THE TERRACE, A WINTER'S NIGHT... (Inspired by Lucy Manfredi's painting...)

 The Terrace, A Winter’s Night…

(Inspired by Lucy Manfredi’s painting…)

The definition of trudge is illustrated as a figure, hunched,

Treads the trampled ground-snow alongside the bunched,

Clones of terraced homes, their frontages bounded

By low brick walls, serving snowball fodder to excited

Children, long abed, as a winter’s night is hounded

By sallow light and is by jaundiced streetlights compounded…

Telegraph poles, chimneys, lit windows and olive walls 

Compete for verticality through the pallid gaseous aura and life stalls,

As silence hovers like a trespasser, chilling and invasive 

And the pedestrian, curiously and strangely uninvited

Strides away stage right, purposeful and aggressive,

His manner grave, his intentions secretive and elusive…      

Pete Ray…

13th February 2026…  

No cars are parked, there is a feeling of my childhood days and there is such a use of colour to convey hardship. 

Yet there is also the promise of comfort and warmth inside the dwellings, drawn from coal fires, no doubt… 

The chap walking? One can only conjecture… 

A source suggested to me a conundrum: 

‘It is winter, snow lies on the ground and falls like long slashes of possible sleet at an angle, yet the overriding unusual colour suggests warmth and a glimmer of olive gold through the atmosphere. 

It is intriguing. 

The slope of the street is echoed and amplified by the step-like effect of the rooftops along with the stance of the figure, adding a dynamic aspect to this very still picture. 

Again an unusual contrast…

The extremely tall chimney pots along with the the telegraph poles appear to hold up a heavy sky as the lights from within the houses suggest varying degrees of warmth within and coziness, despite the bleak and strange atmosphere…’