Miser

The Cautious Tick of the Miser

In a tiny flat at the corner of Holloway Street,
Lives a man who counts every penny with a steady beat.
His wallet is a vault, his spare nibbling list—
“A penny saved is a penny earned,” he’d grin at mist.

He hoards not gold, nor fancies that could shine,
He stores the coins, the old PlayStation, the crumpled rind
Of eight‑penny paper, each one perched on a shelf,
A tiny, metallic seedlings, pruned to one‑shelf.

Miser, they call him, but in his own quiet world,
It’s security that powers his boundless, silent pearl.
He bristles at wind, at gusts that disturb his bird;
For a feather in a nest could be of greater worth.

When the bus rattles past, he curses the driver’s tone,
Yet he keeps his drop‑box, where the neighbour gives no.
He’s the one who, when the night grows hushed, no; He shakes the mug of hot tea, the laughter in his chest.

“Spend now,” he says to strangers on the tram, with a sigh,
But to his own pockets he offers a more prudent try.
He let’s his coffers charge, let the tick‑tock of the tick—
An unspoken pledge, that he would always stick.

The children wonder if he’s cursed or wealthy—
“Why do you save? The world isn’t all so dreary.”
He smiles with a twinge of fond irony,
“I keep my own comeback in quiet sorcery.”

The verdict?
The miser is simply a sovereign, quite gentle,
Over branches of his own earthly tree;
He hoards more than coins—he hoards a dream, steady as a sea.