The Party House Diaries

 

The Party House Diaries

 

Unruly man boys making lots of noise,

Shouting and laughing; they kept me awake,

With monotonous beats, rowdy oi ois;

I lay abed waiting for things to break.

 

4 a.m. I couldn’t get back to sleep;

"Just shut the fuck up", a woman’s voice cried;

I got up, pulled back the blinds, had a peep,

Saw people in hoodies standing outside.

 

Somebody shouted, I couldn’t see who,

I wondered, was he yelling at me?

Night was lit up by lights of flashing blue;

Went downstairs at dawn made a cuppa tea,

 

Took it upstairs, clambered back into bed,

Not before shutting the open fanlight;

I tried to read, but kept dozing instead;

It'll be kicking off again tonight.

 

Mid-day Monday: it’s presently quiet;

All the tenants must be sleeping sound;

Last night sounded like a prison riot,

Without any prison officers around.

 

"Be careful sir", I was told by the law,

"There’re some dangerous people in there";

No supervision, no one’s keeping score,

Emailing the council gets you nowhere.

 

There’s a landlord lives many miles away;

A greedy profiteering millionaire;

As long as he receives his monthly pay,

He doesn’t give a toss about aftercare.

 

I don’t wanna judge, but I feel let down;

This used to be a decent neighbourhood,

Now it’s becoming the rough end of town,

A meeting place for the up to no good.

 

The ruckus carries on all through the week,

And the weeks after; they bawl and they shout

Night after night, and it comes to a peak

At 5 a.m. when the rage has burnt out.

 

And I think, as they finish their carouse:

A halfway house with no overseer,

Is really no more than a party house;

There’ll be no rehabilitation here.