'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...