weird

Look for Me, Someday, in a Sentimental Ad

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I dive into a fresh pool of shining glass–
who wants to spend their years with me?

The new-city-me screams its lungs out for
you. Looking to the past, I fall in love

again. I’ll be promiscuous when
unemployed. I can’t face life

pursuing absolute perfection. Maybe
I will soften my hair, finally. My cat

may not be into this. We lay sideways
in a beam of sun on dust-layered carpet,

moving our eyes to the wall’s tricks of light.

(originally published in Count Seeds With Me [Ethel Zine and Micro-Press], Spring 2022)

By the Power Vested in Me by the State of Sadness

/ James Croal Jackson / 1 Comment

sometimes at night
I bless my own heart
like I have authority
to give the balloon
floats away it is
hallucinatory thus
I greet a little tiger
toiling in the jungle
of the cupboards
oh what a pantry
we could have if we
could hold a job
in which we held
each other close
tying the knot
with teeth
in a stalk
of grass or
the celery
we snap
its little
green
heart

(originally published in Chronogram, Spring 2023)

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)