Tag: Poet

Poem: Weathered Flag By the Sea

The Flag rehearsed the Wind all day –
Tugged hard – and would not yield –
The Sea flung questions up the cloth –
Which Fracture half revealed –

Salt worried every former hue –
As Fingers fret a seam –
Till Red forgot its early name –
And Blue misplaced its Dream –

It lunged – then snapped itself upright –
As if recalled to Task –
No Banner begged to be believed –
It only met the Ask –

The Pole enforced no Sympathy –
It held – because it must –
As Structures do – when Weather learns
The Vocabulary – Trust –

At Dusk – the Flag grew argumentative –
And struck the Air – once more –
Then folded up its shouting words –
And leaned against the Shore –

© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2026

Capitalization and punctuation inspired by Emily Dickinson. 🧡

Poem: Minor Character

The pen lazes about,
thinking
it’s a minor character.

It agrees to be borrowed,
chewed, misplaced,
forgotten in a drawer
with expired batteries
and a single paperclip
that has lost its shape.

The pen does not announce itself.

It is not forged.
It is assembled.
Plastic barrel.
Ink persuaded to flow in one direction.

It watches other tools
take the credit.

The shovel, for example,
returning from the field
with dirt to prove it was needed.

The brush,
still wet,
still dramatic.

The pen keeps quiet.

Between finger and thumb
it waits for pressure,
not strength.
Pressure will do.

It does not dig.
That would be too much to claim.
It scratches.
Again.
Again.
A thin disturbance
on the surface of things.

Strangely, the surface remembers.

The pen does not decide
where it will end up.
It is surprised to find itself
quoted,
misunderstood,
folded into pockets with muted shades of lint.

Set aside,
it enters ongoing business,
love stories,
and napkin dreams,
still damp at the edges.

If it resembles a spear,
this is an accident of geometry.
A narrowing.
A choice to point
rather than spread.

At the end of the sentence,
it returns to stillness,
yawning,
innocent as ever.

It will deny everything.

© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2026

Poem: Stillness and Wind

“You can observe a lot
just by watching,”
said a baseball player
who understood seasons.

Two afternoons ago,
I sat in a lecture hall
watching a man
who still loves what he does.

This, I think, is a form of generosity.

He spoke about observation
as though it were not a skill
but a posture,
something you lean into
rather than master.

Take the dandelion.

We learned its name early.
We learned it could grant wishes
if we breathed hard enough.
We learned the wind would do the rest.

Then we decided
we knew it.

Label applied.
Lesson complete.
Attention withdrawn.

The dandelion continued anyway
with its architecture,
its patience,
its quiet mathematics of return.

It kept unfolding relationships
with bees,
with soil,
with children who forgot its name
but still loved its defiance.

How many things
have we learned only enough
to stop looking?

How many people
do we greet by name
while knowing nothing
of their design?

Later, we were encouraged
to ask our questions
and then to set them down.

To watch.

Intellectual beauty likes to be solved.
Aesthetic beauty prefers to be witnessed.

One explains.
The other arrives.

So perhaps today
we step outside
without extracting meaning.

No schedules.
No proof.

Just a willingness
to stand still
long enough
for something ordinary
to show itself
as extraordinary.

And if we feel something
we cannot name,
let us resist the urge
to name it.

Let us watch.

© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025

Poem: Like Any Woman

It was not what she said

Instead

It was the way she held

The stem of her glass

Between freshly painted

Fingernails

Details

Red wine and red.


She breathed in and out

Like any woman would

Except

The silk in her dress

Gathered and fell

With inhale and

Exhale—

I waited for the next.


Her laugh was too loud

No clever disguise of

Civilized

Formalized veiling her mouth

Instead

Candlelit stares

In the face of she

Whose savage joy mesmerized me.


There was a soulful tune

Permeating the room

Penetrating

Armor I knew

Well beyond its usefulness

But

I had grown accustomed to

Until I felt the thrust of she.


Never before had her eyes

Encountered mine

“Hello,” I said—

Enunciation tranquilized

Words fell all the way back

And slid

To the sharpest point

Of her black high heel.


It was not that I fell mute

Instead

I dared not dilute

Fortuity in the air

With words wrapped

In coherence or

Forced insistence

Of my own understanding.


I held my hand open

For her to take

Perceiving

Gently cleaving

To the feeling

If she lay her hand in mine

Her touch would both stop and

Awaken time.

© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025

Poem: We Walked Through Snow and Ice

People are complicated. They’re rarely what we first believe, and they’re almost always carrying a weight we cannot see. We tend to notice what others are willing or able to show us, and we assign meaning from there.

Strength, in particular, is easy to misread. Sometimes it’s resilience. Sometimes it’s concealment. Often it’s both.

We move through the world interpreting one another through our own mixture of experience, education, memory, and fear. It is remarkable that we connect at all. And yet, we do.

We walked along in the snow and ice
And you wanted to hold my hand.
I thought you wanted to show yourself strong,
But you were losing your footing too,
And needed my steadiness to help you along.

I refused you because I did not need your help,
I did not fear a fall,
And then you fell all on your own.
I wondered
If I could have helped.

We walked along a sandy shore
And you wanted to hold an umbrella up to the sun.
I thought you worried my skin would burn,
But yours was turning red,
You forgot your hat and needed the cover.

I refused you because I did not need your help,
My skin is olive in tone,
And then your skin turned hot.
I wondered
If I should have helped.

We walked along in wind and rain
And you wanted to lead me into shelter.
I thought you wanted to hold me close,
But beads of sweat gathered around your head,
And fever took your strength and made you ill.

I refused you because I did not need your help,
For me, the rain is a thrill,
And then you lay for days in your bed.
I wondered
Why I did not help.

We walked along inside my dreams
And you wanted to plot out the way.
I thought you wanted to boast in your sense of direction,
But the path grew long and the day turned to night,
So we lost one another under the stars.

I refused your course because I did not need your help,
For me, wandering without plan is adventure,
But then I lost you and you were gone.
I wondered
If I should have let you lead.

We walked away, I went this way, you went that,
And you did not turn to watch me go.
I thought you wanted to stay,
But the distance grew wide
And the time grew long.

I refused to feel because I could not feel it all,
My heart was broken in your hands,
But when I felt it all at once
I turned,
And you were gone.

© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025

Poem: Puff and Flicker

She sat in the corner of my room
Smoking a cigarette and
Draining
A glass of whiskey and
Draining
Me.

She was the kind of woman
Who let her ashes fall and she
Swept
Them under my rug but I was never
Swept
Away.

She stayed and she stepped
And the ashes dug into the
Ground
Creating a circle of black
Like a sacrifice made to what could not
Be.

I couldn’t make her leave
Even when she didn’t want to
Stay
And when I couldn’t bear to
Stay
Away.

She sang songs too loudly
And wanted applause
But all I could muster
Were halfway smirks
And halfhearted shards of
Me.

“We were happy once,”
She said then she flicked and
Fire
Fell and she kicked the
Fire
Away.

“The flame is hot and the
Light is bright,”
I muttered.
“Don’t flatter yourself
You aren’t the man you used to
Be.”

Wisps of smoke rose between
Her fingers and she
Puffed
And then coughed and then
Puffed
Away.

“The furnace you lit is
Beginning to roll
Like a lake of flames
Licking the shore
And I fear the fire will splash onto
Me.”

She looked at me with
A tone of voice that was
Silent
Like a deaf man wanting to push
Silent
Away.

“I thought you were speaking of
Love but now I see
I am being engulfed
Because I misunderstood.
You should probably leave me
Be.”

I watched as she sat in the corner
Smoking like a cigarette and
Draining
Drops of whiskey to stop the fire, her life
Draining
Away.

When I knew she was gone
The echoes of my heartbeat
Revived
And vibrated against the walls and
Revived
Me.

© Jill Szoo Wilson

Poem: Refreshment

There are moments when we 
must stop
and look
and tend to
the unexpected and
deeply welcomed,
simply because 
we live.

A lemonade stand
at the edge of the road,
cardboard sign wavering
between LEMONADE and LEMONAED.
The coins wait in a jar,
oblong ice accepts its fate
as tiny fingers stir 
through mostly water.
Engines reconsider.
Appointments learn patience.
Briefcases bloom with splashes of sugar
any bee would envy.

My cat arrives
with the object he loves most.
Not the clean one.
The true one.
He sets it down carefully,
then looks up,
as if to say:
you’ll want to see this.
And I do.
The afternoon brightens,
pleased with itself.
Thoughts wander off
without wearing their shoes.

My eyes squint
in mixed morning light—
the bulb above the kitchen sink
and ribbons of sunrise through open blinds.
Coffee steams.
I smell it before I see it,
and then I do—
steam lifts
just as light
reaches the window.
Waking,
and God,
and refreshment
keep company
without comment.

—Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025

Poem: The Us We Can See

I am stationed at a wooden table
the size of a reasonable thought.
It does not wobble.
This feels like a small mercy
after watching my Americano
sway back and forth on the last.

Here, the Americano steams steadily
as if rehearsing confidence,
dark, uncomplicated,
uninterested in my opinions.

I wear fingerless gloves,
a compromise between dignity and survival.
My knuckles remain unconvinced.

Winter returns again and again
through the green-painted door,
carried on the backs of coats,
slipping in at ankle height,
lingering like someone
who has already said goodbye
but remains.

A woman at the counter
counts her change twice,
the last of her pennies
now a relic of a simpler time
when 1-2-3 meant something more.

A man near the window
keeps turning his cup
until the logo faces forward,
forgetting the face
with every sip,
which ends with a new turn.
A familiar dance, a waltz?
Sip-2-3, sip-2-3.

A woman with wiry white hair
removes a bright turquoise hat, 
carefully crocheted,
leaving one thread to dangle
from a curl.
The thread hesitates.
So does she.

Heavy oak chairs keep their positions,
pretending not to notice
who chooses them and why,
practiced at holding
what is briefly certain.

A barista with inked forearms
wipes the same spot again,
loyal to a principle I do not know.

The clock on the wall yawns
while declining comment,
stretching its hands
in a familiar reach,
analog-2-3, sameness-2-3,
predictable without irony.

I lift the white mug,
my fingers watching and ready,
and remember how warmth
asks to be held,
while cold does not.

—Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025

Poem: Eight Out of Ten

A robin lands on the arm of the garden chair
as if the universe were not built to frighten her.
She tilts her head. The world tilts with it.

No anthem announces her.
No speech.
No medal.
Only the wind, unbuttoned at the collar,
pretending not to notice.

She steps once, twice—
a feathered stride across the iron rung,
making a path of what is there.
The waking yard yawns and watches,
a mini tightrope walker—
eight out of ten from the pine tree branches.

She pecks at a crumb
left over from someone’s careless breakfast—
(is that my blueberry with a bit of bagel?)
it is hardly a feast.
Yet she claims it with the authority
of a creature who never learned to doubt her place.

A distant car door slams.
The robin pauses.
I can see her thinking
the way a tiny body thinks—
all heartbeat and decision.

Then she stays.

This is how courage works:
not with battle cries,
but with the quiet agreement
to remain exactly where fear expected you to flee.

© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025

Poem: Love, Or Something Like It

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