television

This American Factory

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Work snips years
it abducts me
from living

and the drinks are heavy
after
in my liver

my tenuous body
if I could live
in a less-consumed way

outside
with the grass
not overgrowing

my head
in the mountains
with a beach-blue

overlook
and while I’m
fantasizing

I want a bug force
field to keep
the pests away

I want to glide
over the landscape
a less-ambitious Magneto

breathing in
high-altitude sea breeze
until the stress is gone

and I deflate
into the ocean
though I don’t know

how to swim
see
even my daydreams

end with darkness

(originally published in The Wise Owl, Spring 2023)

The End

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

                                         After Matt Hart

seems like a good time to say
I spent months feeling helpless
looking forward

to this indeterminate light
we’ve been dreaming about
this industry

affects people
like a natural disaster
rolling through our days

until The End
rejuvenates us
makes us hungry

for The Beginning
a road trip a flight
a movie night haven’t

had one of those
in a while     a cold
drink to jolt me

alive        alive
until the dead
extend a hand

to bring me back
and I reach
for it too

(originally published in Delta Poetry Review, Summer 2023)

Reruns

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I sit by the fan
this May afternoon
alive forever
in the green
of our home-
made salad
(spinach, chickpea,
yellow pepper, tahini),
sore and sweaty
from carrying air
conditioners up
steep hallway stairs.
Using the heat-
gun and pliers
I straighten
my brain’s
antenna.
Our argument
becomes static
on a tube TV
in someone
old’s living
room.

(originally published in San Antonio Review, Winter 2023)

The Spectacle of the Oscars

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I can’t stand it– in LA one year
Alex King and I were invited to

an Oscars party but in the midst
of another sad singing act we left

for tacos but still stood around on
the green and red tiles watching

a muted tv anyway I think Billy
Crystal was the host that year

the gleam in his eyes dead I
walked Sunset and Vine seeing

unsharpened pencil eyes all
these wannabes myself included

I peeked in one mirror to comb
hair and breathe into glass then

outlined my name inside a star
to leave a filthy myth somewhere

(originally published in Whistling Shade, 2021)

Aging / Dying

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

You age and dye clothes the actors
wear, and when the old thing breaks,
we talk a washing machine between us.
I hold company money– someone else’s
wealth– without knowledge or specialty.
You say the replacement must not have
sensors. And you must be able to
manipulate the water level. These, you say,
are the only requirements. Everything
else can be jazz. Copper chords I
know. I riff on melodies in my head.
Soon the machine will have to be
unhooked, and I know little
useful of hoses, washers, inlets,
pumps. If it were just about
water– and shapelessness–
I could close my eyes
and submerge. But
it’s about spin, the pirouette
inside that makes it work
after the basin fills with
soil and sweat, a
pool of clean chemicals
and dead things all
scrunched together–
close the lid to hear
its tender agitations
before its heartbeats
turn frantic. The cyclone
within gathers wind of
frantic thoughts that
entertain the idea of
waking one morning,
fresh off a sharp night-
before fight in the kitchen,
and ripping all clothes
off hangers to jam
in a suitcase so that
when you wake, too,
you’d see my clothes
as a hole where they used
to hang and you’d ask
what are you
doing / what are you
doing? and I swim
up to the closed lid,
telling the world
th-thump, th-thump,
my fingers prying
and pulling.

(originally published in WordCity, Spring 2023)

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)

Chicken Imitations

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

We made Arrested Development-esque chicken imitations
at the restaurant– bakawk, cheep-cheep, wakka wakka–

being young, I thought that was the language of love.
We always laughed across the chasm of the room

when we shut shop, squeezing soap rags into heart buckets,
wiping fresh clear streaks on mahogany tables. I vacuumed

pita crumbs and invisible dust, emptied bags thinking,
perhaps, I was on the verge of vanquishing loneliness,

that I was sprinkling zaatar on a plate of foggy shish
tawook, a taste you might return to.

(originally published in Vagabond City Lit, Spring 2023)

Driving in Loops to Enterprise

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

We cruised Penn Avenue as compliant
vagabonds to the parking garage train

station to deposit/withdraw rental cars
in other people’s names. For a long time

I believed if you drove the actor’s maroon
luxury vehicle, you’d become the moon

yourself, at long last a god you believed in.
Being one who has to drive it to where it

must go, I know by now you will guide
its hand back to beneath the famous blue

bridge in the strip. You will sit at your desk
in the grainy film of your dreams and sketch

the rumblings of this world until golden hour.
The sun, then, will gift upon you ultraviolets.

 

(originally published in Confluence, Spring 2020)

Same as It Ever Was

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I am reliving and reliving the remote
control buttons then buttons
in your bed, golden room of silk
and how many times did we drink
like that? Dropping beer after beer
at Zeno’s then groaning summer sleep
right after. What were we dreaming
about? The cat was snoring and
what an endless loop! Blinking
awake and wanting to crush
night back with aluminum eyelids

(originally published in The Drunken Llama, Summer 2021)