Retirement, a Dream Poem
With untaxed money a thief gave me
before his death by disappearance,
and inheritance from an unnamed aunt,
I purchase a major league baseball team.
I do it for the fun of giving them a name.
Their hometown is a moving target
on a map of Texas, so I’m thinking Amigos,
or Hombres if Amigos is too pink.
I interrupt a board meeting no one told me about.
They stare at me with a lot of white in their eyes.
Their motionless faces say I’m the boss
they’d stab if I turned my back.
However, they seem to know what they’re doing,
all this business stuff with columns and lines,
so I back out of the room like I’m delegating.
I’ll just work on the name.
My CEO catches me in the hall.
He has a John Waters mustache.
I need to stay on top of this thing
or its going to get away from me.
We schedule a meeting for Sunday
at the place where the thief gave me money.
I jot down some ideas:
Figure out how to make money.
Pleased with myself, I put down my pen.
I’ll think up one or two more before the meeting.
Owning a baseball team is doable.
But it feels like work, and I’m supposed to be retired.
I wake to birdsong and revelation.
My teeth and tongue are imitating the bird’s.
I’ll sell the baseball team and learn to sing like a bird!
But research reveals that’s not how birds sing.
I lose faith in myself. My brain is a cotton ball.
Retirement isn’t where every day is Sunday.
It’s a day not among the seven that govern labor.
It’s a baseball team that doesn’t have a name.
9 thoughts on "Retirement, a Dream Poem"
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Wonderful!!!!!!
The metaphor carried this
so well and every day isn’t Sunday
is such a truth of retirement derived so well here.
Funny to me the number of poems today and yesterday that were from dreams. Busy moon 😉
Love this one. The clipped lines and almost newspaper article from inside a brain feel.
Great close.
I used to be in a dream group and occasionally we would have the same dream — with variations but basically the same. When you form a pod, strange things can happen.
That’s really interesting info, thanks for sharing that.
I enjoyed reading this – all three times. Had to keep going back and re-examining – very clever reminder that things are never quite what we believe or as simple as we think they will be.
🙂
This dream is a great satire!
I woke up in a very pessimistic mood, so this poem just lifted me right up! Each time I read it through, I laughed harder. Thanks! “I’ll sell the baseball team and learn to sing like a bird! ” Oh yeah!
Hombres if Amigos is too pink—hysterical!
Thank you all for your kind comments.