Poems and Sonnets – Page 2 – Jill Szoo Wilson

Poem: The Slow Burn of Sorrow

Sorrow rarely storms the gates.
It prefers a smaller entrance—
a match struck against porcelain,
that sulfurous whisper
before light takes shape.

The candle stands upright in its brass throat,
ivory, almost innocent,
its surface smooth as a held breath.
You light it for reasons that feel reasonable—
ambience, perhaps,
or the softness that forgives a room
its hard edges.

The flame gathers itself slowly,
a petal of fire opening and closing
with each exhale in the house.
It leans into drafts you cannot feel,
tilts its bright head
as though listening.

At first nothing changes.
The wax remains sculpted,
cool-boned and pale.
The wick, a slender spine,
holds its posture bravely.

But look closer.

There is a darkening at the tip—
a quiet charring,
the black bead forming
like a thought you would rather not finish.
It glows from within,
red as an ember hiding in its own ash.

The heat loosens the body of the candle.
Not all at once—
never with spectacle.
A thin gloss appears at the rim,
a tremor of liquidity.
Then a slow descent:
wax turning to shine,
shine turning to droplet,
droplet to a small translucent lake
cupping the flame.

You watch.

The surface quivers
whenever the flame inhales.
Tiny tides lap against the unmoving wall.
A fragrance of warmed paraffin
settles into the curtains,
into your sleeves,
into the open mouth of the room.

Minutes pass without declaring themselves.
There is no visible subtraction,
no chunk torn away.
The candle appears steadfast,
nearly identical
to the candle it was.

Yet the wick is shortening
in increments too modest
for pride.
Each second
takes a grain.
Each breath
a filament.

Sorrow proceeds this way.

It does not alter your reflection
all at once.
It warms you from the inside
until something structural
begins to soften.

You still answer the door.
You rinse the glass.
You fold the towel along its old creases.
The day goes on wearing its ordinary clothes.

Meanwhile—
inside the brass holder—
there is a geography forming:
ridges of cooled drips,
stalactites hardened mid-fall,
a white valley carved
around the dwindling core.

The flame continues its patient labor,
unaware of clocks.
It has only one task:
to be itself,
to consume what holds it upright.

From moment to moment
nothing seems different.
The room remains the room.
The table remains the table.
Your hands remain your hands.

And yet—

Hours have thinned the column.
The wick, once vertical,
bends inward,
a tired reed in shallow water.
The molten pool deepens.
The walls cave gently toward the center
as if listening for news.

You glance away.
You glance back.
Still, it burns.

You could swear
it will burn forever.

But eventually you notice
the brass plate shining through
where ivory once stood.
A shallow basin of cooled wax
holds the fossil of flame—
a curled black thread
leaning against its own exhaustion.

Sorrow leaves such evidence.

No crash.
No shattered pane.
Only the quiet arithmetic
of something becoming less
while appearing the same.

You cannot say when the candle
crossed from whole
to almost gone.

You only know
that at some unnoticed hour
the light you trusted
was busy
turning itself
into absence.

© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2026

Poem: Concerto for Springtime and Squirrel

Spring does not arrive in ribbons.
It comes with a throat full of weather.

The sky lowers itself
until rooftops seem to hold it up.
Rain begins without ceremony—
a rehearsal for drowning
that never quite succeeds.

On the oak’s blackened spine
a squirrel emerges,
fur slicked to its quick, astonished body.
It pauses as though the world
has just been repainted mid-sentence.

Green—
not the polite green of greeting cards,
but the kind wrung from the earth
by pressure.

Grass leans forward, fluorescent with rumor.
Moss burns along the stones.
Even the bark darkens into something
nearly blue.

The squirrel descends headfirst,
a punctuation mark with claws,
tail arched like a question
the storm declines to answer.

Water pearls along its whiskers.
It blinks, and the yard rearranges itself.
Every leaf appears newly sworn in.
Every puddle holds a duplicate sky
shivering with revision.

Somewhere thunder practices authority.
The squirrel does not applaud.

It runs—
a brief streak of umber against electric green—
then stops again,
as if suspecting
that sight itself has molted.

What has changed?
The tree remains a tree.
The fence, a fence.
Yet color has stepped forward
and declared independence.

The storm insists.
The earth complies.

And the squirrel,
small curator of the soaked morning,
presses its paws into the vivid grass
as though testing
whether the brightness
will stain.

© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2026

Poem: Subsequent Kingdom

Photo Credit: Heiko Müller, the formidable German Surrealist Painter

The hour came

When she no longer knew

Where to stand and so

She sat

In the middle of a ground

Hollowed of movement

And sound.

Wrapped her arms around

The tops of her knees,

Squeezed and held

Herself in a balance

That felt like a trance.

Faded memories danced,

Then turned into smoke,

Lifted up

And away—

Transformed day into

Night,

Where what was bright

Had taken flight.

There was no way

To know for sure

Where her plight would

Take her

Or send her next

But to a dream—

So she slept and found

That nightmares abound,

But dreams are the things

Worth stepping into.

And so

She slept

And she stepped.


She entered—

Her feet soaked in regret,

A substance heavier than she knew.

Underfoot,

Leaves crunching,

Small souls darting,

Dripping mysteries and dew.


She stood in a hidden forest

Where light was shattered

By shadow—

The sun trickling

Down tree trunks

Until devoured by shade.


In this place—

Where light and dark collide—

Life breathed

Without fear of

Being censured

Or scrutinized.


Her hands trembled,

Adding vibration to the breeze

Shaken loose from unseen clouds,

Wrapping around her skin

And seeping past

Petrified courage within.


Location undisclosed—

To she and he and me.

Lost inside—

No fear of being unfound,

No regret of being drowned

Between the monotony there

And this rising cacophony of sound—

Increasing swells surrounding,

Like a riptide racing outward,

Tearing her loose from security,

Crowning her

With confounding obscurity.

A subsequent Queen

Bowed low—

In coronation,

Surrendered to unpredictability,

Relinquished proposals

And control.


Her scepter raised,

Exposing the cavity

Of beating heart and soul,

Warring against

Encroaching enemies

Threatening to bring her low.


She breathed.

She sighed.

She caught the eyes

Of a creature drawing near.

In him—a revelation

She held dear,

Yet sensed she should not go near.

Stuck

Between stimulus

And choice—

As thick as tangled underbrush below,

As wide as these grounds

She did not know—

She stood still.

A stabbing thrill

Entered her side,

Some kind of alive

Breaching the tenderness

Of the space

Where her secrets hide.


She lowered her scepter,

Compelled to disavow

The tenacity of her presence here—

In a place

Perhaps she should fear.

There he stood,

Quite near.

Treading upon this undisclosed ground

Gave air to her footsteps,

And she, like a child,

Laid her focus

At the feet of he

And of mysteries

Surrounding her there—

She worshiped at the altar

Of her long-forgotten

Sense of wonder.


Unexpected places.

Unimagined faces.

Unforeseen encounters

Reminded her that life

Is an unpredictable force—

Impossible to bridle

By will alone.

“Let it be,”

Said she—

With an indignant air

Of possibility,

A heaviness in her lungs

Making it difficult to breathe—

Yet she breathed,

And she sighed,

And she moved into his realm,

Stuck her fingers in,

And pried him open—

Revealing his positives

To her negatives.


A Pandora’s Box

Of magnetism—

Cataclysmic exposure,

Volcanic disclosure—

Blasted through their chests

And up through

The tops of the trees.

A burst of what was unseen

Careened,

Trading winds

With all that was seen—

A hurricane of chemistry,

Unforeseen,

Destroying the routine

Like a machine

Come to life

With a sharpened pulse.

She realized too late

That being crowned

In her dream

Unbound her stream

Of waking consciousness—

Stuck now inside her sleep,

Between worlds,

Stewing in a concoction

Of waking memory

And present dream.


She remembered when

She had a choice—

When she sat

With her arms wrapped

Around her knees,

A breeze of normalcy

Blowing across

Tear-stained cheeks:

“The tears I knew

Were softer

Than these torrents

Where light and dark

Steal what was—

What is—

And twist the present

With what they undo.”


The hour returned.

She no longer knew

Where the path of her then

Met the path of her now.

So she sat with her crown,

Awaiting sundown—

Her sleeping life

Mingling within

Her subsequent kingdom.


© Jill Szoo Wilson, updated 2026

Poem: Hall of Dreams

Within me
(one)
are many.

I stand before
a hall of dreams—
experiences arranged
like exhibits:
fair trades,
unbalanced ones,
who I was
and who I could not be.

I sit in the gallery
of my own imagining,
hovering above
movement and stagnation,
searching for pattern.

Logic keeps me safe
while everything mingles.

The projector clicks.

Slow at first.
Then steady—
like a train pulling memory
down its track.

Flicker.
Light.
I am lulled.

I understand the staying
and the leaving,
the cleaving,
the fall.

Shadows drip
between choice
and consequence—
wax from a tongue
that once burned
with lies.

Faces I trusted
tilt in the light.

Spies in their eyes.

Or was it mine
that misread?

I thought I knew.

At least
I trusted.

I replay.

Hover above.

Detached.
Objective.

What questions
should I have asked?

The kiss.

It split me.

Once one—
now two.

I built a case
for future disgrace,
called it truth,
called it depth,
called it destiny.

But you only tilted me—
then let me go.

What I named vast
was narrow.

What I called deep
was small.

The descent—
mine.

I wanted you
to speak truth.
Instead
I heard
what I wanted.

Weak.
Yes.

Deceived—
by myself.

Within me
(one)
are many—

but now
one fewer.

I lay the hall down.
Let the projector darken.

Offer illusion
back to silence.

And keep
what is real.

© Jill Szoo Wilson

Poem: Stay

Peter pressed the issue

About the past

He said it is a bridge

Collapsing behind

With every step

In space or in the mind

The sound of crumbling

Is all that remains.


Anna disagreed

And touched

The back of her head

She said,

“The past is braided

here next to my skull

interwoven threads attached

cascading down.”


The debate rolled around

Like a tumbleweed

Dry and filled

With agitation and

With wind and

Picking up the dust

Of misunderstanding and of

Disconnection.


“But I remember,”

Said Anna, and

“I do too,”

He whispered into

The air heavy with

Distance between

Her admission and his

Isolation.


Invisible walls

Erected between

Murky like swamp water

Disorienting like smoke

Cloudy like breath on glass—

And if he looked with only eyes

He would have turned away

Like fear.


In his imagination

He was strong

Moving along

The path in between

His hesitation and

Her vacillation

Conquering impending

Devastation.


Peter felt bolts

Screw through his feet

Into the floor

Caught between

Tomorrow and

Before

The middle of the moment

Weighted like an anvil.


He felt like a clown

Tears rolling down

Behind a mask of

White painted on

A smile red

Withdrawn

From the truth

Within.


Anna said a simple thing,

“You are afraid

of the future

and I run from

the past

maybe the middle

is all

we have.”


Something true

Like a flash of lightning

Filled the room

Forced

Confusion to scatter

Like bugs or

Like demons

Who dwell in the dark.


They stood in the kaleidoscope

That splashes

Onto eyelids pulled down

After sunlight exposes

Reality

Leaving only

Shapes and pigments

Behind.


Peter did the thing

That frightened him

Most

And Anna met him

There

He stepped into the future

She let go of the past

From the middle she whispered,

“Stay.”

© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2026

Poem: The Thing Itself

Silence is not the same as peace.
Quiet is different than calm.

Even the lake that mirrors
our sun collapsing
into night’s slow unmaking
teems with life—
muscle and current
moving beneath its silvered skin.

Silence is not the same as peace.

Peace is not an exhale of agreement.
It does not depend
on our foreheads touching
or my lungs
drawing in your breath
as if oxygen were opinion.

Peace does not ask
the mouth to soften
while the heart stays braced.

Peace is not an exhale of agreement.

Contentment is not stagnation.
It is wind finding corridors in air,
invisible highways
where birds trade
the panic of wings
for the steadiness of lift.

Contentment is not stagnation.

A voice once warned,
“Silence
like a cancer grows.”

But silence is a vessel.
Clay.
Hollow.

It holds what we pour into it.

Speaking is not the same as expressing.
Words rise like smoke
from cigarettes of perception,
stinging the eyes,
thickening the air,
blurring the space
between meaning
and what was meant.

Speaking is not the same as expressing.

Volume does not mold understanding.
Voices rise.
The need to be right
outpaces the need to listen.

The echo fills the room
until we cannot hear
each other breathe.

Volume does not mold understanding.

Distorting the self does not create unity.
Your red and my blue
collide into purple—
first a storm in water,
then something dense,
new,
pressing outward.

Distorting the self does not create unity.

To understand the thing itself—
whatever thing it be—

we must remain vessels.

Clay—
not hardened
by fear,
not sealed
by pride.

Open enough
to hold what is spoken
and what trembles beneath it.

Poem: A Man Lay Dying in a Field

A man lay dying in a field
between blades of grass,
panting
like a dog without water,
searching for air
not to be found.

In the quiet of night
where darkness
falls
and fills the earth,
spilling into
crevices deep and wide,

he wondered at the sky.
The reasons why
seemed now
to matter most—
there was nothing left
to boast.

Emptied of the fight,
his limbs
dreamed of flight.
Wrists turned upward,
soft skin
receiving midnight dew.

Fluttering eyelashes—
butterfly wings
above his blue.
Whispered memories
of when hope was fresh,
a fruit heavy with sweet.

A sound in the sky.
Wings opened wide.
Staring,
but not seeing.
Hearing,
he began to listen.

A breeze,
like mystery,
rolled in—
a wave in the expanse,
surfing stars
in a cosmic dance.

His limbs began to sway,
cradled by beauty
far and near,
above and surrounding.

His heaving stilled.
Focus tore free
from breathlessness
to oxygen
pouring down
like honey.

Water leapt from his heart,
flooded his blue,
nourished
his soul
and the grass.

A release on the ground.
A release in the sky.
Two powers
surging—
electricity
between earth and heaven.

A man lay dying in a field
until
he decided
not
to
die.

Instead, he laughed.
He writhed in pain
and howled at the stains of grass
on his pants.

When laughter ceased,
the loss,
the pain,
the breathless grief
rose like smoke
and fled into the clouds.

Mystery swirled,
a ghost swinging from the moon.
The living man stood,
said goodbye to the end
and hello
to the new.

© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2016

Poem: Unassembled

This painting by Ruprecht von Kaufmann fascinates me. It leaves the impression that the human figure has been disassembled and placed back into the room without its center.

Rolling thunder—

Sounds like rattling bones

In a makeshift

Barrel

Traveling over uneven bricks—

Coursing through the sky

Varied gradations of height

First loosening the moon

With percussive vibration

Then shaking

Newly budding leaves

Velvet green

From yawning trees

Barely awake.


Scattered light—

Looks like fingers

Flicking away all that flies

Stretching across and

Opening wide

Then curling back inside

A fist pulsating

Currents through the air

Bringing light to where

Shadows live

But only one

Moment at a time

Slowly and

Without warning.


Water pouring—

Tastes like a child’s tears

Hot and heavy

Filled with reflections

Of all that surrounds

But void of understanding,

Simple

Pure

Enveloping the landscape

In a pool of

White

A mirror to the sky

With no pondering of why

Only what.


As above the tempest

So below

The raging gusts of natural disaster

If love be called natural,

If the heart enrapt

In upward gales

And stripped from its

Cavity

Be called disaster—

Stripped, that is,

By freshly painted

Nails of red

Tossed and then released

Into the atmosphere.


And then, stillness invades—

Feels like bated breath

Unwilling to climb

Rungs of the rib cage

Or slip past the tongue

Of one whose

Voice must not be known

Hidden in silence—

No more masking

Than that—

Only quiet

Enshrouding some figure

Crawling past and almost

Out of sight.


Inside the stillness he sits

Shoulders slumped and heavy

Something feels different

(Reality varied)

An inventory begins—

He lifts his hand

To count all his parts

First his legs, yes

Then confirming his arms,

All accounted, yet

Discerning something amiss

His eyes move and

Focus inside

Where the hole was dug.


“My heart,” he panicked

“I am sure this is the space

where once it sat.”

Groping further down

Through his mouth

As though, perhaps

It slid

Descending

Sloshing now in acid—

His fingers reaching

He gags and chokes

Hoping to find it

Inside the vomit

But still he is without.


Coalescence deprived

Nothing more to bind

His pieces together

Like glue or like chains

Wrapping around

And pulling down

To anchor—

Now adrift on the sea

Of humanity

Only he

And his leftover parts

No longer a whole

He floats atop the foam

Like a corpse.


There is a thing that happens

In the mind

Between loss

And understanding—

A vacuum

An unhanding

Of reason

Disillusionment invades

It cascades

And splashes into pools

Of paralysis

Then sinks into rebellion

Before it hits the bottom of

Despondent and

Swirls with caustic deviation.


“Parts for sale,”

He spouts like a madman

From sunrise until

Dusk sits like a spy

On the edge of the moon

Waiting for its chance to fall—

“Pieces for sale,

gently used

never abused

no longer needed

the price is low

everything must go

no credit

only cash.”


The people pass

They point but do not laugh

Sympathy cloaks their eyes

They try to disguise the sadness

And yet,

“I see it there,” he scoffs—

“Do not pity

I have no heart

through which

to feel the pain,

sometimes in life this happens

there is no shame.”

He chops—

“Here, have a leg.”


Then, one passes close

Carrying a bag

Filled with hope.

The sitting man

Raises his hand to ask,

“Soon I will be dead

my last drops bled

with no chance

to renew.

My heart, you see,

was taken from me

and I wonder if

hope can be fastened

to one with no pulse?”


His hurried steps

Do not delay

From the corner of his mouth

He sighs to say,

“I have my heart

inside this bag

with some hope besides

but I tell you true

unless it beats,

an endless repeat,

there is nothing

this spark can do

for you.”

The passing man passes.


The sitting man

Beholds one flicker of hope

Flaming on the ground

He imagines hobbling toward

Leaping forward

But instead

He watches it burn—

Yellow to dark

And then

One line of smoke

Stretches, back curled

Like a cat

Being lifted from the center.

© Jill Szoo Wilson

Photo credit: My dear friend and German artist Ruprecht von Kaufmann, Die Sache mit den Sirenen 2014.

Poem: Drenched

Once I was told that Hope

Is the sky filled with sunshine

That it spreads like light,

Floats like a helium filled balloon,

Dances like the tail of a kite.


I wondered at this metaphor

Sprawling amidst the wind

Like a howling current

Vibrating on the wings of

Birds that flap before they soar.


Can Hope be so far

Above my head

Where only flying things

Rise to tread

And I on the ground

Watching

Awaiting release

Of a treasure trove

Unlatched and

Spilling down?


What if Hope is more like rain—

A simile easier to attain—

It does not gently lie atop

The atmosphere but

Is conjured inside storms

Like a witch’s brew

Bubbling through with contents

Thrown into a fiery caldron

Until that time when

The pressure built, releases.


Storm-soaked orbs floating down

Subject to the whims of

Gusts above and around

Hollow of motivation

Innocent as they fall to the ground.

And we, in soggy shoes,

Choose to stay

In the rain

Marinate

Let it penetrate

All the way through—

Some people run for cover

But not us

Not the dreamers

Or the lovers

Or the ones who understand

That the storms

Force the hands

Of Hope and of those

Stubborn in their wills

To see the brightness

Ahead—

Withstanding

Steeping

In watery expectation.


My friend,

If they tell you

Hope is the sun

Smile, nod and

Move along

With squeaky shoes

Leaving tracks

On the ground

To be found by those

Who seek the courage to drown.

© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2026

Poem: Surrender

He found me in the middle of a war

Or maybe I should say

We found one another


The way two sleepy people—

Heads hanging down

Looking at the ground—

Bumps heads and

Mutter softly,

“Excuse me.”


I behind my shield

Holding to the leather strap

With knuckles white

Hands calloused where my grip

Could not afford to wane

Despite the pain

Of taking blows

And whispering low,

“How much longer?”


He to the left of his sword

Filled with ink

Black and dripping

Onto the page

Bleeding through

Pigments of rage and

Unanswered fear

Composing his mantra,

“What purpose here?”


We met on the battlefield

Surprised and confused

To find company

In the midst of assumed

Isolation

Comforted and ashamed

Of the devastation

We wore like scars and tattoos,

“Come no closer.”


Lucky for me

His eyes were exposed

Unprotected and flashing life

Like a flickering neon sign

Hanging in a window

Passed by thousands

Noticed by few

The shades drawn tight but,

“Open.”


Lucky for him

My grip was weakening

Armor slipping

He saw that I was breathing

Still awake but

Dirty from the fight

Ashamed of the darkness

But longing to ignite,

“Alive.”


We lifted our hands

Almost at the same time

Palms facing the other

Skin cracked and dry

Touching to confirm

Poetry written in the sky

In the form of sunshine

Warm and personified,

“I am here.”


I lowered my defense

He drew something new

Between my mind and my breast

We gazed and we grew

I, he, we began to smile

Said too much

Then nothing at all

Fear melting

Trust erecting a bridge to,

“Surrender.”

© Jill Szoo Wilson