Thursday 31 May 2018

'BEHIND ENEMY LINES': A PAINTING BY LEIGH LAMBERT & A POEM BY MYSELF...

Behind Enemy Lines
(Painting by Leigh Lambert)

It’s the face at the window.
It’s the imminent fear,
Rather than the respect assumed
For a neighbour, in a different time…

It’s the encroaching boy.
It’s his apparent fear
In the act of retrieval,
Caught in the act, perpetrating a crime…

It’s the hiding behind a fence.
It’s the discordant fear,
A barricade on a working-class street,
Yet perfect for a hide and seek game…

It’s the screenshot scene.
It’s the stagnant fear
Behind enemy lines,
Captured in a frozen frame…

Aged five, maybe six, my ball too
Strayed sometimes over a rear garden fence
From a wayward throw or wild kick,
Or due to concentration slack
And I would see at a net-curtained window
Mrs Blythe, dressed in Victorian black…

Aged five, maybe six, I was terrified
Of this Giles cartoon grandma figure
And would rush inside out of her sight, 
For confidence I did lack;
I knew though that this mourning-clad witch-like creature,
Mrs Blythe, would never give me my ball back…

Pete Ray
May 31st, 2018

This was true.
Ward End, Birmingham.
NO WONDER MY FATHER FORCED ME TO BAT RIGHT-HANDED, FOR THE BLYTHES LIVED TO THE LEFT OF THE IMAGE AND ANY HOOKING BY THE LEFT-HANDED ME WOULD HAVE MEANT MORE LOST BALLS...

I don’t think I ever saw the Blythes outside their house, I just recall the frowning face of Mrs Blythe nosing through the net curtain overlooking her back garden, daring me to scramble over the fence to retrieve my ball… 

I think my mother and father went to her front door to ask for it a few times though.

I reckon the above improved my throwing and kicking accuracy…

THE BLYTHES LIVED BEHIND THE FENCE...

THE HOUSE OF THE BLYTHES IS IN THE BACKGROUND...

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.