Stress has been his constant companion
lodestar of his neurotic universe
spanning his life from beginning to end
a rope bridge across a shark-filled ocean.
How he would sweat over school exams
then worry about his college degree
while fretting over his chosen career
and if ever he’d get that first promotion.
A steady girlfriend brought him no respite
only the fear she might not be Miss Right
marriage unleashing a new set of woes
with the bills and the thirty year mortgage
and whether they could afford two kids.
But even retirement gives him no joy
being as stressed as when he was a boy
his golden years yielding fresh anxieties
about his wealth lasting and his health.

Alas it is I trapped in this fraught world
and in this moment of contemplation
I ask myself what salvation there is
for such a man as me yet must conclude
my worries on this earth will never cease
and that death may be my only release

You always were withdrawn and self-contained
so by your nature you are still constrained
for since you have been lying underground
you have slumbered there without a sound
with reports that not a single whispered word
from your abode in the beyond has been heard.
It seems therefore that your taciturnity
is destined to continue in perpetuity.
Hence from beneath your shroud of silence
we can expect no promise of deliverance.

whiskey moon
I collect blown out candles
on the beach

—–

a motorbike
zips through traffic
with my passing years

—–

meandering river
I float
with your memories

—–

cradling you…
I add one more candle
on the cake

—–

new day
a dove silently floats
on a rainbow

—–

mobile library
a ladybird eats raindrops
from the leaf

—–

dandelions
in a spring soaked sky
ponies gallop

—–

moonlight
a silhouette
of early daffodils

—–

old questions
rest in the tornado
of a meandering stream

—–

on the sea
ripples of moonlight
lighthouse on the rocks

More at https://twitter.com/Haikuintraining.

Down to the withered
reaching unseen tendrils
that till the tender soil
rhizome system yawning
the shoot appears to stand
firm but lightest leaning
causes the bud to tip over.