Dead Air into Warm Harp

Since I bust my legs down The Works I's been spending my mornings blowing dead air into warm harp by the Central Library. Bust my heart too truth be told. Lost everything now I has. Still; once I's got enough coin I has a mild and Clark's pie in The Vulcan. And; more often than not, I ends up chatting 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 and cadges a cup of tea from Astey's before I heads back down Bute to the Sally for warm meal and early bunk. Really, I doesn't have time to feel sad. Not me. Trick I finds is to forget past and stick to what I knows. Needs change of shoes mind. Probably find some come Sunday in box by side of hostel door.

Steve Coel

Paper Towns: Public Sites, Private Sights

( An 11.59 Publication, 2022 )

No Paths

Here where young people never return and there are no paths, is where language comes to die.

Steve Coel

Old Smiles

Here -

Where...slippery eyes fix on glassy oil pavement..

Where...shop doors embrace the bubble gum smell of illegal cheap drink..

Where...greasy thin blue sky spits light on planked up corner store..

Where...old smiles are reflected in rust..

Where...grey pictures are carelessly hidden in barbed wire hedge..

Where...purple eyes glaze across a stubborn river..

is the place language comes to die.

Here -

Where...burnt out bandstand and gritted wall hold the sky in place..

Where...crippled landscape shakes at the passing of invisible feet..

Where...ugly water washes up dead fish..

Where...padlocks protect broken fields from broken people..

Where...debt plagues argument like two coins rubbed clear..

Where...hills consume history and memory is wiped out by nature..

is the place language comes to die.

Steve Coel / An 11.59 Publication

Documentary Fiction Photography 

Steve Coel

Half Stolen Buildings

In her regulation daytime armour still cracking with coarse whispers and yesterdays broken promise, the young girl pushes her vape shadowed baby carrier past boarded up pub 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 plastic shoes will slap into one off needles that litter fishless gutters and where, even on dry days, the pavement is damp.

Steve Coel

Steve Coel

Cracked Kerbstone Drunk - Extracts

In your spring hat, tied with lost string, you search the free paper for clues for which day you now finds yourself waiting. Because waiting on the corner beat today in the rain for the next delivery, is receiving disturbed glances from local windows and trolley men. And the steady clump of wet shoe against cracked kerbstone drunk is shadowing a high street roaring with anger over closure and debt, where even the most fucked up has memories when called upon. Is called survival so it is.

***

So; you's been shadow hunting? You fucker. Isn't nice. Know what I means? And it sure doesn't look as if it is going to end well either because peoples already got their mobiles out and others are instinctively putting their hands over stash's and stolen wallets. 

   ***   

From the stickered shop window the tidy looking young women shakes a weary head at the nasty row growing on the pavement outside. It was always about dodgy deals and money owed. Always. And she's really sick of seeing the same exhausted faces. The sound of blues up the street usually moved on most, but not all and CCTV(s) are already being clicked off, wiped or removed.

***

Stolen trainers and suede overcoat; owed wraps, scissored finger tips, sellotaped glass', fake tan and orange lipstick; kitchen knife strapped underneath skateboards, grey trade tracksuits and knitted beanies.

***

Seen wearing cheap cloths they's always got expensive rings and expensive boxfresh. Go figure. Seems weird to most, but is accepted down the street because knowledge is learnt early round here. Everyone knows, you don't learn, you's a loser. And that's where you don't ever want to be. Reputations is made young and lasts. Everyone knows this, don't they? Is fucking first lesson for fucks sake!

***

You catch snatch's of stoned smiles floating through the smoked out windows of passing stolen number plates. Everyone knows the street cliches and seems to love them round here. And not ironically, ironically.

Steve Coel

Heathland Water

Here -

Where...small talk clouds swiftly dug passages to the next world..

Where...fractured gang lines decide night time movement..

Where...the slow of foot shadow wooden shovel..

Where...the painted steps, that divide day, disappear like the canal bridge into glassy undergrowth..

Where...glances do not go unnoticed and powerful voices weaken after each glass..

Where...sunny morning and night time star move along rusting underpass..

Where...oily shapes are squandered along collapsed kerbside shop front..

Where...twisted paths sheepishly carve a route across knocked out grass and broken bale...

Where...weather growls at footsteps and distant noise is ancient and honest...

Where...cracked window wired doorways smell of cheap red wine and restless sleep..

Where...stubs of paper shape tomorrows nightmare..

Where...dreams begin and life ends..

is the place language comes to die.

Here -

Where...clipped metal drunken cars clutter the broken citadel at the head of illegal van garaged highways..

Where...coffee blasts from shattered arch vaped chatter..

Where...youth stubble stride across sleeping butchered road..

Where...loose coin is exchanged on the blind side of the adult corner..

Where...small feet climb cob-web steel tree and second hand pram wheels fall into strutted cobble..

Where...locked doors open to sharp knocking..

Where...chapel neat red velvet seats line walls of rooms that glow with stories of hill and tractor, long tipping nights, and arguments lost to hated officials..

Where...memories are painful and lonely deaths from Woodbine and Senior Service are still talked about in public houses..

Where...boasting is frowned upon..

Where...whispers are heathen across bleak land and words are spoken loudly by clear eyed distant people..

Where...clotted shoes clamber over torn stile, delayed stone and heathland water..

is the place language comes to die.

Steve Coel / An 11.59 Publication

Documentary Fiction Photography 

Steve Coel

Paper Towns

All along the Mercy Road in six month empty paper towns, elderly people in torn slippers walk painfully along rusty nail footpaths. Their cotton bags are half full with out of date tins of meat and dried fruit as they chatter to each other about childhood, romance and warm hands. Life for them will end here, these places they once called home, and their shared memories will soon be forgotten as nature wipes away each doorstep dream and bridal curtain.

Documentary Fiction Photography 

Steve Coel

Shadow Nut Wood

It begins by the shallow path that slopes unevenly away from the shadow nut wood. Here, along the broken hill and towards the distant wet rock, corrugated cylindered tunnels, all built to hide and imprison, shelter straight back frightened animals.

Thick with the embrace of both mud and food, death stamps its mark into heated spot, as an acid smell of ripped air, fallen dead leaf and crippled motor oil twists open the unyielding buckle of weed.

Steve Coel

Wooden Shovel

Here -

Where...small talk clouds swiftly dug passages to the next world...

Where...fractured gang lines decide night time movement...

Where...the slow of foot shadow wooden shovel...

Where...the painted path, that divides day, disappears like the canal bridge into glassy undergrowth...

Where...glances do not go unnoticed and powerful voices weaken after each glass..

is the place language comes to die.

Steve Coel / An 11.59 Publication

Cheap Wine

Here -

Where...sunny morning and night time shadow move among rusting steel underpass...

Where...oily shapes are squandered along collapsed kerbside shop front...

Where...twisted paths sheepishly carve a route across knocked out grass and broken bale...

Where...weather growls at footsteps and distant noise is ancient and honest...

Where...cracked window wired doorways smell of cheap red wine and restless sleep...

Where...stubs of  paper shape tomorrows nightmare...

Where...dreams begin and life ends..

is the place language comes to die.

Steve Coel / An 11.59 Publication

Documentary Fiction Photography

Steve Coel

Loose Coin

Here -

Where...clipped metal drunken cars clutter the broken citadel at the head of illegal van garaged highway...

Where...coffee blasts from shattered arch match whispered vaped chatter...

Where...youth stubble walk across butchered sleeping path...

Where...loose coin is exchanged on the blind side of adult corners..

is the place language comes to die.

Steve Coel / An 11.59 Publication

Documentary Fiction Photography

Steve Coel

Lace and Metal

Here -

Where...small feet climb cob-web steel tree and pram wheels fall into strutted path...

Where...voices falter and fingers strip lace and metal...

Where...cobbled streets are cursed by van driver and box fresh trainers stumble out of brightly lit off licenced corners..

is the place language comes to die.

Steve Coel / An 11.59 Publication

Documentary Fiction Photography

Steve Coel

Heathland Water

Here -

Where...locked doors open to sharp knocking...

Where...chapel neat red velvet seats line walls of rooms that glow with stories of hill and tractor, long tipping nights, and arguments lost to hated officials...

Where...memories are painful and lonely deaths from Park Drive and Senior Service are still talked about in public houses...

Where...boasting is frowned upon...

Where...whispers are heathen across bleak land...and words are spoken loudly by clear eyed distant people...

Where...clotted shoes clamber over torn stile, delayed stone wall and heathland water..

is the place language comes to die.

Steve Coel / An 11.59 Publication

Documentary Fiction Photography

Steve Coel

Corners

You follows the signs - you has to - is what you does if you needs to get what you needs...is all about corners and way you deals with them - really is the truth of the matter - end of.

Steve Coel

Steve Coel

promise is a promise

Today, doorway...long corridor. Place used to be arcade. Not now. Shops are long gone, roof caved in, steel mesh windows ripped out by scrappies with walls decorated courtesy of local youth. No charge. Nice touch that.

You could say it's quiet round this way now there's nothing left to nick. Council says places like this is going to be developed. We'll see. Meantime it's where I comes to spend my days to finish jobs I been doing during the night. I'll have finished in about six months anyways. Do what the fuck they wants then. All of them. And if they ever finds out what I's been hiding round here won't be any comeback.

Promise is a promise.

Steve Coel

Steve Coel

Derelict Stone

Steve Coel

In high heeled plimsoll, your shoe spears steel spines of cold, open, derelict stone.

Steve Coel

You're close to pub and laughter but in the headlight of fears grip.

Steve Coel

It's a disaster, with anger and rotten spittle flooding poorly lit cardboard city corner and short skirted nightlife.

Steve Coel

See

You can see...

metal  empty  nothing  grim  war  lost  simple  machinery  class  blind  building  hope  gaps  full  atomic  paint  street  flame  schedule  blanket  beach  valley  sweat  furnace  promise  blunt  blank  liquid  warehouse  shield  padlock  flint  bank  balance  blame

Steve Coel

I can see...

puddle  space  imagination  life  calm  fever  plastic  violence  naked  window  landmark  dream  guilt  barricade  paradise  splash  field  narrow  orchard  painting  decay  mine  blunder  silence  spindle  alley  gravel  table  canal  fence  blade  fossil  platform  waste  failure

  Steve Coel

Footfall in Albany

Morning

Is about frail, weightless older men who come into the cafe for their daily three hour coffees, game of cards and who all talk endless bollocks about non existent winning horses.

Afternoon

Is mainly about shapeless smackheads and local hard core druggies who come into the cafe to settle small debts and to boast about knowing where next deal is going to happen.

Evening

End of the day for some. Cheap fatty meals and shelter from street pain.

Late Night

Is about 'real money' being made in busy stockrooms of empty shops.

Steve Coel

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.

Steve Coel

Steve Coel

Tall Ships

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 play on empty streets near to crumbled demolished homes. 

Tall ships hanging over brick wall skulk in this broken vision. Tall ships made by small people whose dreams, daily smashed, mirror the horror of this passing time.

Close by, crisp tied visitors arrive and soon leave. As they always have and always will. Visitors making quick decisions over local pie and ignored cake.

Windowless empty youth painted buildings now scatter to wind and sudden downpour.

In large open working spaces; in tired dormant, feral communities; few people gather each morning for early shift. Labour here is 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.

Documentary Fiction Photography 

Steve Coel

Paper Grass

Crouching; doglike alongside a fence corrugated with time, the local old man patters his way home, all memory a slight flicker in grass and paper. Liquid; sweet and delicate, reminds him of people long gone. All are now dismissed with relatives and friends, sweethearts and enemies, photographs and bruises. In a bottle he finds time and peace. In a bottle he becomes young again, a fighter, a winner.

Steve Coel

Steve Coel

Steve Coel

Steve Coel

Steve Coel

Docks Museum

Today...dry docks glisten with salty channel rain as woollen old men sit on one of their favourite benches. Each will smile broadly as together they remember the songs and laughter of young hard welders. Today...visitors will glance at walls of dismal grey photographs. Some photographs show weary men and women waving 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...the old men will return and see it all again. The departing visitors will not see them.

 Documentary Fiction Photography 

Steve Coel

Rains on Me / Custom House

Innocence doesn't exist here anymore, not even for the young. No, only dead eyes stare from photographs taken on cheap cameras by drunk uncles.

Standing in the doorway to the Custom House you silently mouth a plea for small change. This is not your regular spot and your recent close shave has gone. The waterside is busy, but you are not, and slowly you are becoming invisible. Eventually, you will disappear leaving only a shadow in each doorway of this street.

Note.

The shadow of a man, each day up from the Sally down the docks. Into town. Stillness. In the doors of the Western and Echo.

Documentary Fiction Photography 

Steve Coel

Empty Corners */ The Proposal**

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.*

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.**

Steve Coel

Our life hangs on a single thread / It soon is out and we are dead / Just like a flower you were up at dawn/ A day passed by and you were gone / So boast not reader of your might / Alive at noon and dead by night.

Rhyme and Reason

Steve Coel

It's doleful doorway conversations along the recently re-inforced street.

Steve Coel

It's each footstep spiced up and dispersed along the feral gutter.

Steve Coel

It's steel wire wrapped around the useless guttering that blows into window and youth.

Arbrofion - Steve Coel

Laugh That

Starts on the street. Outside like. Begins with Police searching a car, wrong car as it happens, and other footies holding this guy up against a wall while others is checking his jacket in doorway of adult store. Is my understanding they won't find nothing.

Is sunny day. Busy day actually. Bad atmosphere. And I's seeing looks being passed between people trying too hard not to know each other. Failing badly they is, they really should do better. So here's the story. Morning. Early for some, late for others. And someone, it would seem, is clearly not going to make it through the day and is already getting desperate and is needing some action pretty quick, like right away, right now. So. Quick snatch job is all, but bad call is what it is. Being watched see and being watched quite closely as it happens. Luckily, for all involved, footie wades in. There's a bit of running round, who doesn't like a good chase? Local security joins in too. Laugh that, though twats they is because people's quick round here. When opportunity arises. So, quick in and out is all. Even though they knows cameras got them and security'll be having 'words' later. Poor bastards. Like I tells you is my street. Reckon you knows rest.

Documentary Fiction Photography 

Steve Coel

Shadow Nut Wood

It begins by the shallow path that slopes unevenly away from the shadow nut wood. Here, along the broken hill and towards the distant wet rock, corrugated cylindered tunnels, all built to hide and imprison, shelter straight back frightened animals.

Thick with the embrace of both mud and food, death stamps its mark into heated spot, as an acid smell of ripped air, fallen dead leaf and crippled motor oil twists open the unyielding buckle of weed.

Steve Coel

 

Inside Out

Below the 9 by 9 bricked tunnel, removed by light and fierce water, rollered paper is slipping down the streamered hoarding...chastened, wet plastic sheeting covers the chipped cement pavement as the bruised boots of youth enter the alarm belled neighbourhood.

Arbrofion - Steve Coel

Stryd Fawr / Stryd Uchel ( 2021 )

Steve Coel

Stuff Outside

Like looking out through our window I does. Looking out I sometimes wonders to myself what it must be like trying to get past all the stuff on the sidewalk. Bit of an adventure I suspects. There's been complaints I's telling you. Bruised knees is popular. Letters from council has finally stopped though. Owner'll be pleased when I sees him. Still; we never has customers, so looking out the window gives me something to do while I wait to answer the landline and pass on the message. Doesn't really explain why he has all the stuff outside on the sidewalk though does it? Can't help wondering where it all comes from to be honest.

Steve Coel

Stryd Fawr / Stryd Uchel ( 2021 )

Steve Coel

Detour

It's the duty of the blind man to show us all the way and daughters of the richer man to make us want to stay, the seeker of the truth who fights against his will, it's a great leap into darkness for us all.

A Memory for Bukowski

I watch you throw your legs out of the car, on the passenger side, on to the sidewalk. Straight into the path of the local blind beggar I watch you kick away his stick, steal his money and take a dig with your shank. I watch you step back into the car and drive away the poorer man.

Steve Coel

Steve Coel

Heavenly Session

Extract1

See the old guy in corner; Doghead is what we calls him because Doghead is what he likes being called. Main reason being he's always on about times either had dogs or raced them or something like that. Was coming here before I took over like, so could be different reason. Anyway. Always in corner spot, always drinks steady like; for an old timer...no problem...

Extract 2

Been watching it all go down, not seen it this bad before. Somebody is going to win, somebody always does. But; if you has winners you has losers too, just natural like. I ain't a loser. Will always win me. Always.

Steve Coel

About four characters and their responses to the same threat.

From Tin Collector

Steve Coel

Owl Eye Brown / Shadows

With a stick on smile all owl eye brown, the young girl looks down long avenues of car metal gutter full with wish and dream. Meantimes, her tattered boyfriend ( in his hastily bought clothes ) hustles shadow money from grey figures in barely lit parks. 

Steve Coel

In the nick of time power station reflection you upgrade another dog end and once again check the hidden shank in your Clink Hotel grey. Long times are short here, because outside nobody stands still and your daily routine is now dictated by the coded message of engine, animal and whistle and by shadows that appear and disappear on park borders.

Steve Coel

Steve Coel

Thin Whistle at Dusk

Mystery man, shadow man is what they used to call him. Him, the latest three day thin whistle at dusk millionaire returning from sea, to die like his father again, over and over. Shallower seas back then, better cut cloth, broader smiles. Now, after too many rope marks and twisted bone accidents, life comes mixed to stillness with drink, sharp curses and dark corners.

Steve Coel

National Flash Fiction Day 2021

Footfall in Albany

1. Morning

Is all about frail, weightless, frightened older men who come into cafe for daily three hour coffees, game of cards and who all talk endless bollocks about non existent winning horses.

2. Afternoon

Is mainly about shapeless local smackheads and hard core druggies who come into cafe to settle small debts and to boast about knowing where next deal is going to happen.

3. Evenings

End of the day for some, sees cheap fatty meals and shelter from the pain of the street.

4. Late Nights

Is all about 'real money' being made in busy stockrooms of empty shops.

Steve Coel

National Flash Fiction Day 2021

Steve Coel

2021

Wired Woods

Day Time

The crump of ancient motor and distant shriek of bird, splits open the clipped hedges and curved field of gate cupped harvest.

Here, when 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 broken windowed shopfronts, you walk in silence through ankle cement, wooden glue, canal wire and rusty nail.

Steve Coel

Steve Coel

Half Stolen Buildings

In her regulation daytime armour

still cracking with coarse whispers

and yesterdays broken promise,

the young girl pushes

her vape shadowed baby carrier

past boarded up pub 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

plastic shoes will slap

into one off needles

that litter fishless gutters

and where, even on dry days

the pavement is damp.

Steve Coel

Steve Coel

Smells of Time

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 all knows

show same best day

as last time, last week, last year.

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.

Steve Coel

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.

Steve Coel

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.

Steve Coel