It’s a pleasure to meet you…just water is fine…

Thanks for taking the trouble to give me a chance.

So, you’ve made it at last to the back of the line

and the candidate worth just a cursory glance?

 

Inconspicuous as the invisible man,

I’ve a resume anyone sane would ignore.

For occasions like this, I attend cap in hand

as I beg for your payroll’s umbilical cord.

 

My most recent employment?  I ran out of luck.

I was blamed for regrettable downturns, you see?

There’s a slope to my shoulders but passing the buck

is a little proactive for someone like me.

 

I’m the figure the folk in the staffroom lampoon

and the name on the rota that’s read with a smirk,

like I’ve stepped on a rake in a children’s cartoon,

I’m the butt of the joke for my colleagues at work.

 

While the suited and booted show brazen contempt,

I’m cold-shouldered by even the uniformed drones

but I’ve not got the courage to make an attempt

at sustaining an income by working from home.

 

A perennial misfit, I can’t find a match

for my dubious talents and limited skills

so the word on the street’s that I’m not up to scratch

and there’s no kind of post I’d successfully fill.

 

I’m an abracadabra away from my goals

(or perhaps it’s Hey Presto! away from my dreams).

My inadequacies are consistently droll

if I’m not indispensably linked to your team.

 

And so thanks for the great opportunity Miss

but I sense that I haven’t impressed you at all

and this isn’t a fairytale plot with a twist

so I won’t hold my breath while I wait for your call.

 

Chris Scriven

Chris’ poetry is heavily influenced by his own lived experience of mental health issues, although it is frequently also underpinned by an (often dark) sense of humor. As he lives in the UK, his poems have predominantly appeared in UK-based magazines and journals such as Acumen, Orbis, and The Frogmore Papers, among others.