'Grand Canyon' & 'Chiaroscuro': Two Poems by James Croal Jackson

GRAND CANYON
a blank in earthsong stone
quartz a scream into the void
a thousand tourists hear
to mean joyride when
I mean missing I want
to be a thousand people
at once over the course
of the day it happens a
spectrum of tongue and
skins to slip on to belong
as a cog in the clunky
function of the world
CHIAROSCURO
Alone we stand
at Mt. Washington’s overlook,
the incline trembling. How
many nights did we seek
the city lights from Mulholland
Drive?
I replied,
Stanley Kubrick once
filmed with only candles.
You obscure the view,
flick Bergman on your phone
and ask, do you see the reaper?
His head an egg floating
atop a sea of darkness.
James Croal Jackson (he/him) has a chapbook, The Frayed Edge of Memory (Writing Knights Press, 2017), and poems in Pacifica, Reservoir, and indefinite space. He edits The Mantle (themantlepoetry.com). Currently, he works in the film industry in Pittsburgh, PA. (jimjakk.com)