We were living in a flat; it was number eighty-three. <br />At eighty-four the Barleys lived, a fearsome man was he. <br />He had a wife and numerous kids. We heard then rip and cuss, <br />Some three feet and a quarter off, across the hall from us. <br /> <br />And when the Barley boys broke out, and ended up in fight, <br />Or when the Barley baby read the Riot Act at night, <br />And on their balcony their cat put up an eerie moan, <br />The fearful Barley family might as well have been our own. <br /> <br />When Barley after parting with some others of the ilk <br />Came panting up the narrow stairs, and drank our jug of milk, <br />Then broke out at his missus, and as fiercely answered she – <br />Where was the great advantage of our marked sobriety? <br /> <br />When Barley bedded early he would shake the common floor <br />And fill the gulf of night with an intolerable snore, <br />And people in the other wing at us their bluchers threw – <br />What good if we slept soft as snow and silent as the dew? <br /> <br />This Barley when unoccupied would fill my study chair, <br />And utilise much time, and take up space I could not spare, <br />To tell me of the deeds he’d done, his drinkings deep and vast, <br />And ladies who had loved him in his sanguinary past. <br /> <br />And Mrs. Barley dropped in – in the morning, as a rule – <br />And stayed till lunch and chattered like a ladies’ boarding-school. <br />Then she borrowed bread and onions, and wondered if she might <br />Leave her little Willie with us. She was going out till night. <br /> <br />Our little flat’s forsaken; we have left St. Kilda road; <br />We knew not where to go to, and we haven’t an abode; <br />But no flat in any building that we’d suffered in was worth <br />The comfort of a camp-out. So we’re flat upon the earth!<br /><br />Edward George Dyson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-happy-flatite/
