Poetry: James Croal Jackson

James Croal Jackson

Visiting Home

Lying in darkness the score is

again snores, always twenty minutes

removed from anywhere, my family–

harder and harder to acquiesce

demands my childhood created,

the future a fog ever-expanding

today and every day I’m supposed

to be thankful (I am, but enough

with the bronze spoons and

Styrofoam) for sufficient means

and meals, the white noodles'

shadows drooping off my plate

onto the soft red tablecloth

my mother lovingly draped

to prepare for our arrival.

***

Modern Birdhouse

You brought a birdhouse

for us to build. First step:

sand around the edges.

Last step: enjoy the home

we made for living things.

I love how you look at birds.

From my apartment window,

your joy expands the view.

The Batman building needles

Nashville sky. We imagine

futures in these clouds. When

the first snow fell, you called

but I couldn't see the flurry

from my fifth floor darkness,

all cold a distant thought.

Christmas approaches

and you ask what I want.

***

Revolving Sushi

Speeding toward Kura

to make a reservation

I balance my desire

to see the moon (sliver

mode the dark shining

like a pool hall

with the desire to not

die driving the complex

Pittsburgh loops and

hills before the

descent into the

mouth of stars

that wilder me

like I’ve never

seen a constellation

in someone’s neighborhood

***

Silver Bells

In San Carlos the crows

pick at yesterday's empty

bag of fast food

at Peet's coffee

the guy beside me

talks operating system

building a team

of solid folks

and a woman

with a purple

yoga mat

walks from the neighbor

Yoga Health Center

It's the day after

Christmas

and Silver Bells

is playing

"Enough already"

a crow is doing a catwalk

on the three layer

orange cake building

across the street

an alarm screeches

in the back

every five minutes

like there's a burglary

or a fire

and surrounding

conversations

continue

both focused

and unfocused

a blur

I have

a part in

somewhere

by the window

***

The Cold Is Nice

The marrow of that argument

suspends in that hanging space

of airlessness halfway to the moon.

The cold is nice. And the not-breathing.

I'm wishing us luck with the launch.

I hope we resume ascending.

***

Bio: James Croal Jackson is a Filipino-American poet in film production. His latest chapbooks are A God You Believed In (Pinhole Poetry, 2023) and Count Seeds With Me (Ethel Zine & Micro-Press, 2022). Recent poems are in The Garlic Press, Remington Review, and ONE ART. He edits The Mantle Poetry from Nashville, Tennessee. (jamescroaljackson.com)

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Setu, December 2025

Poetry: James Croal Jackson

James Croal Jackson

Dating Someone Who Has the Same Surname

 

She calls me bro. My mom

sees photos, says you have

 

the same nose. I say you

do, too, clicking through

 

our slideshow of vacation,

the countryside in Italy.

 

Is it weird we

kind of look alike?

 

Siblings kissing?

Who’s thinking that?

 

My mom, on the couch:

if a couple look

 

like twins, they may

be meant to be.

 

For a year

we seem married.

 

When asked–

family.

***

 

 

Friday Evening Preceding the Election, 2020

 

 

This could be the last weekend
before certain uncertainty.

Yes, I am a secret pessimist.
This year has been good

for that. I lost my line
of work due to pandemic,

but started a new one
born from it. When you

were crying from your
campaign job, worried

your boss might not
let you go to your

needed appointment
on Thursday, I told

you what you're
crying about isn't

your Thursday
appointment.

We're afraid
of what we

may be living
in on Wednesday.

***

 

 

Sweetheart

 

The night

my sweetheart

calls me

sweetheart

for the first time,

her big toes

pop out of holes

on both socks.

We play a game–

as we usually do–

this time with

our feet wrestling.

Hers overtake

mine against

my minimal effort,

just how I want.

She says

my feet are eating

yours. Can I kill

you in your sleep

one night

and eat you?

And while I laugh

I remember for months

she has mentioned

that her brain

is not right–

refusing specifics.

In the summer we called

911 on a stranger

overdosing

in a festival field–

the song on stage still

playing, the beats

of reggae rose

with the drone of

a distant voice–

we left him

once we waved

down the responders.

We stood in the grass

drinking mojitos

in the sun

without protection,

near children blowing

bubbles that floated

over the man on the stretcher.

She talked about

how she prefers

her milk unpasteurized

and her red meat

raw. Lamb uncooked

in her kufta, beef

Pittsburgh rare,

look it up. When she fed

me beef tartare

later I wanted

the rest, too, knifing

portions quickly

onto my plate.

I said except for sushi

I’ve always been

afraid to eat raw meat.

And she asked me,

what are you afraid of? 

***

 

 

25^th

 

I wore a gray-black striped shirt. You made

me a cookie dough ice cream cake. We drank

 

Rebel IPAs that ended with a stabbing pain

in your stomach. You asked, are you mad I can’t

 

sleep with you? We drew a storm with cigarettes,

exchanged darkened clouds in our back alley.

 

And yes, we smelted iron before we slept,

and through this photo, I remember.

***

 

 

old jeans upside down

 

 

old jeans upside down

spill from honeycomb

 

hamper bending halfway

to carpet– and I feel invisible– light

 

in the sense I fill but am not

with you– a wardrobe palette

 

with holes

in the story

***

 

Bio: James Croal Jackson is a Filipino-American poet in film production. His latest chapbooks are A God You Believed In (Pinhole Poetry, 2023) and Count Seeds With Me (Ethel Zine & Micro-Press, 2022). Recent poems are in The Garlic Press, Remington Review, and ONE ART. He edits The Mantle Poetry from Nashville, Tennessee. (jamescroaljackson.com)

---

Setu, October 2024

Poetry: James Croal Jackson

* Author of the Month *

James Croal Jackson

Facebook Dating

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.

***

Ill Pizzicato

Too tired to play a love song–

the strings on this violin must be sick.

Pizzicato, pizzicato. Pestering

the soundscape. Some days are for sitting

in bed arguing– the toilet flushes.

Your roommate must be sick

of us on the verge of breaking up and

throwing too much of ourselves against

the wall. The bang-bang-bling to distract

ourselves– we contract ourselves to another

week, at least. Then the same: four

bland walls and our muted voices

pestering the soundscape of

what we used to call Paradise.

***

West

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

***

Tootsie Rolls

my body was destroyed

to confuse the witness

red feathers fell

in dust and dirt

I am not compatible with the moon

I kiss my mouth

diabetes has become a tooth

return to the deep pit

black in its whole

***

Excited for Something (After Depression)

must be the upcoming road

trip to Portland, to return

briskly in love with

someone

I haven’t seen

in years

and work on my state

in

her living room

where lamps float

sails on a lake room

***

Passed

Crushing cans in the

attic was how to subdue

days– guitar distortion

summers, apple rum

autumns. Red leaves

hued the music–

e-minor when the

wind chilled, ice

of songbirds the

loneliest way

to tell time.

***

---

James Croal Jackson (he/him/his) is a Filipino-American poet. He has a chapbook, The Frayed Edge of Memory (Writing Knights Press, 2017), and recent poems in DASH, Sampsonia Way, and Pacifica. He edits The Mantle Poetry (themantlepoetry.com) and works in film production in Pittsburgh, PA. (jamescroaljackson.com)

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Setu, August 2020