Don't Swim in Canals

Documentary Fiction Photography

Some people just don't like reading instructions. Or being given them it would seem.

Even now Thinking back to that night it's still possibly the saddest excuse I've heard, and, after so many visits, over so many years, I'd thought I'd seen it all.

I hadn't.

So she fancied a quiet drink. Right now. Of course this meant she'd have to visit the nearest, and possibly least welcoming pub to her home. She could have had a quiet drink at home. But, this inevitably led to many distractions, the least being her mobile, the most being...well it was mainly her mobile actually.

Her face however, was a familiar one in the pub and which meant people knew when she was to be left well alone. She simply had a way about her she did. But the lads in the corner didn't know this did they? No they didn't.

You'd have thought the message posted behind the bar was warning enough. Oh But no.

Even a quiet word, followed by a series of worried glances from the bar man were ignored. 

The lads evening ended abruptly with a last cold drink and a chaser of warm blood.

The Right Shadows (2025)

Steve Coel

Notes -

Way back when...I wrote a whole heap of experimental London short fictions...exercises mainly, printed up and placed in the alternative sections of various outlets in the South East...I was beginning to learn what I liked to write about and perhaps as importantly, what I could do and what I couldn't...Apples and Pears was probably, no pun intended...the pick of the bunch...

Steve Coel, 2025

Empty Corners

Documentary Fiction Photography

Stepping away from the street through a broken two door, customers painfully walk into a high congregation of brown paper and leather. Inside; along each damp tired wall, anointed paint quietly peels and unclean fragile carpet, frayed by disappointment, falls into hooded empty corners stacked high with rotting chairs.

The Right Shadows (2025)

Steve Coel

Tall Ships - Noticeboard of Dishonesty

Documentary Fiction Photography

It's found up along cobbled visions of forgotten towns in times disputed by all who lived them. In places caught by Pentax and Olympus, children will forever play on empty streets near to crumbled demolished homes. 

Tall ships still hang over street end brick wall in this broken vision with the ships, made by small people whose dreams daily smashed, mirror the horrors of this passing time while close by, crisp tied officials arrive but soon leave as they always have and always will, visitors making quick decisions over local pie and ignored cake. 

Today windowless empty youth painted buildings scatter to wind and sudden downpour as in large open working spaces; in tired, dormant feral communities; few people gather each morning for early shift. Labour here is now too vague, mechanical and undisputed. Tiredness is instant and contagious. Jokes are few, clumsy and dulled by lack of echo. Uniforms, worn in shame, are cheap and ill fitting as they signify nothing but cowardice and lack of respect.

Steve Coel

The Mercy Path

Documentary Fiction Photography

Once you bypass the last starched 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.

Steve Coel

Down the Front

Documentary Fiction Photography

With their stick on smiles all owl eye brown, girls look down on avenues of car metal gutter full with wish and dream.

In these mean times, ripped boyfriends in their hastily bought clothes, shadow money recently hustled from grey figures in badly lit parks. 

This is their place, not yours. It is a space ruptured of romance, empty of mirth, hope, future.

The Right Shadows (2025)

Steve Coel

Whistled Anger

Documentary Fiction Photography

Whistled Anger

Here -

Where...hawthorn tree spaces catch song and memory...

Where...whistled anger cuts through motored gateway..

Where...subtle fingers repeat last nights drunken movement..

Where...painted side street paths splash oiled drug wish on to sullen booted youth..

Where...anonymous blind construction hides skyline humour..

is the place language comes to die.

Steve Coel

Footfall in Albany

Documentary Fiction Photography

Footfall in Albany

Morning

Is about frail, weightless older men who come into the cafe for their daily three hour coffee, game of cards and who will all talk endless bollocks about non existent winning horses.

Afternoon

Is mainly about shapeless smackheads and local hard core druggies who come into the cafe to settle small debts and to boast about knowing where the next deal is going to happen.

Evening

End of the day for some. Cheap fatty meals and shelter from street pain.

Late Night

Is about 'real money' being made in busy stockrooms of empty shops.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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