BACK TO DRY SUMMER DAYS...

 Back To Dry Summer Days

Temple Lane, Warwickshire, early afternoon.

Severely sun-baked. A curious dryness. 

Even distant sounds evaporated

Into the sullen, sultry Sunday air.

To me it was all oddly surreal,

For I felt alone and strangely vulnerable

As I stumbled on uncertainly.

Raw Shard End childhood memories soon

Materialised, of the innocence and shyness,

Of a lonely only child, frustrated. 

Treading bleached 1950s pavements in solar glare

 To a young lad then were oddly unreal

 And distant sounds became indiscernible

As I strolled on in my uncertainty…

Pete Ray

24th August 2022

It was hot, uncomfortably so.

I was totally alone on Temple Lane, where bleached sunlight and the July heat sent my thoughts back to being a kid in Birmingham on hot summer days, when the thrill of the school vacation had begun to wear off. 

Wandering about upon pavements upon which chalked ‘hop-scotch’ numbers had been smudged, it was often tough to find the enthusiasm to do anything at all, except mope and perspire…