Haiku About Work and Money

Work haiku look at the edges of the job. Perry L. Powell opens with the phrase WORK ETHIC, and then the speaker passes a father’s grave AGAIN. The word again is the key. A habit is being inherited, and the poem does not say whether that is a comfort. Behind the phrase is a quiet question about what labor passes down: a route, a posture, a reason to get up in the morning. The poem leaves it to the reader to decide whether that is something to be proud of.

Melvina Germain drops the sideways approach and speaks bluntly: LACK OF MONEY KILLS while financial wizards rule, and the last line names the symbol, ROCKEFELLER LIVES. The poem treats money as a question of power, and it does so in the voice of a headline.

Offices and what they leave out

Jonathan Moelker enters an office with NO WINDOWS, GREY WALLS, and the last line reads SANS WINGS, MORN'S JOY FALLS. Zoe Dickinson parks between a cube van and an SUV beside ONE DUSTY OFFICE CHAIR, and the chair stands in for the worker. Nobody appears in either poem. The windowless room and the dusty chair show two halves of the same workday: the part spent indoors and the part that waits in the lot.

Questions readers ask

How does a haiku talk about money without a number?

Through an exchange. Damon Ferrell Marbut writes of a barista who is KIND, of JUST ME AT THE REGISTER, and of HANDING THANK YOU BILLS, where the tip is the whole economy of the scene.

Is the Sunday-night poem a work poem?

Yes. Angela Sargent watches the SUN IS SETTING FAST and the NEW WORK-WEEK arrive, and ends in a prayer, GOD, PLEASE MAKE ME RICH. It is funny because it is honest. The week has not started, and the dread already has.

More themes to read

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Last reviewed November 2026. Poems are the work of the poets credited and link to their pages in the original issues.