HAPPY DAYS neighbour

As the dusk ushers in the end of another
Sun soaked day
In a long line of springtime records broken
Here in our respective hibernations
I take out the rubbish, sort the recycling, collect the washing from the line
A ghost, an apparition, barely alive, living off fumes

Over the fence
Taking cover under tarpaulin
Sat panting with his glass of Rioja in hand
Staring into the middle distance of a freshly swept, de-weeded yard
A casualty
Clinging onto the withering vine
That sense of weary abandon dimming
Fading with the natural light

My name: whispered, exhaled even
I meet his eyes
Amble over with the usual mixture of tired warmth and resignation
Obliged
The brief; keep it brief

But under the stars and through a stream of swarming insects, the passing trains
The green flies, oversized Bees
Neighbourhood cats and the sound of distant sirens,
a nighttime sweep through nowhere land
The pizza boys doing their rounds
The dealers dropping off
The pounding pavements of late night joggers
Rekindling old couples weaving their way homeward
But here, now, he wants to reach out

“Happy Days” he says on more than occasion
Happy days indeed
"Partying alone again like some kind of saddo”
His words
I congratulate him on the house sale
“230” he says


“That was quick” I reply
“yeh surprised how popular it was ..
5 viewings in 3 days
A lady doctor… she’s been straight with me
No times for games at my ripe old age”

“must be sad to see it go’ I ask… out of duty more than anything but..

Thinking of the bridge, where hours earlier I’d spied him
wistfully gazing brow beaten, smiling, half crying
Paralysed by decades of memories and regrets
Near misses, promises unkept
Dreams by the wayside
Thirsts unquenched
The view from his window;
A direct line through those huge trees with swaying branches

The dual carriageway below
Where microscopic life throbbed, swarmed
Dispersed, decayed and seemingly replayed this fate ad nauseam

“half my life..” He says
“nearly 30 years”
‘Happy Days”

We skirt around the current crisis, facts, fiction, party lines
Then the wild years, how he bought it for a snip, on a whim
What it needed, what he couldn’t give,
The ammo up in the attic, the things you amass
The things you throw away
Then properties
A future unwritten
But the pauses weigh heavy and begin to multiply
Soon we’re exposed, threadbare
Shivering under the surface of our conversation

I shift from one foot to the other
Fumble for an empty phrase
Then turn inward,
“night” I mumble
“happy days” he says
“happy days”