Short Fiction: Experiments + Proposals - Steve Coel / An 11.59 Publication
Here -
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.
Steve Coel / An 11.59 Publication
Rust on Cloth
( 2023 )
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.
Rust on Cloth
You walks along striding lengths of vacant brick where even today you never sees new cars. And sliding pass pub windows that shield sun and rain and bad dreams you gets the full yeasty blast of damp cloth and old men sharing lies over warm beer and brown fingers.
Spare Change for Twisted Feet
People you wants, needs, is every time busy. Is why you's visiting Clink Hotel. Is truth.
Cracked Smile
Like two coins rubbed clear your cracked smile is a daily reminder of the last fight 30 years ago.
No Paths...
Here, where young people never return and there are no paths and old people stop to watch lost cars, is the place language comes to die.
Steve Coel / An 11.59 Publication
* A small but well attended mid-week spoken word event in Birmingham. Rust on Cloth came up in conversations. A reminder of previous Birmingham city centre MicroFlashFiction experiments and images from Tin Collector ( An 11.59 Publication) and Born in the Workhouse ( An 11.59 Publication )
Cardiff ( 2023 )
**
Etched into time
etched into St Augustine's headland stone
the daily ritual of dockland kerb
being painted by elderly welders.
**
Dead Air into Warm Harp
Since I bust my legs down The Works I's been spending my mornings blowing dead air into warm harp by Central Library. Bust me heart too truth be told. Lost everything now I has. Still; once I's got enough coin I go gets a mild and Clark's pie in The Vulcan and, more often than not, I ends up chatting to the old girls warming themselves up before they goes to work under the bridge by The Glastonbury. Clink Hotel cross the road tends to get noisy in the afternoon so I wanders back into town for a bit of a stretch and goes and cadges a cup of tea from Asteys before I heads back down Bute to the Sally for warm meal and early bunk. Really I doesn't have time to feel sad. Not me. Trick I finds is to forget past and stick to what I knows. Needs change of shoes mind. Probably find some come Sunday side of hostel door.
MicroFlashFiction
Steve Coel / An 11.59 Publication
Here -
Where...slim concrete staircases funnel nervous jealous glances..
Where...starched wrinkled skin sticks to stretched bone..
Where...young people die old..
Where...unopened door fades into peeling brick and small bottled yard..
Where...glum dance patters aggressively on fractured acre..
is the place language comes to die.
Steve Coel / An 11.59 Publication
Here -
Where...barber shop windows reflect passing stooped daytime..
Where...cheap toys are solitary on garden wall and stolen trolley..
Where...lost faces merge with elderly condemned brick..
Where...suspicious tin badge statements are worn like dismissed broken attitude..
Where...wild animals pass through broken door work place..
is the place language comes to die.
Steve Coel / An 11.59 Publication
promise is a promise
today doorway long corridor
place used to be arcade not now
shops are long gone
roof caved in steel mesh windows
ripped out by scrappies
walls decorated courtesy
of local youth
no charge nice touch that
so you could say
it's quiet around this way
now there's nothing left to nick
council says places like this
is going to be developed we'll see
meantime it's where I comes
to spend my days
to finish jobs
I been doing during the night
I'll have finished in about
six months anyways
do what the fuck they wants then
all of them
and if they ever finds out
what I been hiding round here
won't be any comeback
promise is a promise
* Originally published: Tin Collector, 2015. An 11.59 Publication
Here -
Where...hammered workplace shoulders scratch tattoo vein..
Where...elevated mirror views reach into roped water..
Where...rapid stone road footstep signals are passed among rivals..
Where...casual shop window seats remain chained to suspicion and small debt..
Where...old newspapers stay untouched..
is the place language comes to die.
Steve Coel / An 11.59 Publication
Here -
Where...recycled gloves spill glassed ale in corner seat of damp pop-up..
Where...grey cigarette stained trackies stand broken in cement bank shelter..
Where...midnight football is supported by passing runaways heading to early morning meal..
Where...cupped smoke and industrial strength poison cans work full-time to keep the cold out..
Where...sharp light slices into puddled indoor short-cut..
is the place language comes to die.
Steve Coel / An 11.59 Publication
Recent MicroFlashFiction Stories
from
An 11.59 Publication
[ Enquiries - Steve Coel: Ingot Studios, Birmingham ]
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Chewed up...Walled in Wasteland...Broken Light...Secret Keys...Push Chair...Welded Arm...Small Fish...Glass Light...Evenings Shadow...Plastic Shoes...Lost String...Tacky Metal...Dull Flowers...Sleeping Path...Dark Glass...Oiled Doorstep...Fuzzy Pictures...Passing Rumours...Rings on her fingers...Smells of Time...Local Trade...Small Pockets...Whistled Anger...Empty Chair...Half Stolen Buildings...Up at the Knock...The Right Shadow...Write with your Ears...Thin Whistle at Dawn...Prison Ship...Heathland Water...Early Shift...Empty Corners...Dead Trees...Small Country...Bitter Fingers...A Tram - to Nowhere...Robert Johnson: 1911 - 1938...Shopping Trolley...Heavy Locks...Sarn Elen...Arglwyddes y Lon...Solo Rooms...Fuzzy Pictures #2...Deaf Ears: Part 1 - 4...Fallen Brick...Today Not Tomorrow...Steel Mesh.
Illustrations / Images: Documentary Fiction Photography - An 11.59 Publication
Here -
Where...shaded front windows blank out screamed memory..
Where...watered gravel road hides handshake meeting..
Where...cheap endeavour is forced..
Where...emotion is mid-air and blank eyed..
Where...coat collar romance is early evening and drunk..
is the place language comes to die.
