James Croal Jackso

Fall Guys #2

all this balance nothing to show for it
    seesaw the most patient of virtues –                                    
                         patience
                   get up god damn it
                                     when you fall can you please get the fuck up
              lemons fire from cannons
                        zest on my back
                        & I am always running
                                           can’t say the words right in my head
                              but in the glitch of No Music just levers clicking
                        & motherfuckers shouting woo! in the sorry 
                                                                                               white 
                                                                                                         sky

White Mulch

My face pressed to the window screen – black pick-up trucks 
pass. A little bit of breeze is recommended to ground yourself. 

Such violence in a chicken nugget. If I think about vegetable 
intelligence, I will allow myself only to eat white mulch. When 

becoming grass, nothing happens to the soul. Clumps of earth 
inside my fingernails when I scratch at the dirt, and still I weed 

myself to the idea that beauty is ubiquitous in nature. At the sky 
I choke on the concept of air. That my lungs work all living 

hours, ununionized, is betrayal. My desk chains me 
to the dark, and still I have the heart to look out a window?

James Croal Jackson (he/him) is a Filipino-American poet who works in film production. He has two chapbooks (Our Past Leaves, Kelsay Books, 2021 and The Frayed Edge of Memory, Writing Knights, 2017) with one forthcoming: Count Seeds With Me (Ethel, 2022). He edits The Mantle Poetry from Pittsburgh, PA. (jamescroaljackson.com)