Three poems by James Croal Jackson

Cart

It is Saturday morning and I walk to
the café, avoiding the storm that rolls in–

black clouds hang from the luggage
cart wheeled from trunk to room.

There’s no place I claim on this Earth.
As soon as I settle, I am thousands of miles

from where I started, but when I look up
at night, stars find me here, in the same spot,

always.

Doomscroll

the screen grotesque again the news
oh Lord already old I am not in
the crosshairs but my mother is
my sister my girlfriend TV sticky slimy
sap sad and rotting in my kitchen
the entropy in the bedroom too
many windows the glass walls
could shatter now at his voice
your humanity will go with it
I am sorry your body
is the martyr and that
there have been hands
sticky slimy sap sad
and rotting all over
you as death began
and begins his
term anew

Daily Spiral

I have to be better. I don’t want to
lose you. I walk in the rain on New
Year’s Day, glints of purple from
a second floor apartment’s light
glistening in the puddles on
the street. Pigeon feathers, snips
of branches, and persistent cold
wind pushes me without
control back into my gray
block, the room that blocks
my secret waves.

James Croal Jackson is a Filipino-American poet working in film production. His latest chapbook is A God You Believed In (Pinhole Poetry, 2023). Recent poems are in Red Tree Review, Alabama Literary Review, and Sideways Poetry Journal. He edits The Mantle Poetry from Nashville, Tennessee. (jamescroaljackson.com)