The Mercy Path

Once you bypass

the last starched lightning tree

you enter a hillside world

of midnight stream

and border wire music.

Here, across shilling debris,

early shadow

and blisters of high mist,

nature composes movement

from iron and broken bone.

heb deitl

Steve Coel

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

An 11.59 Publication

Time has no future along forgotten paths. So be it. 

The Mercy Path can appear to be grim, tired, depressing. It is however, often beautiful.

No Paths

Here,

where young people

never return

and there

are no paths,

is the place

language goes to die,

and old people

still stop to watch

lost cars

drive pass.

heb deitl

Steve Coel

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

An 11.59 Publication

There is an echo of hardship here and little to celebrate.

I have, it seems to me, become increasingly focused on what is being left behind. Forgotten.

The Proposal

Cut

into bitter grey stone

by masters of dead trades,

is your complete life story.

Brief like you,

words from broken parents

target the elders,

who created your passing.

heb deitl

Steve Coel

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

An 11.59 Publication

So many things around me, in the local and wider community, seem broken, fractured...

Paper Towns

 All along the Mercy Road

in six month empty

paper towns,

elderly people in torn slippers

walk painfully

down rusty nail footpaths.

Their cotton bags : half full

hold forgotten out of date tins

of meat and dried fruit,

as they chat to each other

about childhood, romance 

and warm hands.

Life is ending here

these places once called home

and memories will soon be forgotten

as nature wipes away 

all marks of living.

Mercy Road

Steve Coel

Mercy Road

Steve Coel

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

An 11.59 Publication

Half Stolen Buildings

 In regulation daytime armour

cracking with coarse whispers

and yesterdays broken promise,

the young girl pushes

her vape shadowed baby carrier

past steamed up shop windows.

Her world is the High Street

where each day

a bitter grey tide

shambles downhill

towards abandoned blue churches

and disappearing city light.

And it is here

her plastic shoes slap

into one off needles

that litter fishless gutters

and where even on dry days

the pavement is damp.

High Street

Steve Coel

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

An 11.59 Publication

Rub of Hand

There is a singular peace to be found in spaces where nature is busy removing memory.

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

Because here, where rusty wire gravy becomes encrusted in cement and everything is always broken, the rub of hand and mark of machine have all gone and time is now taking another stumble into unseen swollen puddles of oil, urine and bottled music.

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

An 11.59 Publication

Shadows

In the nick of time power station reflection

you upgrade yet another dog end

and once again check the hidden shank 

in your Clink Hotel grey.

A long time is short here,

because outside nobody stands still. 

And routines are dictated by the coded message 

of engine, animal and whistle

and by shadows that appear 

and disappear on park borders.

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

An 11.59 Publication

Wired Woods

Day Time

The crump of ancient motor and distant shriek of bird split open the clipped hedges and gate of curved fields and cupped minds.

Here, where brown water fallen from rusty pipe clings to chipped rock, is where sweaty paths lead up into singing overgrown wired woods that close in on long forgotten cylindered reminders of hard labour and childhood.

Night Time

Stepping inside the broken windowed shopfront, you walk in silence, smoke in hand, through ankle cement, wooden glue, canal wire and rusty nail.

Walking Notes

   Steve Coel 

An 11.59 Publication   

Truth is...

Truth is...

you's defined by what you is...

by what you does...

by what you wears...

way you acts or reacts...

way; way before what you says...

so...

you's on the downside corner

smoking a newly picked clean

switchblade butt end 

left for you

in local park overnight...

this is not ever nice...

you two, we sees 

sticks too close

to each other,

is the general 

local give away,

didn't listen to 

instructions see,

did you

so...

no respect will be forthcoming...

you's trying too hard

to impress

the 

wrong people.

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

An 11.59 Publication

The Adult Corner

Clipped metal

drunken cars clutter 

the broken citadel

at the head

of the illegal 

van garaged highway.

...the coffee blast

from the 

shuttered arch

is matched

with snatches

of whispered vaped chatter...

A stubble walk

across butchered

sleeping paths

..and loose change

on the blind side

of the adult corner ..

As Seen*

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

One Previous Owner*

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

Low Mileage*

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

An 11.59 Publication

* Print / Poster

The Mercy Path

Once you bypass

the last lightning tree

you enter a hillside world

of midnight stream

and border wire music.

Here, across shilling debris

and early shadow,

blisters of high mist

compose movement

from iron and broken bone.

The Mercy Path

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

Clog Street

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

The place I was born, is not the place I grew up in...

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

An 11.59 Publication

Heavy Locks / Middle Lane Birds / No Paths

Quarrels echo

across the yard

toward a large

watery gate.

Grey

figures turn

hiding their hands

and run

as animals scatter

with the wind

that howls.

Down the hill

women gather

and men glare

from behind vast whiskers

in photographs

of heavy locks

that fasten decisions

from the outside.

Middle Lane Birds

Steve Coel

Along hidden

grassed up 

middle lane birds

swoop as insects

skirt and skit.

Time here

is held in place

by bells

distant with summer

brown and crinkled blue.

No Paths

Steve Coel

Here,

where young people

never return

and there are no paths,

is the place

language goes to die,

and old people

still stop to watch

lost cars

drive pass.

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

An 11.59 Publication

Cheap Red Wine

Even on sunny mornings night time shadows move among the rusting steel underpass

..and the road above is ripped through with blind street eyes suffocating in splintered rain.

Oily shapes are squandered along the collapsed kerbside shop fronts..

as twisted paths sheepishly carve a route across knocked out grass and broken bales...

Here salt smashes into rock path and dripping cliff; here, where weather growls at footsteps, and distant noise is ancient and honest.

The cracked window wired doorway smells of cheap red wine and restless sleep as, stubs of burnt paper, shaped into tomorrows nightmare, mark the time where dreams begin and life ends.

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

All this seems too familiar.
Perhaps this isn't a good thing.
Who knows?

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

An 11.59 Publication

Pointed Shoes

No crowds, just directionless pointed shoes.

- and slippy eyes fixed on glassy oil pavements -

...and the bubble gum smell of illegal cheap drink.

It's the stripped down high of cracked Sunday morning shoes found in the stolen box by the closed shop.

- and the greasy thin blue sky spitting light on the planked up corner shopfront.

- all make believe smiles that shadow the closed shuttered room...

... in the service of nervous separation from the paperless faces of authority ...

High Street

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

High Street

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

An 11.59 Publication

The Fingerless Hours

The decay of sunset in the fingerless hours...

Old smiles reflected in rust.

Pictures, grey with thought, are carelessly hidden in broken hedges.

and headless dolls and plastic tea sets where cider rules and private air smells bitter

and finally, ripped posters clashing with twisted empty doorways

behind splintered bar-room chatter.

The zipped up bottled highway spinning up into secret woodlands...above the disconnected barren city limit

Purple eyes glaze across the stubborn river

Cider bottle leather jackets stacked on wooden stalls

rushed bruises painted on [ all the ] wrong walls

the stumble gates along the rutted brick

From the broken bandstand to the burnt out bark, the crippled landscape is holding the sky in place

gritted rotten walls shake at the passing of invisible feet

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

An 11.59 Publication

City Trilogy [ Part 1 ] - Steve Coel

City Trilogy [ Part 1 ]

Steve Coel

Dead Air into Warm Harp
Half Stolen Buildings
Smells of Time

Dead Air into Warm Harp

Steve Coel

Since I bust my legs down The Works
I's 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 I has.
Still; once I's got enough coin
I has a mild and Clark's pie
down The Vulcan.
And; often or not, I ends up
talking to the old girls
warming themselves up,
before they goes and shelters
under the bridge by The Glastonbury.

Clink Hotel across the road
gets noisy in the afternoon
so I wanders back into town
for a bit of a stretch and goes
cadge a cup of tea from Astey's
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 you knows.
Need change of shoes mind.
Guess I'll find some in box
by side door sunday morning.

Half Stolen Buildings

Steve Coel

In her regulation daytime armour
cracking with coarse whispers
and yesterdays broken promise,
the young girl pushes
a vape shadowed carrier
past steamed up pub windows.

Her world is the High Street
where each day
a bitter grey tide
shambles downhill
toward abandoned blue churches
and disappearing city light.

And it is here
plastic shoes will slap
into one off needles
that litter fishless gutters
and where, even on dry days
the pavement is damp.

Smells of Time [ v.3 ]

Steve Coel

In you comes -
in your sad seven year old
ironic tracksuit
and pair of box fresh.

In you comes -
looking for deals
on the board
behind the counter
which we knows show
same best day
as last time, last week, last month.

In you comes -
doing quick sums
and ordering a dozen shots
with your release money
which you quickly shares out
to punters who isn't interested.

In you comes -
barely missed
and completely blitzed
just another forgotten
madman.

In you comes -
a madman bent by routine;
a madman twisted by addiction;
a madman caught in the to and fro
of the outside which has turned its back;
and good riddance.

In you comes -
a madman smelling of time.

Sunday Morning

Steve Coel

City Trilogy [ Part 1 ]

Steve Coel

An 11.59 Publication

The Proposal / Empty Corners - Steve Coel

The Proposal

Steve Coel

Cut into bitter wet stone

by masters of dead trades,

your life story.

Brief like you

words torn from broken parents

target the elders, 

who created your passing.

Single Thread*

[ The Proposal / Empty Corners ]

Steve Coel

Empty Corners

Steve Coel

Stepping away from the street

through a broken

broad open two door,

you painfully walk

into a high congregation

of brown paper

and leather.

Once inside

along damp tired walls

you discover anointed paint

quietly peeling,

and unclean fragile carpet

frayed by disappointment,

falling into

gloomy empty corners.

High Congregation

[ The Proposal / Empty Corners ]

Steve Coel

Steve Coel

An 11.59 Publication

* Footnote:

Our life hangs on a single thread

It soon is out and we are dead.

Just like a flower I was up at dawn

A day passed by and I was gone.

Then boast not reader of thy might,

Alive at noon and dead at night.

The Mercy Path - Up at the Knock [ Unpublished ]

Discarded Extracts / Notes.

Up at the Knock
Steve Coel

You isn't different really from everyone else, you's just a bit more intense is what it is.

Up here in the hidden places you's always seen wandering round the velvet lanes, where cold suede banks hide barren stoney fields, and where geese guard tin roof shacks and frightened children.

In windowless buildings, haunted by the black hair of the missing, geese guard woollen hands.

Cars always come from somewhere else not here. Not here, where horses roam wild and beer is drunk and apples are still being grown in secret orchards.

heb deitl

Steve Coel

Steve Coel

An 11.59 Publication

Rust on Cloth / Owl Eye Brown - Steve Coel

Rust on Cloth

Steve Coel

You walks along

striding lengths

of vacant brick

where even today

you never sees

new cars.

And sliding pass

pub windows

that shield

sun and rain

you gets the full

yeasty blast

of damp cloth

and old men

sharing lies

over warm beer

and brown fingers.

heb deitl

Steve Coel

Owl Eye Brown

Steve Coel

With stick on smiles

all owl eye brown

young girls look down

long avenues

of car metal 

gutter full

with wish and dream. As,

in hastily bought clothes

tattered boyfriends

hustle shadow money

from grey figures

in barely lit parks.

This place

is their place,

a simple place

empty of mirth

hope and future.

heb deitl

Steve Coel

Steve Coel

An 11.59 Publication

Welcome Back / Docks Museum - Steve Coel

Welcome Back [ Customs House ]

Steve Coel

Standing in the doorway

to the closed Custom House

you silently mouth

a plea for small change.

It's not one of your

regular spots.

Not today.

Looking like you needs

another close shave

your shoes

seem broken

and too loose for comfort.

Busy down waterside.

You, are not.

Slowly...you are becoming invisible.

Eventually, you too will disappear

leaving only a shadow

in each doorway

of this street.

[ The shadow of a man...each day up from the Sally...into town...

in the doors of The Western and Echo. ]

Docks Museum

Steve Coel

Today.

Dry docks glisten

with salty channel rain

as woollen old men

sit on a favourite bench.

Each is smiling

as together they remember

their songs and laughter

as young, hard welders.

Today.

Visitors will glance at walls 

of dismal grey photographs.

Some show weary men

and women waving small 

half empty beer glasses in the air.

Others are of car empty streets 

clogged with leather boots 

being dragged to early shifts. 

And some are of boys playing

scrappy football with tight balls 

of Western and Echo

in muddy parks

bordered with adverts

for cheap beer and bread.

Tomorrow.

Young men grown old 
will return, sit

and see it all again.

Departing visitors 
will not see them.

heb deitl

Steve Coel

Steve Coel

An 11.59 Publication