Note: In Koon's honor, In Our Honor: Poetry Plaza and Beyond was released in Janurary 2026. (https://www.amazon.ca/Our-Poetic-Honor-Poetry-Beyond/dp/1950276384) This anthology is a celebration of PoetryBridge in West Seattle, originating from the C & P Coffee, as its poetic and literary footprints extend beyond local and international boundaries, bringing together diverse and representative voices of the poetic world. Born out of necessity, Koon Woon's poetry, his Goldfish Press, and various literary forums extend outward to every poet and reader who feels the commitment of the Chrysanthemum Literary Society's mission of enhancing literature, education, and world peace. PoetryBridge, under the guidance of Leopoldo Seguel, provided one of the most diverse and necessary community building tools. This volume is a celebration of the power of poetry to transcend any artistic, cooperative, and communal effort in the quest of something tangible and permanent in our flux of life, in all walks of life.
Here I Am
Here I am, dying for poetry, when others live for it.
Here I am, living for poetry, when others die for it.
It didn’t begin with a baby that was never held,
a child, whose name was never called,
a son, who listened to a different drum,
and finally, neither a man, who scorned love at the end.
It really was a normal course of events,
a son when the old couple wanted a son, and
he knows, when to follow, and when to pause,
and listen to the meandering woods sing the course.
There was ample love in his crib,
crisp sounds in the morning from the street’s end.
It was all the machinery present in a game of chess,
when a lowly pawn gets promoted into a knight.
Hard bread that was crumbs others discarded,
unlikely places where a song can eek out of a rock.
He searched, how he searched for what was his,
and finally finds what is the lot of every man.
So, tonight he retires early, even though it is not the plan.
He knew that even as one travel daily half the remaining distance,
it still can be asymptotically too big a gap to span.
He rests his case; the defense offers no more pretense.
That was me, a man who found rest in the end.
When decidedly, he never had expected this breath of wind.
[December 6, 2025]
Love me when I am old
No need to love me when I am young,
because I can only love myself then.
No need to kiss me under the apple bough,
as any pair of fair arms would me arouse.
But love me, love me when I am old,
when the extremities of me grow cold,
when neither food nor drink will do.
For all the years that we drift through,
pretending we each other didn’t know,
now love me, love me as we stand in snow.
Like Water
Today I feel like the saddest water
going to places men reject.
Like water, I ebb my way
to the lowest point in the dungeon.
I harden myself like ice
and crack only under sufficient pressure.
What about the steam power that I
once was, driving great turbines?
What about the gentle rain that I
Was - lovers abed drowsed in?
What has come to pass are
transformations difficult to accept:
all that hails from above
hit the hard ground…
Eventually, everything is ice-cappedor ocean bound.
Why I Write
“Not for ambition or for bread,”
or a command performance before a queen,
I write because uncomfortable feelings rise
to my throat and writing them out prevents
my possible death by choking.
I seek to pull together opposites that
when each is alone, none is complete.
And since I am a being-in-the-world,
my cares aren’t solely my own.
Thus, I write to unveil the world,
to strip it naked and alone,
so we can all see what it is we call home.
Lastly, I write to mourn all the lives I didn’t live.
I thought about them, sometimes long and hard.
In the end, I chose to stay with the common mess,
and of this mess, I managed to find something to bard.
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.
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.
“Not for ambition or for bread,”
or a command performance before a queen,
I write because uncomfortable feelings rise
to my throat and writing them out prevents
my possible death by choking.
I seek to pull together opposites that
when each is alone, none is complete.
And since I am a being-in-the-world,
my cares aren’t solely my own.
Thus, I write to unveil the world,
to strip it naked and alone,
so we can all see what it is we call home.
Lastly, I write to mourn all the lives I didn’t live.
I thought about them, sometimes long and hard.
In the end, I chose to stay with the common mess,
and of this mess, I managed to find something to bard.
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.
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 how.
“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.
I Will See Tomorrow
Tonight the air is calm, no
branches stir, leaves rustling
minutely, I sit, expectant…
The woman I will see
Tomorrow has blown
out the long candle.
The rustling of sheets, a soft
pillow now absorbing the
weight of her scented hair.
Days ago, there was snow and icy
winds, the absence of
sun; it’s been a long time.
Negotiation
Green, greener yet,
geometric yards and gardens,
span a field of white light morning,
up climbing, the familiar family scenes,
morning passes into oblivion.
From the bus window, rain smeared, Lorca is
seen standing on Stockton and Vallejo, without
his saddle and hat,
negotiating with his first morning despair.
Houses with hedges,
an oak on the front lawn,
while the willow supplicates behind
the house,
I will be silent as the rainwater.
Dream on, compadres, as the white horses
with black manes,
come they to the edge of water,
finding a note in bottle, imperially scripted
by the Empress of China,
She said she will install her feeble son
on the golden throne.
Isn’t this how the story goes…
~ Koon Woon, 4/25/26
Bionote
Koon Woon has two award-winning poetry books from Kaya Press, the winner of the Pen Oakland Josephine Award for literary excellence and the American Book Award. He is internationally anthologized. He also is a student of mathematics, philosophy, and modal logic, whose poetics resemble the modal logic S 5. He is also a mentor and friend to many emerging poets. He advocated for them with his Chrysanthemum literary journal and Goldfish Press.
He is presently undergoing chemotherapy for stage 4 pancreatic cancer.
Saguaro: for Koon Woon
- by Valeria Z. Nollan, Author of Rachmaninoff: Cross Rhythms of the Soul (Lexington Books/ Rowman & Littlefield, 2022). https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/sergei-rachmaninoff-9781666917611/
Mighty sentinel of the Sonoran desert
spiny arms spreading towards the sky
Your eyeless face stands guard
in hoary sadness
Your lone column immutable and proud
You hold your loneliness inside,
but I understand you,
for you have whispered your secrets to me:
you sacrifice your knowable form
for unfolding eternal life
Sparrows recognize your generosity,
building their nests
in the crooks of your arms
Your snowy blossoms open in joy
for pollination
Your hidden water quenches multitudes
Tohono O’odham distill your fruit
into sweet syrup for song ceremonies
Brother Guardian of the desert nation,
you remember their stories
Your massive ribs form the walls
of village houses,
creating shade of yourself
when in your natural form
that shade was denied you
- by Valeria Z. Nollan, Author of Rachmaninoff: Cross Rhythms of the Soul (Lexington Books/ Rowman & Littlefield, 2022). https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/sergei-rachmaninoff-9781666917611/
Mighty sentinel of the Sonoran desert
spiny arms spreading towards the sky
Your eyeless face stands guard
in hoary sadness
Your lone column immutable and proud
You hold your loneliness inside,
but I understand you,
for you have whispered your secrets to me:
you sacrifice your knowable form
for unfolding eternal life
Sparrows recognize your generosity,
building their nests
in the crooks of your arms
Your snowy blossoms open in joy
for pollination
Your hidden water quenches multitudes
Tohono O’odham distill your fruit
into sweet syrup for song ceremonies
Brother Guardian of the desert nation,
you remember their stories
Your massive ribs form the walls
of village houses,
creating shade of yourself
when in your natural form
that shade was denied you
Cuckoo: for Koon Woon
by Yuan Changming
alas! you sensitive secretive songster
knowing every secret spirit of the forest
and all the spirit’s secrets in the mists
you keep calling and singing blindly
until your throat becomes all blood-blocked
you never care, nor are you aware
how many ears have heard your sounds
how many eyes will see your figure proper
except some casual hikers going astray
or a couple of local firewood gatherers
you just keep singing and calling blindly
you singular solitary singing species
alas! you sensitive secretive songster
knowing every secret spirit of the forest
and all the spirit’s secrets in the mists
you keep calling and singing blindly
until your throat becomes all blood-blocked
you never care, nor are you aware
how many ears have heard your sounds
how many eyes will see your figure proper
except some casual hikers going astray
or a couple of local firewood gatherers
you just keep singing and calling blindly
you singular solitary singing species
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