The Right Shadows ( 2022 )


Daytime Hideaways

Between rubble and broken glass, in backspaces unseen from roads and rear view mirrors, shaking hands are being shaken. Tracksuits here are worn to hide shape, weapons and sex, and trade, like this space, is invisible and unknown.

The Right Shadow

Grey when you's staying at Clink Hotel. Black when you returns home to no fixed address. Each casts the right shadow, makes you invisible. Makes you useful.

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.

The Proposal

Cut into bitter grey stone by masters of dead trades, your life story. Brief like you, words torn from broken parents target the elders who created your passing.

No Paths

Here, where young people never return and there are no paths, is the place language goes to die and old people stop to watch lost cars drive pass.




Stretched Bone #6 - Stretched Bone #10

Stretched Bone #6

Here -

Where...boasting is frowned upon..

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

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

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

Where...half gloved hands rap on steel plate and small window..

Where...eyes glare blankly at half empty cups settled on scratched table tops..

Where...steep dark pictures dent curved sky-line..

Where...mobile notes are glued to pavements damp with summer..

Where...young people die old..

Where...loyalty is sought and funded through dark glass..

is the place language comes to die.


Stretched Bone #7

Here -

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

Where...stripped bare wall paintings spray the cold message of futile argument..

Where...narrow lane romance flickers over roof ridged border..

Where...small rusty badges and yellowed brick are etched on pointed walking stick..

Where...cheap tables split abandoned doorways..

Where...cliff edge bramble holds litter to ransom..

Where...puzzled footstep is matched with clumsy frail voice..

Where...second hand clipped fashion rails spill strong alcohol and stained toxic mist..

Where...narrow concrete staircases funnel nervous jealous glances..

Where...beauty is hooded..

is the place language comes to die.


Stretched Bone #8

Here -

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

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

Where...the slow brickwork slivers of expectation collide with motored demolition..

Where...routine is never obvious..

Where...fuzzy pictures reveal short hard lives scratched on to broken dockside and burnt timber..

Where...homes are splashed across derelict, tired hillside..

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

is the place language comes to die.


Stretched Bone #9

Here -

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

Where...fussy overcoats and woollen carpet shape grassy valley roadway..

Where...modern memory is glazed with empty cans of blood..

Where...fallen brick slices postered railing..

Where...juiced radios play out potent messages to scaffolded local trade..

Where...antique van apathy clings to melted future..

Where...layered sounds of gated dog and broken motor serenade gloomy high street..

Where...teenage anger lasts long into retirement..

Where...harmony is seen between broken shop trolley, mid-summer puffa jacket and cannabis vape..

Where...bottom shelf goods are swallowed by small pockets..

is the place language comes to die.


Stretched Bone #10

Here -

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

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

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

Where...slippery couples meet between sheets of harsh fabric..

Where...handshakes are never between strangers..

Where...crowds gather to pass time and silence..

Where...derelict woods shelter shrivelled worlds..

Where...fake grins act as currency..

Where...door step begging is hasty and mindless..

Where...nylon jumpered youth blankly congregate..

is the place language comes to die.


Steve Coel / An 11.59 Publication