Poetry

archival find #18 this paper goes to print weds a.m. ithits newsstands thurs my bit is due atlatest mon p.m. so as of this scrawl Idon’t know whether my tues night yowlwill be joy or dismay I pray you votedmeanwhile here’s news of a childhoodclub: I’ve unearthed its handwrit charterwe were country kids didn’t have […]

rivertrip poem #1 wandering the marina’s length atgrafton before a cruise on themississippi, illinois I began to jotthe names of boats their rear endssnubbed up against the dock gotto wondering why owners name theircraft as they do there were the usualSuzy Q’s but Low Bid? Oh Yeah? Zitz? Outnumbered? At the very enda houseboat a […]

the good thing aboutfalling asleepwith all your clothes onis that when you wake upthe next morningyou are all set to go ©2018 Jacqueline Jackson

we went to an eco-wedding in abarn the bride a vision in whitethe groom in jeans the scriptureincluded dr seuss later plates wereof pressed palm leaves sort of likeheavy paper the cutlery was woodenknives forks all guests had a masonjar with a place to mark your name so’sto use it all evening then it would […]

kid shenanigans #2 there’s a lotta ugly things to write about but let’s stick with maybe funny: us sibs on the farm made our own amusement here’s grama’s rat terrier again we’d yell “sic ‘m, bounce!” – outside he’d race in circles seeking the rat finally in frenzied frustration he’d rush up a certain tree tear […]

archival find #11: kid shenanigans (I didn’t publish this in round barn) from the back of a comic book my brotherordered a fake dog-poo my grama had anill-tempered rat terrier bounce none of us kids liked bounce though he did his job well craigput the item on a couch in the big house (we lived […]

funeral poem #1 like most of the nation – even muchof the world – I was glued to the tubewatching (rather, participating in)the final message mccain orchestratedfor our country’s survival: cooperationcompromise respect putting democracyabove self why can we not learn thislesson so basic to our lives? thank youjohn for your words your exampleand using your […]

Archival find: An early essay of mineMy Pet I have a pet pig. I named him Jackyafter myself. He was born on our farmand is quite a big pig now. My pig was very clever when he wasa baby but now all he does is lie in the mud and eat. One day I came […]

archiving poem # 4 not all my archiving for U of Wis is letters ledgers documents photossome is hardware a cow drinking cupa salt cup I emailed my kids I can’t findthe stanchion I’m sure I had a stanchiona message came back: the last I saw itit was behind coats in the downstairscloset– sure enough […]

in my archiving I’m now to cowdiseases I’m sure you want to hear about the trouble a heel fly can cause it burrows in works its way throughthe bovine body comes out on the cow’sback as a grub if it dies inside it causestoxic effects can damage heart liver etcif it gets into spine it […]

vermont poem 2018 #3 the august 5 2018 NYTimes Magazineis devoted in its entirety to the specieshomo sapiens killing itself off (along witha lot of other species) I think in the nearfuture – I haven’t had the guts to read ityet I know about coral reefs, greenland,violent weather, etc etc and that we were warned over […]

vermontpoem 2018 #2 due to the hill behind, the sun doesn’tstrike our neighbors’ dock till noonthey sit in their deck chairs andevery hour as the sun advancesthey move back a plank when they getto the last plank before the shorethey know it’s time to make supper ©2018 Jacqueline Jackson