"Spying On My Neighbors" by Luke Bateman
No. 3 are going to get a divorce,
All they do is huff and sigh.
No. 5 have just had a baby,
She sings when it begins to cry.
No. 8’s mum’s just died,
And the inheritance is paving the garden.
The barbecue in No. 4 is
Making my arteries harden.
Meanwhile, new folk settle in
The distant land beyond the garden wall.
A little boy wears the lawn away with
Buzz Lightyear and Woody in his thrall.
I look up from my work to watch
As space invaders are beat,
And as imagination’s machinations
Mean zombie dinosaurs face defeat.
Eventually, my work beckons yet again
And I have to turn away.
But once, I recall, there was a time
When I would’ve raced out to play.
One day work will call the boy
And his play will be done.
I wonder which of my other neighbours
I too might become.
All they do is huff and sigh.
No. 5 have just had a baby,
She sings when it begins to cry.
No. 8’s mum’s just died,
And the inheritance is paving the garden.
The barbecue in No. 4 is
Making my arteries harden.
Meanwhile, new folk settle in
The distant land beyond the garden wall.
A little boy wears the lawn away with
Buzz Lightyear and Woody in his thrall.
I look up from my work to watch
As space invaders are beat,
And as imagination’s machinations
Mean zombie dinosaurs face defeat.
Eventually, my work beckons yet again
And I have to turn away.
But once, I recall, there was a time
When I would’ve raced out to play.
One day work will call the boy
And his play will be done.
I wonder which of my other neighbours
I too might become.
Luke Bateman is a nineteen-year-old poet from Lancashire in the United Kingdom who is currently in the second year of a History degree at Oxford University.