FIVE-STAR HOTEL
I.
Driving in darkness all lights look the same.
Striated fireworks stab the sky like stakes and fall
gently, gently, gently as intended with delicate
packages hurriedly carted by baggy-slacked bellhops,
fragile verbal markings, in a hurry we were
not in a hurry but we had a long day.
Cash was hoarded hundreds deep. An oil well.
Churned-out bills from the salt of the earth.
A rather magnesium red akin to blood
and love seen in films,
romanticism violently
romanticized to impossibility,
love as a concept envisioned and burrowed
a billion dollars deep.
Sold as petroleum to the Ones who will buy.
II.
Oil gushes from your heart like a leaky faucet.
The piping is consistent. The toilet flushes twice.
Fill up your tank with Grey Goose.
Drink Stellas first. Artois. There is no price
for carbonation, no price for luxury
but the cost of oil in true love. Oil blood.
III.
You've been to museums with human-
blackened-hearts on display,
where fingerprints mingle
and create their own pulse.
You don't think about it when you watch a movie.
Or when you eat french fries.
One by one you eat just one more,
become a little different,
have a little more,
become a little different
Driving in darkness all lights look the same.
Striated fireworks stab the sky like stakes and fall
gently, gently, gently as intended with delicate
packages hurriedly carted by baggy-slacked bellhops,
fragile verbal markings, in a hurry we were
not in a hurry but we had a long day.
Cash was hoarded hundreds deep. An oil well.
Churned-out bills from the salt of the earth.
A rather magnesium red akin to blood
and love seen in films,
romanticism violently
romanticized to impossibility,
love as a concept envisioned and burrowed
a billion dollars deep.
Sold as petroleum to the Ones who will buy.
II.
Oil gushes from your heart like a leaky faucet.
The piping is consistent. The toilet flushes twice.
Fill up your tank with Grey Goose.
Drink Stellas first. Artois. There is no price
for carbonation, no price for luxury
but the cost of oil in true love. Oil blood.
III.
You've been to museums with human-
blackened-hearts on display,
where fingerprints mingle
and create their own pulse.
You don't think about it when you watch a movie.
Or when you eat french fries.
One by one you eat just one more,
become a little different,
have a little more,
become a little different
EGYPTIAN RATSCREW
Waiting for a spade, or any jack, really.
The pool is deep in the shallow end.
Waxy chlorine splashes your baby oil eyes.
The sun lies between the tanlines on our skin
which make us ever chameleons. Not that we shift,
but we eat where we are wanted.
I give you the iPod touch with the black fungus.
You twirl your index finger.
Then we leave. The window cranks open.
The pool is deep in the shallow end.
Waxy chlorine splashes your baby oil eyes.
The sun lies between the tanlines on our skin
which make us ever chameleons. Not that we shift,
but we eat where we are wanted.
I give you the iPod touch with the black fungus.
You twirl your index finger.
Then we leave. The window cranks open.
James Croal Jackson dips his feet in many artistic waters. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Bitter Oleander, Torrid Literature Journal, and The Birds We Piled Loosely. He was born in northeast Ohio but currently lives in Los Angeles. Find more of his writing at jimjakk.com.
