Dear Sir,
With reference to yours of the 7th inst.,
I wish to apply for the vacancy
Faith or requited love has created in your staff.
The following are my qualifications: namely,
A dozen years in various threadbare lodgings,
Which have sharpened a doubtless natural melancholy
To that point of keenness where it needs but little
Time to adapt itself to the particular
Idiosyncrasies of bad plumbing and worn stairs…
It might be as well to mention at this juncture
That over this period I have acquired the necessary
Sense of impermanence without which
No prospective ghost can make his way in the world,
Having studied, to this end, in sundry dwellings,
The alluvial deposits of past species
(Hair-pins and empty scent-bottles, and on walls
The pencilling of long-disconnected telephone numbers);
And, pressing cold lips to jaundiced mirrors, found there
(As with the dead) no momentary clouding.
In addition, I must state that in the field
Of practical experience I have eaten
A thousand meals in bright fly-spotted cafes,
Sharing my morsel of pathos with a throng
Of vacant-eyed habitues, where the only
Thing that is substantial is the bill,
And drawn by the blind nickel-and-chrome benevolence
Of cinema foyers, watched my flickering counterparts
Live out their depthless lives, while lovers mocked
Their phantasms from the true world of the stalls.
In closing I assure you that should this
Application be successful I will prove
Most satisfactory in whatever post
You choose to place me,
bearing in mind, of course,
That, being by nature still a mere apprentice,
Only you, Death, can make me journey-man…