City Trilogy ( Part 1 )
Dead Air into Warm Harp
Since I bust my legs down The Works I've had to spend my mornings blowing dead air into warm harp by the Central Library. Truth be known, it bust my heart too. Lost everything now. Everything. Still... once I get enough coin in my pocket I go and get a Mild and Clark's pie down The Vulcan. And...often or not, I end up talking to the old girls warming themselves up before they go and shelter under the bridge by The Glastonbury.
Clink Hotel across the road gets noisy in the afternoon after lunch so I wander into town for a bit of a stretch and cadge a cup of tea from Astey's, before heading back down Bute to the Sally for warm meal and early bunk. Don't get time to feel sorry for myself really, not me. Trick I find is to forget past and just stick to what's happening now.
Need change of shoes mind...but I'll always find some in the box by the side door come Sunday morning.
Half Stolen Buildings
In her regulation daytime tracksuit armour, cracking with coarse whispers and yesterdays broken promise, the young girl pushes her vape shadowed baby carrier pass steamed 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 her plastic shoes will once again slap into one off needles that litter fishless gutters and where, even on dry days, the pavement is damp.
Smells of Time...
In you come in your sad seven year old ironic tracksuit and pair of box fresh. In you come looking for deals on the board behind the brown top counter which we know show the same best day price as last time, last week, last month. But in you come, doing quick sums and ordering a dozen shots with your release money which you quickly share out to punters who don't care anymore. In you come, barely missed and completely blitzed. A madman bent by routine, a madman twisted by addiction, a mad man caught in the to and fro of the outside which has turned its back...and good riddance.
In you come - a poorer man, smelling of time.
Steve Coel / An 11.59 Publication
