To the Girl Next Door 1.5: Hallaig, Erthona, Achebe

[Akira]

TO THE GIRL NEXT DOOR      Unless you were planning to send up the cliché, which I am not getting, the title is cringe-inducing, particularly with all caps.

As you lie in your room
waiting for sleep,     The way this is phrased is a touch cliche; no offense, but I swear I read this and in my head went...   I hear the secrets that you keep.... (pardon my 80s flashback)
I know you can hear me  The use or lack of punctuation feels a bit random.
even with the whirring of the fan
by your feet
and the creaking of the ceiling and the beams
to the prowling on the roofs  a) from the; b) her house has multiple roofs? That said, we can likely figure out they are on the roof if the ceiling is creaking, so you could probably lose "on the roofs".
of the robber rats and the midnight owls
whose cowls are the color of fallen leaves -- again, Tightened, I like this little section with the sounds, it is descriptive.
I know you can hear me I don't think the repetition helps here.
tolling the bell, that ancient    
measure of life in the potter's yard  Is the N actually tolling a bell? I am clueless on the metaphor if not, I have no idea why or what for if so. Why is it in the potter's yard (I don't think of potters having big bells)? Is that a literary allusion that zoomed over my head (granted, sometimes not tough for that to happen). Dare I ask for whom? That's the problem with tolling bells, they are a bit cliche.
suspended, as the vespers and matins
wait for the dawn  Being a once-good Catholic boy, I think got the reference, and I don't have any inherent issue with personifying abstract concepts (or toasters, for that matter) if it serves a purpose, but I have no idea why an early evening prayer would wait for morning, let alone a chronological reference (as the words have sometimes been used for ... 6:30 pm waits for the dawn is like... umm okay?)
and the cock's three crows -- don't you know?  I love the occasional internal rhyme, but this feels forced (prowl-owl-cowl above, while still a touch forced, worked better).
Lost lovers all share the same coffin,
all wait for the same Christ.  

There are a bunch of ideas in there that could be developed into a more coherent total, but they feel kind of thrown together. It gets all biblical reference-y at the end, but none of that feel is introduced or developed in the first two-thirds of the poem.

I am not even certain what the relationship between the N and the girl is -- the cultural history of the "girl next door" cliche would indicate object of desire, somewhat reinforced by the "I know you can hear me's" but then the end talks about lost lovers and infers betrayal, which suggests an ex, which conflicts with the opening. But then again, there isn't even any direct evidence of any connection at all. Could the N be some personification of death? That could be neat, but the title and opening lines don't support that.