weird

Anachronism / Angiosperm

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I’m trying to tell you
          I’m trying

                                 my petals’ attempt
at opening

                  an articulate tongue

    the phylum anthophyta

                                  glass breaking in the sun

I am Late Jurassic
   early Cretaceous

                                   it’s true I don’t belong
here among your desiccated peonies

I plead bee telepathy

          antennae

                          someone read
                                              my mind

before the era ends
                                  before I swallow

pyrethroids

     over ensuing millennia I can’t promise
                                                       I will adapt

(originally published in Ginosko Literary Journal, Fall 2021)

Hog

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

there is no wrong way to eat
a hot dog there is no right
to eat a dog there is no hot
dog hot popsicle of pig
meat slathered in existential
ketchup bread-claustrophobic

                                                                    *

         once on a drive home from Central Catholic
         I stopped at the Dairy Queen Drive-Thru
                 and asked for hot dog wrapped in lettuce
                 I was more hypochondriac at sixteen
                 than at thirty-two anyway the kid
                 at the window said they couldn’t
                 but I insisted and the manager
                 smuggled the long sizzling dog in wet
                 lettuce I carry that shame in the trash
                 bag of my trunk to this day

                                                                    *

        pig meat
                       pig meat
                                       in a sleeping bag of green

                                                                    *

        there is no way to eat a dog
        there are ways to eat a hot dog
             I am a bog I am the bog I am
breakfast lunch dinner brunch midnight snack
  everlasting bun communion holy
water life I down through days and lick my fingers
after rough vigorous handwashing
               I’ve opened plastic package
               set skillet to flame
               lain logs on drizzled oil

                                                                    *

                       the celebrity chef in my mind
is me I documented cooking when I lived
in my car. That was my true potential. Oh, swine,
               you’re years beyond capable
yet I drove halfway across the country
to do what competitors do, which is down
hundreds of you. Joey Chestnut the undisputed
master after decades of dogs.

                                                                    *
                    Went to a dollar dog minor
                    league game twenty cents per dog flies
                    buzzing in orbit of condiments
                    five the limit at the window so all
                could see I had the buns. One each for
                     STRENGTH. ACCEPTANCE.
                        CONFIDENCE. GRACE.
                                   AMBITION.

                                                                    *

One inning was all
it took and I was alone in my new
                        city full of my father’s love
                        of baseball and barbecues. Now
                        there was an undisputed grill master.
                        Everyone knows one. I am not one.
                        There is no way to cook.
                        There is a way.
               Wayne was over and we flicked
               lit matches with our middle fingers
               from thumbs into ready
               charcoal to get the grill going.
We walked away and waited for
an action-movie explosion
but there was no ignition.

                                                                    *


                                                                                     My whole life I have been walking
                                                                                     away, not turning back to look.

(originally published in HAD, Summer 2022)

Plumber’s Note

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I do not want to alarm you but your
toilet was clogged with bones and fur-
thermore I saw a skeletal bird
roaming the graveyard you call your
basement. Not a reason to worry but
I heard my name in frantic birdsong
when I got the thing to flush. A whirl-
wind! The bones now live in a black
bin by the bathroom door. Make your-
self a new home, build yourself
a prayer because my next job is in a church
toilet; the pastor says his con-
gregation’s constipated in today’s
plentiful sin society, no angel wings
for anyone who seeks God in the end-
less rolls of toilet paper anymore and
he wants to flush his hope down. Like
everyone else he’s looking for relief
and belief and furthermore you owe
me three hundred fifty dollars; him,
your soul.

(originally published in Terror House Magazine, Summer 2019)

Piss Christ

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

At Tango there’s a half-full bucket under the urinal
yet no one wants to talk about Piss Christ at the
dinner table. It’s the eve of Christmas Eve and
you tell me my family is your family. I don’t
want to eat the bucatini anymore. The short
rib in grease is a clog the whipped ricotta
is trying to lubricate down my gullet.

*

We don’t want dessert at Grandpa’s. The
cookies are rolling stones and I can’t
mention Piss Christ. Everyone sits in
a circle and talks accomplishments.
The architect, the dancer, the lawyer.
My name is in the credits of a movie.
Who cares? No one can talk about
drowning.

*

Everyone talks about wanting Yang Ming,
but it shut down. Because of the rats and
flies and spider webs and black mold
and uncovered fruit and the workers not
washing their hands after trips to the toilet.
I want to go, too. Seems like a great place
to talk about Piss Christ.

*

On Christmas morning we open presents
and Liz mentions a chef from China she
wants to reconnect with, but his restaurant
closed. She’s not sure what part of China
he’s from, or even the spelling of the place.
This spurs talks of other defunct restaurants,
which returns us to Yang Ming. Michael
mentions the urinal at Tango with the half-
empty bucket beneath. Of course I snapped
a photograph. Of course I show everyone.
Mathew says this reminds me– what’s that
piece of art? And I respond Piss Christ!
But everyone’s thinking of Duchamp’s
Fountain, and we all take another bite
of the home-fried bacon and golden
scrambled eggs, seeped in a tradition
that will seemingly last forever.

 

(originally published in Harbinger Asylum, Spring 2020)

Meat Trees

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

             This is a binding between nature and mankind
             unexplainable through philosophy. The trees
             want to reclaim us or, perhaps, themselves.
            -K. Santiago, “The Whispers in the Wild”

World Cup – athletes at their peak
when the affliction struck.

Crushed leaves in snot on tissue –
it’s nothing. I was Ubering people

around Columbus, heard the chatter.
Can trees grow in brains? Is the new

trend snorting deciduous?
I tapped the CNN app– first it was

a world-class saxophonist struck
down with a green cold.

Next, football stars from Paraguay
and Russia, all blowing chunks

of trees into white, softer trees.
The first doctor to log a patient

said it’s nothing to worry about.
After a week the test showed invasion:

prickly pines a long spine in the nose
and the headlines bleated MEAT TREES!

It was early morning in the haze
of dreaming when my nose dripped forest–

I wiped my hand across the stream,
the flecks of blossoms blooming.

 

(originally published in Cough Syrup Magazine, Spring 2020)

2020

/ James Croal Jackson / 1 Comment

The people I love have never been further
& I’ve never been so nervous this long
not knowing which of the weeks
will be the one I can leave & be bound
to the beginning I will uncork
this love inside me (ever underground
and rooting) such that crowds will be
willed into existence again. But
we don’t need the shopping mall.
Slabs of pumice stone I saw
inside the consumers. Instead
of bedding the concourse
you asked for an airplane
and received as a gift
a ballot. A bailout for the sky
and everything within:
what’s the origin of acid
in the rain? Surely we couldn’t
be so monstrous. I’ve won a
thousand wars these thirty
years but none like isolation.
I’m feeding into the frenzy
like the marketers want me
to. The markets want me
dead, but still they want
my money.




(originally published in Flashes, Fall 2021)

Thlok

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Thlok when drunk.
Thlok for deer.
Thlok for you to fail.
Thlok when you can’t thlok.
Thlok chips on the poker table.
Thlok your name being called.
Thlok falls down.
Thlok shut up.
Thlok talk about their children.
Thlok hard work.
Thlok jolt a finger.
Thlok beer poured into a glass.
Thlok guitar pedal.
Thlok your partner.
Thlok caw.
Thlok you have no interest in.
Thlok two packs a day.
Thlok typing with mitts.
Thlok silent manner.
Thlok urinate.
Thlok wind machine.
Thlok monster.
Thlok opinion without listening.
Thlok fast asleep.
Thlok two big sticks.
Thlok fish swims away.
Thlok across the street.
Thlok thawing snow in spring.
Thlok thoughts during sex.
Thlok man mansplaining thlok.

(originally published in The Disappointed Housewife, Summer 2021)