violin

And Yet the Strings

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Again, a rainbow sprouting from your violin–
no, it’s no light. You never wanted to mother.
Music was the way– adagios hanging from
the clouds. But God had something in store–

                                                                come on.

What happened was we were drinking herbal tea
and you told me of new pregnancy within these
silent walls of our favorite coffee shop and I said
I’m sorry, I’m sorry because I didn’t know what

else to. And you said it’s okay, it wasn’t you, just
I had to tell someone. Because you no longer
write symphonies. The instrument collects dust in
your closet– where’s the music? We ask. You

answer: inside, swelling. If there’s one thing
you must hear, she will be a cadenza.

 

(originally published in Chiron Review, Fall 2020)

Duplex

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

the muffled songs
made me wonder
who played violin
on the other side

who cradled the bowstring
whose long haunting moans
whispered my name
in its dried throat
beyond the wooden wall
who itself whispered
its own ghosts
its dead fingerprints

are clamoring
to live again

 

(originally published in The Bond Street Review, Summer 2017)

Infinite Strings

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

It was Maxwell
who asked
if algebra
can be extended.
My theory is
it is possible
if we are infinite
strings of numbers,
if an unknown
number
of remaining days
is what
makes us immortal.
With him
gone,
I recite
as many
digits
of pi
as I can
just to feel
my tongue
flicker again–
does the universe
confuse numbers
with the heart’s
density, or
sparsity?
The night sky’s
violins
sing arias
for minor
constellations
that connect
to never-
ending strings
of
days–

 

(originally published in Columbia College Literary Review, Spring 2017)

Hyacinth Rose

/ James Croal Jackson / 1 Comment

there are many flowers come across paths
alongside apartments but nonesuch like the

hyacinth rose wrapped tightly as such stands
outside a tiny market in view of black-grim

graffiti reading with a smile worth at least fifty
fifty-cent avocados because spring lays beyond

the peel of skin like waking up to jumbled
white sheets with the knowing of presence past

white walls hanged with stationary song which
would sing if only strings could strum themselves

 

(originally published in The Bitter Oleander, Spring 2015)