west

Rectangular Rainbow

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

The clouds induce trance on the drive
home from work today. White sheep pile
atop each other on a ranch in Montana
until the weight of an oncoming storm
that never comes except for a stub of
rainbow that peeks from behind far hills.
In the open stretch of highway it reveals itself
as a rectangle floating in the middle of cerulean,
squiggly lines across it, a glitch of physics
my phone cannot capture. I text you from
the middle lane– soaring eighty– because
you love rainbows. You say you walked
around our block but could not find it.

When I arrive home I am filled with unknown,
spiritual vigor. We split a red, frozen pizza
then leave for a journey following our favorite
clouds above, on high alert for the rainbow.
Guided by pink translucent clouds in blue
outlines, you ask me holistically, what are your
career goals? I can’t stop searching upward,
awestruck by the air and rare beauty
in the world, in the center of our elevated
city of bridges and transitions and roads
that fall into each other in chaos you
must understand to survive. The sunset
is somewhere and I know our clouds
obscure it. I know my career involves
sacrifice but I am chasing film’s thrill.
The whims of our uppermost winds!
I have taken you along.

(originally published in I-70 Review, Summer 2024)

West

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

nights of cats following cliché heartbreak
both of us single lonely ditched by friends

we smoked weed in your empty pizza
box apartment of turquoise walls I threw

myself into the cats were fighting over
string and I asked how often must we

wake up not in love you said we have
been recently while our phones lit

our faces grim in the dark of tangled
connection I wanted you to come

to Cali with me and we went west
but you stayed in Colorado to smoke

the mountains high and higher clouds
unreachable

(originally published in Setu, Summer 2020)

After Months of Living in My Ford Fiesta

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

sun & guitar strumming through space giving
breathing life-music concertos into me the grass

the G-minor wind the black garbage bags
I have picked out only a few t-shirts to wear

this year or any year could be the lifespan
of the universe or an endless pot of coffee

all my pants in the trunk I have driven
the cavernous columns of west U.S.A. today

& yesterday & tomorrow is my bent mind u-turn
steering wheel a strained muscular twist & cat-tongue

rubber consuming thoughts which are broke &
banked & rivulets of rust & cash the downstream

trend of my feral gasoline-fueled dreams

(originally published in Treehouse: An Exhibition of the Arts, Winter 2018)

Athens, Ohio

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

The city was dead when we went
so we intended to fill ourselves
with black magic found
in skeletons on the street.

Look how roots of fallen
trees meld with earth.
Go where lines still meander
on your palms–

we did not share with ghosts
when we reached the end,
no words whispered into steam
of dim lights and Darjeeling,

no further graffiti for your blue
telescope eyes peering through time
to the origin of your cosmos, when
your essence poured from your sleeves

but carried less starlight than it does now.

 

(originally published in The Stray Branch, Spring 2018)

Raskolnikov

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

the weight of an axe sleeps
between us in bed.

we dream of horses
wanting to whip us

until the stable
lives up to its name.

the pawnbroker’s hunched shadow
further crumples into shadow.

there it is, a black apple–
and your pupils, telling truths into the dark.

 

(originally published in Pudding Magazine, Winter 2016)

Shapelessness

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

As I move further from you, whiskey in hand,
the thirst seems to pile like distance in the miles–

my shape roasted under Pacific sun.
Our sunglasses clinked with wine glasses.

The dry sponge. Run me under the sink.
Or run with me. You could be a ghost, too,

a phantom unfurling before me, haunting
each town I pass. Every morning, I am gone.

For a while, your blanket was warm. But chill the air
long enough and someone will notice. No one

likes the cold. Everyone prefers the summer river,
her water’s blue in the ice of winter, the clear

of July. I dig for you in the dirt. Then myself.
My shapelessness. My tendency to drift

so far away that I never fully return.

 

(originally published in Jazz Cigarette, Autumn 2016)

Katalina’s

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I would walk to the ends of the Earth for you or,
more accurately, to the brunch spot a few
blocks down the street to spend ten dollars,

ten minutes with a runny yolk on a southern
chicken breast sandwiched in a biscuit, while
your silver-haired friend buys your meal and shares

his own, he who kindly asks if I want more water
because he could always use more, like all of California
during my time there; he who gushes about the beauty

of rain-soaked Seattle, how in a three-sixty swivel
hills lush green and you never feel more alive.
I cannot help but agree that, yes, the Pacific Northwest

has a fog which casts a pall over my slinking shadow, loses it;
yes, casts a spell on my marionette body, slackens my spine
to skeleton-cast my demotion of confidence to learn, no–

to move back east from the west is not that unique.
Ladies are not impressed with artifacts,
rust coating that less authentic time.

 

(originally published in Down in the Dirt, Spring 2016)