JAMES CROAL JACKSON - POEMS

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 poems published in Perhappened, Kingdoms in the Wild, and Capsule Stories, among others. He edits The Mantle Poetry (themantlepoetry.com) and works in film production in Pittsburgh, PA. (jamescroaljackson.com)    

​Boneless / Bells

​What is special to me may not be to you.
Wings the heat you burn overtakes you every
bend of tongue the mouth and heart I am muscle.
The sun in excess beats heavy on fingers
playing games on calculators in memory. The bell rings
from one era to the next and the textbook of learning
splits in half. In high school you wake up
an hour before being woken up. This is a
relationship mathematically unreasonable.
Split your brain first then your body then time.

Ahead is an entire cardboard runway to burn.

 

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

Sports Car

​Rich man, I see you
leaving the city
in a vehicle for play.
 
Where are you going?
Outside megalopolis:
fields, fields,
 
grassland farms,
corn on the cob.
 
I know the road
seems infinite–
a bag.
 
Attach new tires.
Complete the body.

You have only one.

St. Patrick’s Day, 2017

​after the luck ingest
four-leaf lover
after four leaf-lover
 
looking for luck we run
into each other in a club of no
one speaking but our sentence
 
with familiar mouth
builds a whirlpool
on the dancefloor
 
we spin until dizzy and
green a reason seeking

other clovers in green fields

The Rotation of Bicycle Wheels

​Flowers, gravel, spit.
You leave a trail
of petals on asphalt.
Summer roads.
Icy roads. Salt
and brick. Path
of stone spokes
under breezy
trees. See how
the season
adjusts for you.
You keep going
sleet-stained
sweater avoiding
rains of
encouragement–
circular movement,
mechanized
static
blooming
for a steely
handle

on the world.