3 Poems by James Croal Jackson
To Kingsford (from DQ)
You knew my name, pulled me
from the dark. How many times
have I died? How many alive?
I was a ghost. A breath. You
caught my scent. Made me flesh.
Tectonics
I am the great disappointment. I promise
I’ll be there, but I am such a failure that
as soon as I promise I won’t I will be
just incredible! Joyous at my sudden
shift in tectonics, we will walk
along the path of love toward future
and I will fall again into a crack
of my own seismic creation. I will
tell you one thing and the Richter
will tell you I’m lying I love you
I’m crushed beneath the mass
of climate chaos happening
to this world
and to us.
No Matter How We Love
reservoir fading skies
the greenest pine
needles tarantulas or
wedding vows jodhpurs
light silk sweat turtles amid
mountains two ducked hearts
murder in love a frozen deer
splinters of metal your abandoned
democracy you begin to run your
arms through the mists smugness
aloft the fruit of late season you
awake to feet of crystal stone
naked on a grass paradise plot
of your father’s estate how creeks
know of the sky’s smallest leaves
and their immense heart scents
of smoke the golden brown
of the soil is actually stars
and no matter how we love
it does not end like a song
our tears pour but the storm
yes the storm dissolves
over us like fireworks
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.
“Invulnerable”
Michael Moreth is a recovering Chicagoan living in the rural, micropolitan City of Sterling, the Paris of Northwest Illinois.