Tag: Ruprecht von Kaufmann

Poem: Consolation

He called her a corpse

Deflated her air

Rolled her body up

From her toes to her hair

And sat on her skin

Until her spirit

Became thin

A sweet smelling puff

Escaped her lips—


“I’m still alive”

Was

All

She said.


She lay on the earth

Drawn-on with dirt

The muscles in his arms

Dug deep beside

The crumpled she

He struggled to hide

He needed a hole

As deep as it was

Wide.


His sinews tore

His ligaments bore

The weight of

Moisture soaked mud

Sweat poured from his face

A frenetic pace

Fighting against the hole

In the ground and inside

His soul.


His arms fell to his sides—

Steel and wood

Now a finger

On his hand

An extension

A plan—

One last

Connection to she

Awake in the grave.


One inhale—

Peace

One exhale—

Release

One inhale—

Regret

One exhale—

Cold sweat

And his future stared.


He could not go back

Ahead was a trap—

Brightly lit

The way

Was clear

But illumination

Is not

The same as

Consolation.


He sat in his safety

Buoyant

Afloat

Stillness

Stagnation

Narration calling,

“I’m still alive”

Her apparition

His aberration.


Wires exposed

The path that he chose

Storm clouds above

Drowning out love

No finish to the start

Interrupted heart

No dreams to know

No nightmares bestowed

She leapt from the tomb

Alive—

© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025
German artist Ruprecht von Kaufmann‘s piece “Irrlicht.”  http://rvonkaufmann.com/home/

Poem: Things That Grow

This poem was inspired by German artist Ruprecht von Kaufmann‘s piece, Die Welle.

There are things that fly

They twist and bend

Against blue sky illumined yellow

Black splattered with white

Gray interrupted by scatters of light—

Flap their wings

Or float

Like dreams

Stretching long on

Currents of wind

Winding through branches

And higher still

Playing with the stars

Before floating

Softly

Down.


There are things that stay

They cut the horizon with Always—

Mountaintops jutting high

Above valleys cradling

As seasons pass,

Children with wild hair

Wrinkle and fade

While limbs of Earth

Press toward

Eternity

Wrapping themselves

Around, holding together

The pieces that

Neither

Ascend nor

Sink.


There are things that rest

They are supple and sway

Discover stillness and move

Both in a single day—

Blades of grass yawning

Amidst beds of life,

Frogs lazy as clock towers strike

Croaking songs of love

In the dark of night,

Dogs whose paws

Chase squirrels inside dreams

Awakened

By flies frenetic

Then alighting

To sow, slowly,

Life.


There are things that fall

They rise and are pulled

Held close by the moon

Then dropped in cascades—

Swells shrouded by waves

Climbing and crashing low

Furious contrast tempered by

Mystery of falling—

Petals, eyelids, snowflakes, the sun—

Or, he whose courage inflates

Buoyant inside his soul

And on the surge

Not treading but digging

Through cold

Slicing holes in which

To plant his teardrop heart—


© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025