Reflections in Haiku Style (2)

Café International – 1:30 pm

Another day at the Café International. Having been diagnosed with cancer, I was beginning to accept it. The following haiku are not depressing. They actually reflect an ongoing effort to live in the present and enjoy what’s left of life as I know it. The verses are inspired by sights and sounds in and around the café, and are no doubt fueled by the wonderful stimulus of the coffee served there.

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This old man prefers

The rhythm of cawing crows.
Throw out the disco.

Alas the story

The wheel of Samsara
In midsummer heat.

Bamboo and the crows:

What do they know that I don’t?
This moment in time.

I love late summer

For the crickets’ ceaseless cries.
Sing the mystery.

As if thru the fog,

The world on the other side:
A man struggles on.

Reflections in Haiku Style

Café International – 12:30 pm

During the time I was unemployed I frequented a Vietnamese coffee shop in San Diego where I sat drinking hot strong Vietnamese-style milk coffee. Perhaps it was the dark interior of the place that was conducive to reflection, especially on memories of when I was youthful, strong and often foolish. The memories are not all bad ones. However, it is honest to say that what I remember most are the bad memories. The following haiku capture, if in a cryptic way, the pain of some of these memories.

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Here I am again –

It hurts, and I’m thinking,
Trying not to think.

Foreign melodies

Uncover past memories:
I force back the tears.

No comfort in this

Special place of confusion:
One-cup reflection.

Though memory fades,

Those tunes from the dark night
Sing sweetly today.

What’s beyond this form?

Youthful exuberance fails,
Yet, old men do dream.