weird

Facebook Dating

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Don’t you want to date everyone you’ve ever known?
Here’s a way:
I’ve got a secret
admirer. So do you
& you & you & you you you you you you you.
Your heart is an information superhighway
                               you’ve followed
                                to the Pacific, at least,
                                  & swam & swam & swam
                                       to be lost in blue
                                       endless scrolling
                                       you like & wow &
                                                                     love.

(originally published in Setu, Summer 2020)

The Tendril

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Friends seem to love it
but the flowering plant
in the bathroom creeps
me out. There is a half-
empty/full glass of water
on the shelf beside
the dinosaur-cat mug.
I wonder about that,
too. I guess it depends
on how you look at
the world: the stone-
green leaf reaches for
your hand or punches
at your jugular. I want
to say I don’t have
trust issues but
you say you’re taking
a shower and shut
the door, but I know
the steam is watering
the tendrils. These
leaps of light
I can’t provide.

(originally published in Ink Sac, Winter 2022)

For Exercise and Variety

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

walking around my home wearing sun
glasses FitBit records silent steps on white

wood floors creak a silver SUV whirs past
window no peephole a dead end slightly

darker shade how my eyes reckon
in multiple lights their very veins

stretch and pulsate spectrum my entire
field ever present ever pressured

the world in layers I perceive body
as hunger pushing into all frames

of frames of knick-knacks I need to
donate but fear the gift-givers will find out

one may ask that yodeling pickle wasn’t
good enough of course not what was ever

its purpose but to transfer to another hand
or be buried deep in dry and dying land

(originally published in Academy of the Heart and Mind, Spring 2023)

Karaoke Night

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I have gone out for karaoke but the world
says otherwise. There is a line I think not

to cross. Surely someone I know, surely a boundary
full of music and atmosphere to let me be

myself and allow the frogs to consider me
a peer, rhythmic applause with their throats.

What a swamp I have become–
I wish I were the Everglades,

as relentlessly mosquito. As hot. As I am a thousand
miles from my destination though

you say I am close in this way. The roundabouts
of the city. How long have I not known how

this would end? That it would
end? Back of the line.

(originally published in The Wise Owl, Summer 2024)

Thirty (and a Half)

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I ate five scoops of Breyers chocolate-peanut butter
ice cream and still want more–

                                  this, after two “meals” of beef-
flavored nothing noodles (Maruchan ramen)

I’m thirty (and a half)

When do I stop running
from “the good future”

                                      I see it through the
crystal balls of rich kids’ Instagrams

Say it with me:

                  I AM LIVING IN THE PAST.

                                  clap emoji

                  I WANT WHAT YOU HAVE.

                        clap emoji clap emoji

                          dancing girl emoji

                         But here’s the thing.

Earth spins so much it’s dizzying.
I’m running the opposite direction
to meet my past self but that fucker
doesn’t want to rendezvous.

                                          The future called
and told me to put the phone down, you’re
sweating arsenic
                 and They were right. I needed
a shower to cleanse myself of everything

before the neighbors made a stink about my stench.

(originally published in SCAB Magazine, Summer 2020)

White Noise Eucharist

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

the bathroom fan. now I am asleep. no
god has been asleep as long as I remember.

there was sleeping in church my pew
a long loungechair. white women

singing sunflower and epistle. to
write a love letter these days means

you are able to buy bread. too many
starved. hearts empty tanks. fill

a cup with holy water. pour into
brown grass. I have never been a man

of faith. I open plastic packets without
looking. I consume what’s inside.

(originally published in Poetry Super Highway, Summer 2022)