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
