A Musical Interlude | Poetry

By Eric Mark, Stottesdon, Shropshire

When my next door neighbours relax from their labours
The cultural tastes they command,
Are on display for most of the day
When they form an impromptu band.

My neighbour to the right is Windy Bedstead,
He’s a prat of limited means.
Who wastes most of his time in his garden shed
Gorging on tins of baked beans.

The nerd to my left is Ned de Vere
And he spends each hour he’s awake
Downing gallons of homemade supercharged beer
In his garden behind a wind break.

Now tinned beans and beer is a combination to fear,
It’s the H-bomb dieticians deplore.
If your neighbour breezes in, after a pint and a tin,
You’d be wise to keep open the door.

The music they make, from the windbreak and shed,
Would make Chopin in his grave turn.
He’d be glad he was dead, and shake a sad head
To hear the pair render his Nocturne.

On a summer’s night, by the first star’s light
Twixt the roses and clew sprinkled lawn.
From the shed to my right like an owl in the night
Comes the sound of wood being sawn.

Is it an Irish jig or the grunt of a pig?
Floating gently from Mr B’s shed.
And can that be the strain of a Strauss refrain
From the windbreak of wind breaking Ned?

I take my place, on a stool or a chair,
A baton, poised in my hand.
As I prepare, to conduct this musical pair
This cacophonous wind powered band.

The birds have all fled far from the sulphurous shed,
The evening star will shortly appear.
As my baton I raise, to conduct the first phase
Of a symphony of Beans and Flat Beer.

‘Are you aware, that poisonous air
Is a hazard to health?’ kind friends ask,
To which I reply, with a wink of the eye,
‘Yes, but I wear a gas mask.’