Letter of Resignation Unlikely to be Tendered

Please be informed that I wish to leave.
To retire while my mind is whole –
a miracle in itself, when you consider
three decades and more of battered soul,
the price I’ve paid for being an outsider.
It’s time I returned to what I believe.

In the thirty years or more aforesaid
I’ve seen brains scoured with caustic soap:
the kind that purged natural law and reason
and left spines snapped beyond hope -
for decrying the absurd was high treason.
I’ve seen lives shambled, and some dead.

I’ve lived and survived better than most
( to be sure, there weren’t too many of me).
I gave a damn or half for the corporate climb -
you know, I’ve hated grease since I was three!
So I ploughed my furrow, did my time…
That you couldn’t have me was my boast.

Please be further informed that God
doesn’t sit on the eighteenth floor. Not all
your cravenness can make that worthy
whom you fear more than mortal,
nor adulation make him less than earthy:
like you and me, he’s just another sod.

Be informed I’ve had enough. Enough of paper,
enough of your mindless comic army
that would have done Gilbert proud:
any more of this and I’d be driven barmy.
And not caring, I can afford to say it aloud.
I’m through with this stupid career caper.

And yes. Lastly, please find enclosed a snap.
A mountainscape, as you can see. And lest
you jump to conclusions, it isn’t the Swiss
or Austrian Alps where your kind recuperate or rest,
but something closer home you miss –
and thank God (mine) it’s off your map.

***