You can smell his cheap soap
In the hallway when he
Leaves the building.
He is the man next door to me.
For two hours before departure
To some loud bar
Where blondes cackle, waving their hair
Into faces of men like him
He blares the sound
Of eighties folk bands
And runs Swarfega or
Some other grease
Through his anachronistic hairs.
He has had a life.
His swollen belly tells the story
Of a broken marriage.
He is trying to rebuild his
Lost days of youth.
On the underside of his winkle-picker boots
Clicking tacked metal bits
Alert wary females on the street ahead
Of the coming of a God.
A force in a squeaking, patent leather,
Puffing jacket.
He is the enigma called
My neighbour.
He leaves on Friday night
Reeking of bad-taste toiletries.
He lives a cliché from then
Until Sunday,
When he returns to his workplace.
He tells the boys of all his
Phantom conquests,
The nightstalking tigresses
That flung him from one side
Of his tiny bedsitter to the other
In untamed passion,
Though strangely, each night,
I watch him return,
Alone.

Sonja Broderick

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/neighbour/