Writer

I have been drowning in work

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

but the sun still floats past 8 PM
& I wonder where time went
sunk in the blue glow
of overheating machines

it is Monday
and everyone hates Mondays
because this past weekend
I went to a house concert
in the state I once lived in

only to return to the wheel
and drive a few marathons
windows open music loud
past spontaneous roadkill
and honeybee fields

last night I slept on a pile
of unsigned documents
dreamt of paper cuts
and Parochial school

I bought green bananas
for the office
and by the end
of the day
they were brown

(originally published in The /temz/ Review, Spring 2025)

Scrub

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

the provision

                       the carcass

provision

                       the carcass

a carcass

                        to provide

the carcass

                        blaze

(originally published in Roi Fainéant, Fall 2023)

Operatic Pop

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I have lived enough to knife
through precious indifference:
time to say goodbye, sang
Andrea Bocelli through my
childhood’s echoing eardrums,
banging through the baseball
game of stressful situations.
How I overcame my fear
of public speaking was when
I was believed in, once,
to deliver Wayne’s wedding
from obliteration (green
in the cleaved landscapes
I scampered fully across)
and the contentment rings
high in vibrato today.

(originally published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Fall 2023)

The Dog Is Always Greener

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

the dog is always
greener

in the land of
pleasant living

if we could pour
our hands

over the promise
of fence

into wild dandelion
weeds of

contentment
on a fake summer

day
the reticent

dog is the one
to pet

not the meme
celebrity

husky
or perhaps

we want
to live again

in the way
that dogs do

refreshing
the page

every fourteen
seconds

or days or
years

the grandma
calls this celebration

of life a resort
and we call

the dealer’s hand
too forgetful

to recall
the spade

drafted in
the lush

unkempt
garden

shuffle
the cards

repeatedly

to delay
the inevitable

(originally published in Pinhole Poetry, Fall 2023)

Proximity

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

The closest I will ever be
to the moon is on this plane

over Charlotte, returning
from my cousin’s wedding

in Huntsville, Alabama.
Face pressed against

the window I overlook
the wing where light

reflects off wing– a
certain curved angle

makes two moons.
Earlier, the sunset

was rust. This morning,
we had brunch

at The Broken
Egg, my distant family

sat across the
table from me,

the length
of a Filipino flag,

the closest
we will ever be.

(originally published in The Round, Spring 2025)

Our Ritual

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I kiss the cheek of my cat
   she hums in her sputtering
      engine the comfort
  of our ritual she twitches
         on my chest stares
              deep into my eyes
        our noses
                  sniffing
                              each other

                truth is
                      her teeth
            reek of yesterday
                  but I am trying
                          to rid myself
                  of the past
                                year

(originally published in The Gorko Gazette, Summer 2024)

The Shrubs of Doubt Were Misplaced

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Still, the dogs watch me from behind
a fence when I walk the opposite route–

against traffic on Gross Street–
the view changes enough to convince

me I am in a different place in my life
with its industrial constellations,

a parking garage sparkling with hovering
hospital lights while skeleton neighbors

decorate homes for Halloween and blue
jays all seek a different weather. Maybe

October chill has knocked a new belief
into my teeth. Brick by brick I walk

by buildings of my past that survived
into the current, too, and a leaf

from an unseen tree floats
onto the chest of my charcoal

jacket. I pin it there
for the days I will forget.

(originally published in Ariel Chart, Spring 2024)

Super Bowl, 2025

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

we wore our best hunter-green waited patiently
as men took a different kind of field we craved
sustenance a resurrection a flight a waiting
by window in the purple light under wrong
tin roof what we tossed into sky we threw
away our wing-missiles pigskins of self
talons landing burrowing deep out of view
what craft drunk disturbance in the flapping
february frigidity that beat against our jackets
yours the bird slick knit on surface mine
a thready childhood blanket to keep no one
and nothing not the least of heat my heart
drinks beside you as it waits for the game
to be good but it never does and always was

(originally published in Fast Pop Lit, Fall 2025)