There was a time
When the feeling was high
Like a tide
Rolling up and in
Surfers flying
Sun shining and
Invisible heartbeats
Crooning tunes of
Love
Or something like it.
The edge of desire
Between water and fire
Where burning is natural
Safe and contained
Where extinguishing
Is disregarded like a far-off joke
Laughter and ease
No appeasing
Only releasing
No hand on the trigger.
A season of passion
Final bastion before the mix
Of hearts and hands
Rhythms and bands
Playing songs for two
And candles glowing
Illustrating the knowing
Breaking shadows
Into pieces like crumbs
Along the way.
Shadows slip into
The hourglass—
Goodbye—
Crumbs and sands combine
Lost
And time falling
Sand filling darkness
That cannot be fished
All the way down
Into deepest fathoms of regret.
It is quiet there
Where thoughts dare not
To squirm—
They writhe instead
Slither over, “what the hell”
Wriggle past hatred
Lick the ears of obliterated
Words and
Images all stamped with,
“Doubt.”
There is a way out
But only further down
Past the malice
And through the chalice
Of poison
Red with the blood of
Something once living
Now stiffening
Twitching slowly before
Final death.
A memory of breath
Clouding
First love
Then hatred
Now something
More foreboding—
Indifference
The truest enemy of
That which was
And no longer is.
Indifference is
The air surrounding and
That one time we—
Oh, wait, now I forgot—
It is a stroll in the park
With nothing hiding,
Sitting at a traffic light
Waiting for green
But red is fine, too—
Nothing to forget, nothing to pursue.
There was a time
When hearing your voice
Scattered my focus
Like bees swarming
Drenched in honey
Bringing balance
To the flowers that we gave
And the ones we dropped
Along the way—
A garden full and thriving.
“Hello?”
My God, the timing—
I did not expect
How could I have known
That the ringing of my phone
Would start the race
Like a pistol pointed above,
Toward the space
Where helium-filled expectations
Rest in peace.
I touched my lips
As I do when my heart
Beats
Suddenly
Quickly
Stinging the parts that
Stabilize
When I realize
My hands are the only protection
I have.
“Hello,”
I heard—
Oh,
Hell no—
Hello is not enough
No greeting
Even in the repeating
Could fill the chasm
Between speaking
And hearing.
I wanted to spill
Like a leak in a pipe
Drip into the boards
Between my feet on the floor
Become a puddle
With no response
No chance to offer
More kindling to
Soak
Or to muddle.
I heard his voice
Once more
A bolt of electricity—
I was struck
With a memory
The simplicity of
The time that was high
The surfers, the tide—
A different world
A haunted time.
Then it was quiet
“It” being I
And I being the me
I remembered
I became
After the exit
Of he
And I breathed
Into the phone
Then I hung up—dial tone.
I poured a glass of Merlot
Sat in an unfamiliar glow
Once having waited—
Deeply anticipating his hello—
Now
Denied
Then
Intoxicated with his lies
But no more
And the red warmed my soul.
Once I read
Written on the sky
The opposite of love
Is hate
But you see, my dear,
I fear the stars
Were misinformed—
The opposite of love is
Indifference
I am sure I am right
As muted versions of
You and I
Are blown to dry
And stick
To freshly painted fingernails—
Not painted for you.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025
Tag: Moody Poetry
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: Of Melody and of Moan
The sky is hot like leather
Brown and coating our skin
With beads surging into streams
Of sweat
In the distance
A lonely guitar throbs
Crooning refrains of love
And regret
We toil long and
Hum the oscillating songs
One by one to forget
The hour
Bugs sway back and forth
On blades of green
Tired and scorched by fever and
By life
Women tell stories
Laugh with heads thrown back
Simple versions of disaster pulsate in
Their smiles
Men with sinewy arms
Pull from the lazy earth
Swollen roots of sustenance and
Of dreams
Children thump the ground
Like ragtime drummers
Beating rhythms of play and
Far away
The musician strums andante
Caressing silvery strings releasing
Vibrations of melody and
Of moan.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2023
Necessary Whispers 