The Condominium

1. Night has long fallen: it is dark.
   The old couple go to bed,
   After taking their medicines,
   Comfortably dropping off to sleep.

2. Suddenly, a raging football match starts in the yard,
   Immediately below their bedroom window.
   Jerked instantly into unwelcome awakedness,
   Their peace unceremoniously shattered.
   Damaging stress wells up within them,
   As their bedroom is invaded,
   By a horde of screaming voices.

3. Forced to get up again to escape from the screams,
   Watching television with bleary-eyes,
   Waiting and waiting as the time goes by.
   Or if tiredness wins and awake they can't keep,
   They have no choice but their strength to compound,
   And hump two spare matresses into the lounge,
   Where the noise is below the threshold for sleep.

4. The condominium regulations say until 11pm,
   But 11pm really means midnight.
   Midnight approaches: Ah, permission to sleep now?
   Yes, at last, the noise is abating;
   Yes, at last, the rules allow;
   Rules made by and for a younger majority,
   Whose bedrooms are far from the football.

5. The football was only the final straw,
   Upon 17 years of perturbing noise,
   Of rowdy parties and interminable structural reforms,
   In apartments of others that they've had to endure.

6. Month upon month of noise upon noise,
   Unable to hear, to speak or to work,
   Unable to focus on what requires thought.
   Heavy machines vibrating the building,
   Hammers tapping and bashing the whole day through.
   Those responsible have solace away at their work,
   While the old must stay trapped with no place to go.

7. The regime sees only the 'rights' of the young, so
   In this hell they must spend their remaining short future.
   But if to peace and dignity they wish to aspire,
   A new place to live they are forced to acquire.

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© 28 January 2023 Robert John Morton   Versão português
See also: Unimaginable Noise