Retirement

His success
was stamped neatly
on his business card, and
champagne flowed freely
in the conference room
transformed with banners and balloons.

And what was it
untidily written in cards
among messages
of good wishes
from friends and collegues
many that he didn't know?

His speech was as eloquent
as his tuxedo at his graduation ball
had been ,some
forty years before.
And in the interim
Lloyds bank shipping division
had flourished
under his care

His name was engraved
on the cigar box they gave him.
prefixed with "Charles"
and missing the Phd.

Finest cigars finger fat and juicy
wonderous scents
but he didn't smoke?

until many years later
when watching a merchant ship slip silently
from port,
he remembered what he had done
and yearned
for seas uncharted.