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
