POETRY

Five Willows Literary Review

Poems by Koon Woon

Self-betrayal

Self-betrayal

I am terribly pained by my betrayal of myself, because China is my eternal mother, and because I am ashamed of myself to read the Tao Te Ching in English translation, especially American English. I have forgotten the land of the Panda and bamboo.

The gulf of then and now is caused by the rushing waters in a land of barbarians. Yet their vices have intoxicated me forever. I betrayed my grandmother, the mother of my mother, and the earth itself and my intrinsic rigidly-designated self. Now I have no pity for the innocents who perish from injustices. I now want money, your money, because money is the ability to do ten-thousand things, most of which are evil. I am now a rock and I tingle like a jade earring and clatter like a stone chime.

A Mirage


People make monuments out of clay.

In idleness, I study the sky.
Dark clouds portend rain.
The history of clouds is the history of 
     rice crops below. 

The unknown poet Du Fu thought seagulls,
suspended between heaven and earth,
had traced his signature in the sky.

Still,
he is unsure if his poems will fly
     down the ages…


What does all this matter to me,
for I have even given up wine. 
Whose praise do I need,
as I am too poor to take a wife.

Still, I am glad I am not a figment
     of someone’s imagination,
and I, I have a cold stream nearby.

I have set the fish trap.
It contains no mirage.

Have no fear of having nothing

Defined by one’s attributes or one’s possessions?

Have no fear of having nothing.

While one grows by extensions,

one does not augment by attachments.

Have no attachments, have no fears.

An onion is composed of many layers.

A tree is made up of branches.

Many rivers flow into the sea.

A man is the total of his influences.

This is by nature, have no worries.

The universe is composed of myriads of things.

A grain of sand can get you started.

Life is composed of things that die.

Death will finally complete the design.

This is natural progression, have no regrets.

Having everything will give you no standing room.

Therefore, have no fear of having nothing.

Koon Woon

May 17, 2025

I Wish We Could Find Comfort in This

Last night and nightly now I am on a train,

running through graveyards hidden inside cities.

The only thing when I frightfully was awakened,

a thin door to you my neighbor was between us.

I cannot ask you to think of graveyards too.

People seldom lift the rug to see if the floor is solid.

I cannot look beneath your face, and I cannot

look away from it.

Sad songs love there sleeping, time arrests it,

and when freed, time has also taken flight.

I do not mean to disturb your rest,

which like an apple has closed its eyes,

I describe you in all the languages in my body,

and then you slip like a child out of her clothes.

The description is all I have now,

to apply to particular and generic things.

The day that I hated you, and the next day

that you hated me back,

decays slower than radioactive carbon,

in all life’s forms.

My simple mind keeps walking

into the same river twice.

When senses return, my bed does not

vibrate like a train berth in Peru.

No, it is at a most sedentary point,

even as land wraps itself around it.

Graveyards in cities are isolated lots,

easily overlooked when you wake,

groom and zoom past.

It does this so mercilessly quiet.

The curtains of nearby buildings are closed.

Postulate then that therein no minds can exis

An Act of Betrayal

Dearest Grandma, seeing you as if you are here

in the American cyberspace with me.

You spent thirty-three years in the monastery of your

Buddha heart, distinguishing true from false, and so you know

I am for the moment sincere. As the lotus pond was full of goldfish, waterlilies, and lotus roots, and as the water was murky, and as the day was long in our Nan-on village. Grandmother, I caught dragonflies in the stillness of the village yard. I gathered snails from the banks of the village pond. The morning glories greeted me as I walked by the graveyard, as if promising those dear to us would live again.

And you, Grandma, live now in my conscious, with the colors of blooming chrysanthemums, with the whisper of bee wisps, and with the feel of silk in hot summer. Grandma, you are there when I close my eyes. In the inner space of these decades, closure was smooth skin, and all the garden petals you rubbed abounded.

You taught me to see the richness of the heart, not the patches on clothing. You taught me the reciprocity of the hen, as she give me eggs for broken corn. You taught me that heaven does not rain all day, so that it is better to stop when having spoken.

Yet, I am to betray you, without my even understanding howthe .

“The Snow Man”

One must have a bottle of Gallo in this cold alley
And to shake the cops and other winos
And be on the look-out for some sucker to roll

It has been a long while since my abode
Was taken from me not because of ice or lice
But because of the drive for condos

That in this high rise reaching town
Where all the Californ Dreaming has lost ground
To the sound of broken bottles

Which is the brittle psyche of fife
Which leads the rats from places bare
To places that don’t any longer sustain life

For the dweller of the alley, who is on dope,
And nothing, I mean nothing, beats a quick fix,
Nothing that is pure nor is impure.

Koon Woon

2015

Sometimes the Window is International

Beer can on rooftop, restaurant garbage bins,
sexy woman on billboard
with petrodollar veins,
whilst the homeless dig deep into Gaza
for scraps; desert storms imminent.
Inside my room is a goldfish, facing the bent
differential of glass bowl and world,
but I can reach for a lichee fruit in the South China monsoon,
and kiss my wife as she stands on the riverbank of the Pearl.

Here great comforts are sought and they never arrive.
Instead, pitch battles are fought,
just to own these rooms.
Wake up, friends, let us open our hearts instead.

Koon Woon
October 22, 2023
4545 42nd AVE SW #211
Seattle, WA 98116

POEMS BY JONATHAN HAYES

Poetry

Jonathan Hayes has edited and published Over the Transom a Bay Area literary journal for the past twenty-seven years. He has taught poetry and published booklets for children in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco. His most recent publication is Ghetto Sunshine & Other Poems 1997-2023, Mel C. Thompson Publishing, California, 2024. He lives with his wife in Oakland, California.

Mongolian Woman in a Box

In 1913, a Mongolian woman
was condemned to death for adultery

She was confined in a wooden crate
and left in a remote location to die 
in agony from starvation and exposure 

To prolong her torture and suffering 
a small hole was carved for her head 
to stick partially out allowing her
to beg for food or for water from 
a bowl on the ground next to the crate 

The bowl of water was not refilled

The photographer, Stéphane Passet, was on
an “Archives of the Planet” expedition
bankrolled by a philanthropist and came upon
the Mongolian woman in a box

He did not free her taking photos instead
presumably in empathy and as historical documentation

What was her name, her favorite color, did she have children, 
how old was she, did she have a soul, and did her soul escape 
when her body died, was the wooden crate burned with her body 
still inside, or was her body taken out?

History leaves the photograph

The Mongolian woman still trapped to death inside



Ryōkan sd…

Hai Zi — “I carve poetry and clouds”

Ryōkan sd staff in hand I walk through the gate

— old walking staff full of poems.

Ryōkan sd the butterfly visits the flower w/ no mind

—  the mind is an empty rice bowl.

Ryōkan sd call me a dunce living w/ the trees and flowers

— we all need water.

Ryōkan sd to Etel Adnan, the clouds

—  she replied back, the water.

Ryōkan sd don’t ask me about illusion or enlightenment

I’m just an old fool smiling — I agree w/ him.

Ryōkan sd the clouds are his neighbors —

unfortunately, they don’t always glide by and evaporate.

Ryōkan sd he never worked retail, but if he had

— being a beggar is easier. 

Ryōkan sd he missed the bus

— but, he wasn’t trying to catch it.

Ryōkan sd his bouncing ball is forlorn

— everything, including the ball, is a mirror.

Ryōkan sd he sits alone on cold nights in an empty room

—  the company of everything.

Ryōkan sd he was playing hide-and-seek w/ the children

— sleeping through the night in the bushes.

Ryōkan sd the flowers and moon will guide your way

— the moon is always full and the flowers laugh.

Ryōkan sd at night, deep in the mountains he sits in zazen

— the temple gets in the way of things.

Ryōkan sd he’s as pure as a mountain steam

— I have to piss.

Ryōkan sd the ridicule or praise of worldly people means nothing

— no one follows me on Instagram.

Ryōkan sd counting days is like snapping one’s fingers

— the heart is a beatbox.

Ryōkan sd if you want to find the meaning stop chasing after so many things

— a faster internet connection is now available.

Ryōkan sd day and night the cold wind blows through his robe

— yes, monks wear thermos too.

Ryōkan sd the thief left “it’ behind — moonlight on his walking staff.

Ryōkan sd all I have to offer you is the tranquility of my hermitage

—

Poems by Benjamin Schmitt

Dream Surfing

I have to tell you about this new thing, it’s called dream surfing. Basically your mind catches a thought, emotion, memory, image, or sensation and you ride that wave for as long as you can before crashing on the beach of consciousness. Be warned, one has no idea how dream surfing waves will break. The topography of a fight with your spouse combined with the weather of a bad tuna fish sandwich could lead to some terrifying waves. Or they could be delightful. There is really no way of knowing. So I suppose there is some risk involved. But let me tell you, once those waves start breaking a certain way, it’s worth it. Today I remembered how an artist friend in my youth smoked clove cigarettes. I rode in a parade of that smell, a king dressed in the most splendid finery as the beautiful consorts of the court laughed together and servants carried thuribles of pleasant incense. Then I woke up just long enough to catch the wave of my first memory, my parents reading Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman to me when I was two. The book felt so big; the baby bird leaving the nest for the first time, getting lost, meeting strange creatures. The darkness of that wave closed in around me until I saw a charm of goldfinches fluttering, mothering me in warmth and light. I woke up again with the somnambulant sands of a new perception clinging to my back and neck. Now there are a couple things to note. Dream surfing should only be attempted during the day; preferably early afternoon, shortly after a big lunch. Attempts to dream surf at night may result in the fits and starts of a murderous schizophrenic. Some people may malign dream surfing by saying it is merely napping. But these are the same people who only like the music of Nina Simone because they heard it in a Starbucks. So if you’re looking for an escape or a new destination, you should try catching a (thought, emotion, memory, image, sensation) wave sometime. I assure you, your time will be wasted.

Twitter Feud

My heart is in a Twitter feud with my mind

commentators say epic shade is being thrown

but I’m too old to understand all that

my heart has a lot more Twitter followers

I mean it’s like in the millions

so personally I think my mind is just using my heart’s popularity

to gain some exposure

leeching like that

seems like something my mind would do

my heart really took it to the next level though

when he called my mind pedantic

it didn’t need to go there

he was answered with forty-four tweets

all sent in a fifteen-minute time period

each one naming a different girl

and calling my heart a lothario

my heart responded with a single picture

of my mind reading the tabloids

and the caption real intelligence

my mind claims the image is photoshopped

and is threatening legal action

this is getting out of hand

I’m hoping it fizzles out soon

I’m not quite sure how it all started exactly

you see my mind only writes poetry

for the movie deals

and my heart is inspired by the graffiti

in bathroom stalls

so there have been many disagreements

in the past

but nothing like this rage

now their feud is trending all over the world

it’s being used to sell casseroles

and shoes

I hear my mind might give

a Tedx Talk in Arkansas

my heart might sew a stuffed animal

of a creature that’s never been seen

so maybe we’re all wounded and happy

in the conflicts that keep us living

but nevertheless we are still confused

and we don’t know what to do with the silence