgotten timber & brick . id follow if u leave dat great clear barrier & return .

i spend my day lyin here thinkin of ways to tell u dat       to shout
like from a mountain through da valleys as loud i can da whole clatter

best i know how        like u do when u walk thru dat door
its da loudest thing :   u fill my ears wid bells    i can hear nothin beautiful else

(originally published in Delphinium, Summer 2018)

After the Lancaster Beer Festival

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I want you to read this:
my night was the endless Niagara.

Love, flowing along sediment
of bones and thorny breathing,

ends on a brown couch of dog
and cat hair nice against my jeans.

I woke there next to a loaded potato gun.
Can’t stop writing dirty things

on the Buddha board
hoping you will read them.

If not you,
anyone.

My bones’ silence
breathes thorns.

And the message always
erases itself.

 

(originally published in Serving House Journal, Fall 2017)

To Davin (From Laurence)

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

to leave water would mean I suffocate
so I wait for orange pellets to fall almost
like rain you and I are alone most
of the time pooled in a little world
aimless from place to place
in a bowl peering through glass
to see what moves around us
swimming feels like drowning
when you come to me and I press
my face to glass trying hard to break
it to come meet you
when I flap my fins it means I am starving
not for food but to end these
lonely days punctuated by when
you surface through the waters of that
more colorful other universe like magic
my sky becomes kaleidoscopic orange
and I nearly believe I belong

 

(originally published in Perspectives Magazine, Spring 2017)

Sunny Days

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

In memory of Chris Hull

friends don’t
wait for rainy days
to die
there is never
a metaphor
in the weather
the sun laughs
as it always does
when I receive the call
I find the nearest tree
to brace myself
with shade
it’s the only darkness
seventy-six degrees
warm breeze
the car
approaching the hospital
still takes her living
to work
at being alive

 

(originally published in Muddy River Poetry Review, Spring 2017)

Jack

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

This dog has seen you paint red the walls
and its color fade from sheetrock.

Rest. You walk butterfly wings,
each step a budding stem.

You and Jack love similarly, a dance
of tongue-and-stomp. Long-nailed

paws clomp heartbeats to the closed
door, painted white– a desire panting

for who is on the other side– and he waits,
as you have, on so many nights.

 

(originally published in Heartbeat, Issue 2)

To Emily (From Angel)

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

To run away would prove
the wild still within me,

taming that short fence with my claws
to catapult into the trees where birds

and squirrels and spiders sleep alone.
I look starward when you lure me

out among the sparrows. I am no monster
who lurks in twilight, but sometimes

exist memories I never made, when cool air
rushes into me through the window screen

like the moon commanding the tide–

I am not fully water but, like you, an animal embedded
with her feral past– my sisters teach me to hunt,

mice dangling from their mouths that haunt afternoon naps
on your heavy bed– my beautiful sisters never knowing

how it feels to be a princess, gold and pink
tiaras glistening between their royal ears.

I would not belong in those sprawling
forests from my dreams. The hunger

from the wild’s lack of you
would tremble my true heart home

under starlight’s navigation– to here,
where my whiskers graze your calves,

where I am cradled in your arms
in the company of heartbeat:

a sweetness, a tenderness
the feral could never dream of.

 

(Originally published in VAYAVYA, Spring 2016)