One layer at a time he peeled me
Like an onion
His hands wrapped around my outer skin
From top to bottom he found my flesh
And I made him cry
Like water
Running down the side of rock
In a cascade of drops becoming
A river below
Into which we jumped
His tears breaking our fall.
One page at a time he turned me
Like a book
His hands against the leather
Bound around my story, all my words
Unspoken and broken
He read and knew and studied
Like art
Smeared across a canvas
With descriptions written below
Telling of the image
Sitting still and wanting
To be known.
One note at a time he sang me
Like a song
Released from the beak of a bird
Whose daily life is filled
With music because music is
Like emotion
Strong and loud when the air is enough
And slow and soft
When there is tenderness in the touch
A balance of adagio and
A quickening of the pulse.
One sip at a time he drank me
Like wine
Held inside a carafe
Until the day my breath met his
At the edge of a glass
And stained our mouths with red
Like a flower
Vibrant with color and life
Not pulled but watered instead
By attentive hands
That understand
Petals cut or plucked
Are already dying.
Whatever the measures by which he moves
Whatever the story he tells
Whatever the words he says or unzips
I am undone
And his.
© Jill Szoo Wilson
Category: Poems and Sonnets
Slow Art: Unhurrying Your Mind
Museums invite looking, yet most visitors treat art the way they treat emails: a quick skim, a polite nod, and on to the next thing. We spot a recognizable subject or a pleasing color, think, “Ah yes, culture,” and keep walking. Studies suggest that viewers spend less than thirty seconds with a work of art before moving on. It is possible to tour an entire gallery without truly arriving anywhere at all.
Slow Art suggests another way to exist among masterpieces.
Rooted in the broader Slow Movement and formally organized with Slow Art Day in 2010, the practice encourages viewers to remain with a single artwork long enough for something meaningful to happen. The idea is simple: stop rushing. Stop conquering exhibitions like they’re errands. Let a painting interrupt the pace of your day.
Of course, the mind resists immediately. The moment we sit down and dare to look, our thoughts fling themselves into crisis: seventeen neglected texts, three unpurchased groceries, and the intrusive belief that productivity is our moral duty, and this bench is a crime scene. Apparently, stillness is very dramatic.
Yet if we continue to sit, the noise eventually settles. We start to notice the obvious things we missed when our thoughts were busy staging a coup: light falling across a shoulder, a line of color we would have sworn was not there a moment ago. Philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty argued that seeing is never passive; we do not merely observe the world. We are in conversation with it. Given time, a painting stops acting like an object and begins to behave like a presence. It answers back.
Meanwhile, neuroscience is offering evidence for what artists have always suspected. When we linger with an artwork, the brain does more than register shape and shade. Regions connected to memory, imagination, and empathy start sparking awake, as though the mind suddenly recalls it has a richer job than survival. Interpretation emerges. Emotion slips in without asking permission. You are no longer deciphering the art. You are encountering yourself.
Slow looking becomes a decision to let meaning unfold at its own pace.
It is a tiny rebellion against the cult of efficiency. Instead of demanding results from a painting — explain yourself, be profound, hurry up — we allow the experience to be unmeasurable. Sometimes revelation arrives. Sometimes quiet does. Both are victories over the museum sprint that ends with a gift shop purchase and no recollection of the gallery that preceded it.
This week, I sat with a painting of moonlit fields and distant wind. Nothing moved, yet somehow everything did. The air itself seemed to stretch across my skin, my breath eased, and the horizon widened inside me. It felt like remembering how to be a person rather than a calendar.
I answered the art’s invitation in the only way I know:
by writing.
Hush
By Jill Szoo Wilson
My dear, now hush. Unburden every care;
The silent fields invite your breath to slow.
The wind lifts strands of worry from your hair
And strokes your cheek with touches soft and low.
O moon, shine steady, hold your silver ground;
A lantern calm above the world’s unrest.
Pour down a peace too deep for any sound
And press a quiet knowing to the chest.
Kind wind — sweet wanderer — move as you will;
Let coolness glide along these open hands.
Brush thought from thought, invite my heart to still,
And ferry calm across the quiet lands.
Here, nothing strives. The wide horizon sighs—
At last, the soul grows spacious as the skies.
Poem: Opposite Sides of the Wall
I wrote this poem after visiting Berlin in 2015, where I was fascinated by the messages people had left on the remains of the Wall. This piece was inspired by one of those messages.
From the highest story
Of a building gray and cracked
Peer two eyes
Through dusty window panes
Pestered by a mosquito
Flying along the edges.
Below the eyes
A hand
Holding tin
Filled with coffee
Cold and strong—
A cigarette burning.
The fog of stagnation
Fills the room
As one wisp of smoke
Links arms with another
A silent dirge
Circling like vultures.
Her gaze is blank
She closes her eyes
Then opens them wide
Each closing a respite
Followed by
Disappointment.
She sighs
She coughs
She smiles for a moment
As the mosquito
Bumps against the glass
Bruised and trapped.
Above her head
Noisy neighbors shout
The song of frustration
Rings out and falls
Pulled by gravity and
By doubt.
She begins to hum a tune
She has not heard
Since she held a doll
Inside chubby arms
And kissed its head
With sugary lips.
Her raspy alto
Lays itself on the notes
Her Now
Transposes the music
From major to
Minor keys.
The mosquito brushes past
Her hand
And then lands and
Sticks his needle
Into her skin—
She observes the transaction.
A flashing light—
Her gaze arrested
Handcuffed to a mirror
Reflecting the sun a
A Morse Code message
.-.. --- ...- .
Which translates, “Love.”
She dunks her cigarette
Into her mug
Shakes her hand
The mosquito falls
Disconcerted but
Full.
She strikes a match
Holds it to a candle
Thick and matted
Like a paint brush
Spotted with colors
Dried from previous use.
A thin line rises from the flame
Gentle in its approach
And dancing in the haze—
She lowers and raises her hand
.- .-.. .-- .- -.-- ...
“Always,”
She replies
In this expression
They devised
From opposite sides of
The wall.
She blows out the fire
Puts her hand to the glass
Closes her eyes and
Kisses the air
As though it is
The last kiss in the world.
He lifts his fingers
Catches her lips
In mid-air—
Hungrily brings them down
Pressing their sweetness hard
Against his own.
The moment has passed
But their love
Will last—
Reach beyond time and space
Breaking past
The Wall.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2015
Poem: Love and Alive
Every day he comes and goes
Like a beggar on the street,
With no way to turn
But the direction from which he came.
If the streets were carpeted—
Soft to the touch—
The tread of his soles would
Scratch holes through the path
He has
Worn.
Worn out, the man with the
Briefcase breathes heavily
Under the sun and
Under the moon,
Inhaling and
Exhaling as he travels,
Blind as he goes—
Not because he has no head,
But because he feels no pain
Or joy.
He is numb.
Numb since the day she
Walked away,
And numb when he remembers
The way
Her hips sway—
This way and that.
And numb when he
Thinks of her name but cannot
Say it—
Silent.
Silently, the bird in his soul—
The bird whose name is
Alive—
Perches at the edge of her
Cage whose name is
Life,
And wishes for the day
She might once again
Begin
To
Fly.
Flying in the air
Above the man
Is a bird whose name is
Love.
He flies up high and
Then he dips
And twirls,
Like the tail of a kite giggling
In the wind,
Awaiting the moment when
The Man
Opens his coat and
Sits on his bench
And sleeps—
Like a beggar on the street
Dreaming.
Dreaming of her face—
The only face that is
Trapped inside the Man's soul.
Love watches with a keen and
Clever eye.
In one moment—
A moment whose approach is slow,
Whose arrival is timed
By the gods,
Whose watches are synchronized
To the beating of
Bird and human hearts—
The vigilant bird
Sees
The coat fall open,
Sees
The Man sit down on his bench,
Sees
Him close his eyes and
Seizes his
Freedom.
“Freedom does not live in the sky,”
He sings.
“Freedom lives inside Alive.”
Love drifts down
Through blue and through clouds
And alights
With bars between himself and
Her—
The one who holds his
Heart
Inside of her,
Inside a cage.
The one who
Knew he would
Come.
“Come to me every day,”
She wanted to say.
But instead, she said,
“You must not waste the time
Waiting by my side,
When all the world
Sprawls before your gaze.”
Love ruffled his feathers
And looked into her eyes.
“Until you are here with
Me—
Just you and me—
I will come and sit with you
Every day.”
Every day, Love came,
Just as he said he would,
And the earth turned slowly
From summer
To autumn
To winter
To spring.
Their stories grew, and
The details they knew
Poured through the bars
Like drops of water
Flowing
From watering cans,
Growing their love,
Growing him and growing
Her.
Her days inside,
Her will to survive—
Alive and Love
Together traveled through,
Until the day
The Man stepped anew
Off his carpet of same,
Tattered and
Worn through by
His shoes—
First one and then two—
Onto a path where four
Could move:
His loafers and
Her high heels of
Blue.
Blue turned to joy,
Joy turned to alive,
And Alive for the first time
Flew.
The Man let her fly,
As his heart said
Goodbye to the
Pain that was keeping
Alive inside the cage,
Inside his
Soul.
Souls in the air,
Free with
Togetherness,
No longer bound
But soaring high,
Strengthened by
The time in the cage
And by flying
Side
By
Side.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025
Poem: Ice
The moment before, he knew.
She knew it, too—but she didn’t know
What it meant.
He had spent all he had in love
And in time—
For time is all we have to spend—
Not knowing that one second would turn into
Years.
The moment before, he felt.
She felt it, too, but it was in her mind—
What it meant.
Dripping with memories, mundane,
Like coffee brewing slowly—
For love steeps one drop at a time—
Her daydreams were painted in
Love.
The moment before, he released.
She released, too, but she didn’t expect
What it meant.
Embracing and letting go, to embrace again,
Was like brushing her teeth—
For some rituals cleanse even as they return—
He knew her expectation and knew he would
Fail.
In the moment, he could smell her.
She could smell her, too—and she knew
What it meant.
He started a fire between his head
And his heart—
For the heart stokes the kindling the mind provides—
But the embers burned deeper than he
Expected.
In the moment, he could see the glow.
She could see it, too, and she knew
What it meant.
The lingering warmth of his hand on her back
Felt like ice—
For ice signals death—
The frigidity was new but not exactly
New.
In the moment, his conscience writhed.
She writhed a little, too, and she knew
What it meant.
His goodbye lingered near,
Like a rattling snake—
For snakes wait, and then they strike—
And she stiffened her heart, bracing for
The end.
The moment was gone. The seconds counted
And done.
The hem of her gown swished away;
His countenance melted
Like fire melts ice,
And ice turns to water,
And fire boils it all to steam.
The end was the beginning.
The beginning was now.
He sat on the ground.
He looked to the sky.
The moon turned out its lamp—
And he knew what it meant.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025
Poem: Humility
Every man must
Understand the soul
Inside the body
He sees looking back
From the glass
The surface only—
Not enough—
It is the flow of
Significance
And love
Just below
That holds his All together:
Every woman too.
With oxygen rushing in
Carbon dioxide spilling out
Like a water fall
Urging the river to flow
The body,
Which holds the soul,
Is made new
Every moment of the day—
A heart receiving
Old blood and
Then rejuvenating—
But dying all the time:
Our flesh holds it in but
It does not stay.
When the frame
Which holds the true art
Inside
Receives an idol’s praise—
Achievement
Acceptance
Affluence and
Ability—
An idol’s pace becomes
The engine of a train
And chugs the smoke
Of more and
Further an
Aggrandizement
Of I or me and
Me and me
Echoing the words
He wishes he believed.
It is often
Imagined
That the head held highest
The chest that is full
The voice that charges into the room
Like a bull knocking
Hands together to
Produce his own
Applause
Deserves the loudest
Respect—
Oh no.
Instead . . .
It is the man
Who knows his soul—
The smudges of grey
The shadow applied
With a line of paint
Too thick
To hide—
Who scatters his Joy
When others
Have won and
Seeks the
Truth
Of his weakness
With no trace of Pride.
A lowering of the head—
Not to be served
But to serve—
Imbues the hues
Of the soul
With radiance
Passion
And, besides,
Brings peace and life
To his bones.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025
Poem: Stillness
I stood beside the ocean once
And dared the waves to drown my breath
Toes nestled below the sand
Sinking further with the tide
I did not move
But the world moved around me.
The swells and crashes
Just beyond my reach
Roared against the sky in a game
I could not understand
And did not dare to join
But the world spun around me.
Nearly invisible spheres of water
Jumped from the fray
To cover my face one lick at a time
Until drenched my eyes and hair
Pulled me closer to the earth
But the world danced around me.
Foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog
Salt-filled gifts from places
Dark and rolling with darker tones
Stumbled toward my knees
And buckled me into the shore
But the world pushed around me.
Without becoming any more fierce
And not with a call to war or anger
The ocean pushed closer
Like a drowning man clawing toward
The horizon and I waited
But the world melted around me.
It meant me no harm
I was a stranger to the swells
And standing small before the darkness
I asked, “Why haven’t you heard me?”
The ocean smiled and I stood still
But the world leapt around me.
I fought a war inside my mind
And all the soldiers writhed in sweat
The battles long with rising smoke
Unseen and big but small
I sat instead of dying, marveling at the moon
And the world breathed around me.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025
Poem: The Liar
He told one lie inside one sentence—
A capital letter, a comma, a period—
To stop the darts inside their eyes
With tips of poison traced with flesh
And ash
From the man before.
He carried his lie like a shield—
A bouche, an umbo, a coat of arms—
To hide the head he held up high
A posturing of dignity and pride
But hidden
Like a murderer walking free.
His arm was heavy with the weight—
Sinews tearing, sweating, fatigued—
So he told one more to add to the other
Deflecting, like a reflection of fire
And blinding
Impending conclusions.
He picked up his finger like a steely blade—
A quillon, a foible, a forte—
To thrust accusations dripping with blood
Into the flesh of the men within his reach
But falling
Below his cutting edge.
He grasped at a pain inside his chest—
A palpitation, a flutter, a squeeze—
To arrest the cardiac aberration
That pumped with compassion
And wrenched out
His beating liability.
He opened his mouth and told one more—
A series, a novel, a narrative—
To let the drips of his life smear their faces
With draining blood
But lifeless
His heart deflated like a balloon.
The chill of the air blew through his flesh
And hardened his skin into
Planks.
No longer a He but now an It,
It gathered the furs of the men
At his feet
And wrapped their death around
His own.
It told one lie and built a fortress—
An isolation, a prison, a cage—
To insulate itself from the arrows
It feared would leak its life
But drained
Its own instead.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025
Poem: She Spoke Of Love
A moment before, floating in the sun
My love beside me
Warm and glowing
Her eyes ablaze with rays of light
Her darkness concealed in
Illumination.
A moment before, she spoke of love
My friend beside me
Kind and gentle
Her smile warmed but burned
Her face like wax
Melting.
I wanted to see my love through the brightness of stars
The universe brought low and waiting
Swirling about my hands and mind
Becoming one with all that breathes
And pants
And lives
And dies
A moment before, I removed my gloves
My fire beside me
Trembling and stiff
Her fingers felt but did not touch
Her hand in mine only
Embers.
A moment before, she swallowed words
My pain beside me
Inflamed and suffering
Her silence thickened in my throat
Her Nothing choked
Suffocating.
I wanted to see my love through the brightness of stars
The universe brought low and waiting
Wrapping my cold in warmth
Like a child crying
But hopeful
But calming
But safe
A moment before, the snow dropped down
My hope beside me
Present and vacant
Her ruffled dress covered with water
Her boots muddied with
Goodbye.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2015
The End Is In The First
The sun in parting crowns the west with flame, A fleeting splendor yielded to the shade; What morning gilded, dusk resumes in claim And proves how brief the glory light hath made. The season wanes, yet keeps its ancient round, Its end enscrolled where first its course was writ; What once lay lost in silence shall be found, For time recalls what hearts would fain omit. So doth the soul, when judgment draweth near, Discern within its close the selfsame strain; The first sweet note returns, though harsher, clear, And strikes with weight the mortal breast again. Each sunset speaks what day could not defend: The way a thing began holds fast its end. Jill Szoo Wilson, 10/25
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Jill Szoo Wilson 