MicroFlashFiction: Short Stories and Experimental Narratives - Steve Coel. '...Coel's experimental short fiction is really suited to this medium...' Writing Review, Q+A - 2024.
Documentary Fiction Photography - Steve Coel
Iron Shelter
Here -
Where...music is day time dead..
Where...beaten up strangled trees steal fenced air..
Where...pavement shy funeral cars are smokey..
Where...mapped walking is silenced by small group gossip..
Where...sleeping iron sided shelters are brick piled into bulldozed walls..
is the place language comes to die.
Steve Coel
Twisted Ornaments
Here -
Where...seagulls congregate to share daytime information..
Where...mudless lanes fracture industry and metal..
Where...cold slab chipped rock fountains are smiling and love struck...
Where...glitter ball glamour is boarded and gig postered..
Where...glass shadows stretch into shoeless avenue..
is the place language comes to die.
* * *
Six Month Empty Paper Towns: small communities peopled only by those left behind...nowadays, as far as I can tell, an increasingly older and more reflective group of resilient residents who are daily learning to cope with emptiness and lean times...I can only ever be a visitor to these places, but I am always struck/horrified/bewildered by the underlying despair/bitterness of the conversations...
* * *
In my own local community - an hours walk shows all the shades and shapes...the movers...the shakers...the chancers...the winners...the losers of the area...Some are clearly falling between the cracks...the gaps that exist between each moment. Snatches of conversation. Moments of aggression. One day this. One day that.
* * *
I am drawn to the loneliness of busy places ...the emptiness of crowded places...what is happening is not on the margins of the community...something has gone is missing...opportunity probably.
O ble mae'r bobl wedi Mynd? / Where have all the people Gone?
Steve Coel
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Documentary Fiction Photography
Since I bust my legs down The Works I've had to spend all my mornings blowing dead air into warm harp by the Central Library. Bust my heart too truth be known. Lost everything now. Still; once I get enough coin I has a mild and Clark's pie down The Vulcan, and, often or not, I end up talking to the old girls warming themselves up before they go and shelters under the bridge by The Glastonbury.
Clink Hotel across the road gets noisy in the afternoon so I usually wonder back into town for a bit of a stretch and go and cadge a cup of tea from Asteys before heading back down Bute to the Sally for warm meal and early bunk.
Doesn't have time to feel sad really. Not me. Trick I finds, is to forget past and just stick to what I knows. Need change of shoes mind. Guess I'll find some in the box by side door Sunday morning.
The Right Shadows (2025)
Steve Coel
Notes -
Warm Air into Dead Harp reminds me of so much that is never fixed properly...I noticed a lot of damaged adults growing up...some from the war and too many others from closures of steel works and the docks...I still see damaged adults today, we all do...all ages, from all over...it's never right...never was...Steve Coel
Documentary Fiction Photography
Stepping away from the street through a broken two door, customers painfully walk into a high congregation of brown paper and leather. Inside; along each damp tired wall, anointed paint quietly peels and unclean fragile carpet, frayed by disappointment, falls into hooded empty corners stacked high with rotting chairs.
The Right Shadows (2025)
Steve Coel
It's found up along cobbled visions of forgotten towns in times disputed by all who lived them. In places caught by Pentax and Olympus children will forever play on empty streets near to crumbled demolished homes. Tall ships still hang over brick wall in this broken vision, with the ships, made by small people whose dreams daily smashed, mirror the horrors of this passing time. Close by, crisp tied officials arrive but soon leave. As they always have and always will. Visitors making quick decisions over local pie and ignored cake.
Today windowless empty youth painted buildings scatter to wind and sudden downpour as in large open working spaces; in tired, dormant feral communities; few people gather each morning for early shift. Labour here is now too vague, mechanical and undisputed. Tiredness is instant and contagious. Jokes are few, clumsy and dulled by lack of echo. Uniforms, worn in shame, are cheap and ill fitting as they signify nothing but cowardice and lack of respect.
Steve Coel
Here -
Where...frosted symphony bamboo foot bleeds into glass split concrete..
Where...silent fingers cup memory..
Where...bloodied alert eyes are street fierce..
Where...back pocket lamps guide bullied handshake greeting..
Where...muted trolley tight waiting is slow shuffled along wired footpath
is the place language comes to die.
Here -
Where...spirited cloth tightly holds hidden defence..
Where...painted step reveals rusted night-time dancing..
Where...burnt time walking becomes wall shy and forced..
Where...open doors disperse rumour of stolen memory..
Where...expensive remarks are fake..
is the place language comes to die.
Wired Beauty
Here -
Where...drowned road happiness is traded for pennies..
Where...beauty is inked into loose skin..
Where...hostel dispute is shop door knuckled..
Where...salted air breathing is painful reminder of loss..
Where...wired thought becomes backroom industry..
is the place language comes to die.
Steve Coel
Cut by masters of dead trades into bitter grey stone is your complete life story. Brief, like you, words from broken parents target elders who created your passing. Steve Coel
Lowland Feather
...after years spent on The Mercy Path absorbing wire sharp whistled song, farewells are still given through brick house window and muddied wall...
...close by, as carefully baited lowland feather slaps its muted surface, ripple stone water stumbles into ice age grass bank...and through gaps in tree tired stone walls, wild horses fret and gather as rutted horizons shadow mountain valley...
...(there) out on the scarab pathed moor, where lonely birds pleat their song into ferned memory, old feet, leisured by a lifetime of pain, shuffle slowly homewards...
Steve Coel
Saturday Night
..Experimental Narrative..
Iron Shelter
Steve Coel
Here -
Where...music is day-time dead..
Where...beaten up strangled trees steal fenced air..
Where...pavement shy funeral cars are smokey..
Where...mapped walkway is silenced by small group gossip..
Where...sleeping iron sided shelters are brick piled into bulldozed walls..
is the place language comes to die.
Deaf Ear
Steve Coel
Here -
Where...loyalty is sought and funded through dark glass..
Where...anger is buttery..
Where...doorstep begging is hasty and youthful..
Where...brave words are thrown away with cheap lager and soapy gritted water..
Where...curled up broken yard hideaways become legend..
is the place language comes to die.
Here -
Where...layered sounds of gated dog and broken motor serenade gloomy high street..
Where...cheap toys are solitary on pavement and stolen trolley..
Where...flagless memory walks sullen and dead down late night dual carriageway tunnel..
Where...simple slogans are stamped hard on tourist lamp post..
Where...lost faces merge with elderly condemned brick..
is the place language comes to die.
Here -
Where...early sandal foot death lays down grass foundation..
Where...shallow drunk opinion dominates afternoon decision making..
Where...teenage defence is held tightly to deaf ear..
Where...clumsy stapled barriers warn away passing neighbourhood shadows..
Where...off grid roads disappear through unpleasant fields of illegal chambered stubble..
is the place language comes to die.
Here -
Where...sad walled archives crowd day time sky..
Where...nylon jumpered youth blankly congregate..
Where...anonymous kiosk cards are pierced carefully on stolen rusty spike rods..
Where...blistered nickel punches into broken fence..
Where...bitter tunes are formed around rough gateway..
is the place language comes to die.
Oiled Doorstep
Steve Coel
Here -
Where...locked doors open to sharp knocking..
Where...clotted shoes clamber over torn stile, delayed stone and heathland water..
Where...fractured ganglines decide night-time movement..
Where...ribboned plastic roof top windows glisten on oiled doorstep..
Where...seagulls congregate to share daytime information..
is the place language comes to die.
Timed Silence
Steve Coel
Here -
Where...silence is timed..
Where...stern booted smiles are frequent..
Where...folded arm argument frames evening entertainment..
Where...car lights halt hooded debt collection..
Where...hi-rise threats are sprayed on dumpster and metal security door..
is the place language comes to die.
Grey Water
Steve Coel
Here -
Where...hollow buildings shadow painted monument..
Where...decaying plastic childhood lies perched on slopes of tall stripped tree..
Where...repaired jigsaw roads wait for seasonal pacing and frosty morning..
Where...starched wrinkled skin sticks to stretched bone..
Where...daily trauma functions alongside passing rumour..
is the place language comes to die.
Q: Why do you publish online?
A: Well...I think my experimental approach to writing is suited to this medium. Although, to be fair, the initial drive to do this also coincided with my gradual withdrawal from festivals, recording and live performance.
*I have occasionally published some limited edition MicroFlashFiction pamphlets/chapbooks/catalogues [when requested]. I've included them in Documentary Fiction Photography Folio Boxes which I make to order about four or five times a year.
But yes, online MicroFlashFiction and Experimental Narratives is the medium I have been involved with for the last 17 years.
Q: How have you previously responded to publisher/agent requests?
A: To genuine requests? Well...I'm not reclusive in the sense that I feel disconnected in some way from a mainstream...just take a look at some of the fantastic online music making, online art galleries, on line literature events and so on. There's a lot going on and a lot of us doing this...by choice.
Writing Review: Extract - MicroFlashFiction, Q+A 2024