Rescued Footprints (2024)

Extracts taken from walking notes. Sleepless mornings deep in busy empty streets.

..alongside several boarded up townhouses, torn cars are being buttoned into fired twisted spaces...it's the music of early morning neighbourhood footstep reflected in slow moving traffic windows that stutter and idle into a yawning high street...

...close by, bare armed and heavily booted, keyholders arrive in knots of secret glances and reluctant handshakes, while patiently adopting the routine of shouldered good nature and long days of empty ambition...

Text - Steve Coel

Photograph - Steve Coel

Curated by An 11.59 Publication

No Paths (2026) - Broken Light..Charity Coffee

Broken Light

Here -

Where...tacky metal emblems cling to half shredded walls of commerce..

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

 

Where...waistcoat watches lie trapped in muddied brickwork..

Where...shallow drunk opinion dominates afternoon doorway purchase..

Where...beauty is hooded..

is the place language comes to die.

Charity Coffee

Here -

Where...bladed vape chatter tumbles into unlit corridor..

Where...fragmented sour heel machinery lies idle..

Where...cracked glass memory leans into elbowed temper..

Where...crippled time shelters from hillside churched solitude..

Where...rusty thimble alcoholics drink cold cartons of charity coffee..

is the place language comes to die.

Footnote - Why we should all read Experimental Short Fiction

'Experimental writing is often the strop that keeps your knife sharp...to implore that there are different ways of doing things...different perspectives...and different modes of reading.

You will not like all of it, but you will have a greater idea of what you like...and most importantly, you probably won't forget it'

Lee Mackenzie - Poet, Artist

No Paths (2026) - Bandstand..Begged Scandal..Board Yards

Bandstand

Here -

Where...top floor swearing is frequent..

Where...poor disguises are deliberate..

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

Where...derelict woods shelter shriveled worlds..

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

is the place language comes to die.

Begged Scandal

Here -

Where...old parking is pavement rumour and small stone guttered..

Where...eclipsed views remain splintered with caged scissor precision..

Where...begged scandal is threatened..

Where...24 hour slowness is eyed suspiciously through boarded shop window..

Where...young shoes shoulder new passages on to industry dust covered machinery..

is the place language comes to die.

Board Yards

Here -

Where...recycled pathways stay unused and ignored..

Where...newly painted rail station gallery is haunted by plastic discipline..

Where...cryptic commands rattle through tight van streets into twisted board yards..

Where...key-ring novelty is blown into building machinery..

Where...boxed reminders become landfill..

is the place language comes to die.

No Paths (2026) - Adult Hands...Apple Canal...Back Pocket

Adult Hands

Here -

Where...illegal plastic high releases urgent stammered step..

Where...solitary private glass is windowed in shoddy single drinking room..

Where...stolen adult hands are nailed..

Where...blown factory wall rage by-passes toughened water..

Where...sponsored imagination drains away through rusting pipe..

is the place language comes to die.

Apple Canal  

Here -

 

Where...surface anger is scheduled for evening cycle ride..

Where...delivery boxed vandalism is slow hand clapped on coin free street corner..

Where...carded empty building sites play daytime tunes to passing tin drunk..

Where...scooters litter apple canal space..

Where...walking dogs is compulsory..

is the place language comes to die.

Back Pocket

Here -

Where...frosted symphony bamboo foot bleeds into glass split concrete..

Where...silent fingers cup memory..

Where...bloodied alert eyes are street fierce..

Where...back pocket lamps guide bullied handshake greeting..

Where...muted trolley tight waiting is slow shuffled along wired footpath..

is the place language comes to die.

Lowland Feather - Short Story Extract

Image - Steve Coel

...out there on the scarab pathed moor where lonely birds pleat their song into ferned memory, old feet leisured by a lifetime of pain, shuffle slowly homewards...

...close by, as carefully baited lowland feather slaps its muted surface, ripple stone water stumbles into ice age grass bank...and through gaps in tree tired stone walls, wild horses fret and gather as rutted horizons shadow mountain valley...

 ...after too many years spent on The Mercy Path absorbing wire sharp whistled song, farewells will still be given through brick house window and muddied wall...

No Paths

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

Text - Steve Coel

Photograph - Steve Coel

Curated by An 11.59 Publication