Rub of Hand

There is a singular peace to be found in spaces where nature is busy removing memory.

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

Because here, where rusty wire gravy becomes encrusted in cement and everything is always broken, the rub of hand and mark of machine have all gone and time is now taking another stumble into unseen swollen puddles of oil, urine and bottled music.

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

An 11.59 Publication

Shadows

In the nick of time power station reflection

you upgrade yet another dog end

and once again check the hidden shank 

in your Clink Hotel grey.

A long time is short here,

because outside nobody stands still. 

And routines are dictated by the coded message 

of engine, animal and whistle

and by shadows that appear 

and disappear on park borders.

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

An 11.59 Publication

Wired Woods

Day Time

The crump of ancient motor and distant shriek of bird split open the clipped hedges and gate of curved fields and cupped minds.

Here, where brown water fallen from rusty pipe clings to chipped rock, is where sweaty paths lead up into singing overgrown wired woods that close in on long forgotten cylindered reminders of hard labour and childhood.

Night Time

Stepping inside the broken windowed shopfront, you walk in silence, smoke in hand, through ankle cement, wooden glue, canal wire and rusty nail.

Walking Notes

   Steve Coel 

An 11.59 Publication   

Truth is...

Truth is...

you's defined by what you is...

by what you does...

by what you wears...

way you acts or reacts...

way; way before what you says...

so...

you's on the downside corner

smoking a newly picked clean

switchblade butt end 

left for you

in local park overnight...

this is not ever nice...

you two, we sees 

sticks too close

to each other,

is the general 

local give away,

didn't listen to 

instructions see,

did you

so...

no respect will be forthcoming...

you's trying too hard

to impress

the 

wrong people.

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

An 11.59 Publication

The Adult Corner

Clipped metal

drunken cars clutter 

the broken citadel

at the head

of the illegal 

van garaged highway.

...the coffee blast

from the 

shuttered arch

is matched

with snatches

of whispered vaped chatter...

A stubble walk

across butchered

sleeping paths

..and loose change

on the blind side

of the adult corner ..

As Seen*

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

One Previous Owner*

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

Low Mileage*

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

An 11.59 Publication

* Print / Poster

The Mercy Path

Once you bypass

the last lightning tree

you enter a hillside world

of midnight stream

and border wire music.

Here, across shilling debris

and early shadow,

blisters of high mist

compose movement

from iron and broken bone.

The Mercy Path

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

Clog Street

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

The place I was born, is not the place I grew up in...

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

An 11.59 Publication

Heavy Locks / Middle Lane Birds / No Paths

Quarrels echo

across the yard

toward a large

watery gate.

Grey

figures turn

hiding their hands

and run

as animals scatter

with the wind

that howls.

Down the hill

women gather

and men glare

from behind vast whiskers

in photographs

of heavy locks

that fasten decisions

from the outside.

Middle Lane Birds

Steve Coel

Along hidden

grassed up 

middle lane birds

swoop as insects

skirt and skit.

Time here

is held in place

by bells

distant with summer

brown and crinkled blue.

No Paths

Steve Coel

Here,

where young people

never return

and there are no paths,

is the place

language goes to die,

and old people

still stop to watch

lost cars

drive pass.

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

An 11.59 Publication

Cheap Red Wine

Even on sunny mornings night time shadows move among the rusting steel underpass

..and the road above is ripped through with blind street eyes suffocating in splintered rain.

Oily shapes are squandered along the collapsed kerbside shop fronts..

as twisted paths sheepishly carve a route across knocked out grass and broken bales...

Here salt smashes into rock path and dripping cliff; here, where weather growls at footsteps, and distant noise is ancient and honest.

The cracked window wired doorway smells of cheap red wine and restless sleep as, stubs of burnt paper, shaped into tomorrows nightmare, mark the time where dreams begin and life ends.

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

All this seems too familiar.
Perhaps this isn't a good thing.
Who knows?

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

An 11.59 Publication

Pointed Shoes

No crowds, just directionless pointed shoes.

- and slippy eyes fixed on glassy oil pavements -

...and the bubble gum smell of illegal cheap drink.

It's the stripped down high of cracked Sunday morning shoes found in the stolen box by the closed shop.

- and the greasy thin blue sky spitting light on the planked up corner shopfront.

- all make believe smiles that shadow the closed shuttered room...

... in the service of nervous separation from the paperless faces of authority ...

High Street

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

High Street

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

An 11.59 Publication

The Fingerless Hours

The decay of sunset in the fingerless hours...

Old smiles reflected in rust.

Pictures, grey with thought, are carelessly hidden in broken hedges.

and headless dolls and plastic tea sets where cider rules and private air smells bitter

and finally, ripped posters clashing with twisted empty doorways

behind splintered bar-room chatter.

The zipped up bottled highway spinning up into secret woodlands...above the disconnected barren city limit

Purple eyes glaze across the stubborn river

Cider bottle leather jackets stacked on wooden stalls

rushed bruises painted on [ all the ] wrong walls

the stumble gates along the rutted brick

From the broken bandstand to the burnt out bark, the crippled landscape is holding the sky in place

gritted rotten walls shake at the passing of invisible feet

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

Walking Notes

Steve Coel

An 11.59 Publication