MicroFlashFiction - Steve Coel

Rescued Footprints

Documentary Fiction Photography

Rescued Footprints

Alongside several boarded up town houses, torn cars are being buttoned into fired up twisted spaces... as the music of early morning neighbourhood footstep is reflected in slow moving traffic that idles and stutters into the 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.

Steve Coel

Daytime Armour

Documentary Fiction Photography

Daytime Armour

In her regulation daytime armour still cracking with coarse whispers and yesterdays broken promise, the young girl pushes her vape shadowed baby carrier pass boarded up pub windows.

Her world is the local high street where each day a bitter grey tide of school friends shamble downhill towards abandoned blue churches and disappearing city light. And it is here plastic shoes will slap into one off needles that litter papered gutters and where, even on dry days, the pavement is always damp.

Steve Coel

Dull Flowers

Here -

Where...yesterdays comical events sit buried in vintage blue cement..

Where...blistered streams fall into backyard carpet shed..

Where...dull flowers pilfer hedgerow litter..

Where...stoney-engined vehicle bruises centre lane grass..

Where...weightless men saunter early into cotton hospital shroud..

is the place language comes to die.

Steve Coel

Nylon Shoe

Here -

Where...straight talking is a cold charmless metallic click..

Where...wind launched building demolition scratches neighbourhood itch..

Where...sharp light falls on damp nylon shoe..

Where...last nights takeaway guides corner walled stumble..

Where...bitter smoke sticks to dark glass passenger..

is the place language comes to die

Steve Coel

Machine Winnings

Here-

Where...failure becomes a habit..

Where...values are challenged and always disputed..

Where...machine winnings replace job prospects..

Where...happiness is solitary, forgotten and distant..

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

is the place language comes to die.

Steve Coel

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.

Steve Coel

Iron Shelter

Here -

Where...pavement shy funeral cars are smokey..

Where...mapped walking is silenced by small group gossip..

Where...sleeping iron sided shelters are brick piled into bulldozed walls..

Where...music is daytime dead..

Where...beaten up fenced trees strangle the air..

is the place language comes to die.

Steve Coel

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-pass' toughened water..

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

is the place language comes to die.

Steve Coel

Paper Bag

Here -

Where...banned entry is monitored by bored looking glass eye..

Where...cracked machine street furniture empties rigid oil onto skated shoe..

Where...paper bag eating is tin roof sheltered..

Where...curious hands grip tightly bridged water passage way..

Where...alarm bells herd crowds into uniformed wallets of silence..

is the place language comes to die.

Steve Coel

Hidden Rumour

Here -

Where...spirited cloth tightly holds hidden defence..

Where...painted step reveals rusted night-time dancing..

Where...burnt time walking becomes wall shy and forced..

Where...open doors disperse rumour of stolen memory..

Where...expensive remarks are fake..

is the place language comes to die.

Steve Coel

Wired Beauty

Here -

Where...drowned road happiness is traded for pennies..

Where...beauty is inked into loose skin..

Where...hostel dispute is shop door knuckled..

Where...salted air breathing is painful reminder of loss..

Where...wired thought becomes backroom industry..

is the place language comes to die.

Steve Coel

Shadows

In the nick of time power station reflection you upgrade yet another dog end and once again slyly check the hidden shank in your Clink Hotel grey. A long time is short here because outside nobody can afford to stand still. Round this way, routine is dictated by coded message from engine, animal and whistle and also by shadows that appear, then disappear, on park borders. Steve Coel

The Proposal

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

From The Mercy Path (2024)

Lowland Feather

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

...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...

...(there) out 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...

Steve Coel