Steve Coel - Knuckled Silence

Documentary Fiction Photography - Steve Coel

Knuckled Silence

Here -

Where...shouldered bag running is closely followed..

Where...bus stop seated sleeping bag remains untouched..

Where...knuckled silent demands are reflected in glueless gated shop door..

Where...selected fence post information guides restless suspicion..

Where...street jumbled eating is rapid and pathless..

is the place language comes to die.

Steve Coel

Steve Coel - Illegal Fragrance

Documentary Fiction Photography - Steve Coel

Illegal Fragrance

Here -

Where...dining room corners are secretly guarded..

Where...tightly held anonymous bottles conceal early morning agendas..

Where...rusted chainsaw vans clutter oiled side-street rubbled warehouse..

Where...cheap illegal fragrances batter muted steel trimmed trolley romance..

Where...unseen security walking is never invisible..

is the place language comes to die.

Steve Coel

Steve Coel - Machine Muted

Documentary Fiction Photography - Steve Coel

Machine Muted

Here - 

Where...cracker jack bucket fire is street parked alongside guilty night time dog walking..

Where...laddered conversation is machine muted..

Where...rusty girdered security newspaper string hats hide and shelter..

Where...painted nightmares reflect pub door stumbling and grumbled farewell..

Where...bitter enjoyment breaks up shadowed days..

is the place language comes to die.

Steve Coel

Steve Coel - Small Pockets

Documentary Fiction Photography - Steve Coel

Small Pockets

Here - 

Where...stubs of paper shape tomorrows nightmare..

Where...fussy overcoats and woolen carpet litter grassed up valley roadway..

Where...modern memory is glazed with empty cans of strong lager..

Where...fallen brick slices postered railing..

Where...bottom shelf goods are swallowed by small pockets..

is the place language comes to die.

Note: Speeding cars, shoplifting fights, Sunday league arguments...can all turn a simple stroll into an inner city symphony of sorts...a human soundscape that is probably being repeated almost everywhere...Steve Coel

Steve Coel - Sharp Light

Documentary Fiction Photography - Steve Coel

Sharp Light

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 headed to early morning meal..

Where...cupped smoke and industrial strength poison cans work full-time to keep the old out..

Where...sharp light slices into puddled indoor short-cut..

is the place language comes to die.

Steve Coel

Nylon Building - Steve Coel

Documentary Fiction Photography - Steve Coel

Nylon Building

Here -

Where...knotted metal carpet rolls lean on concrete window saleroom..

Where...reflected sleep is caught shuffling across bridged river..

Where...drained smiles remain confused..

Where...doctored papers shield gridded nylon building..

Where...ordered talk is wooden..

is the place language comes to die.

Steve Coel

Screamed Memory - Steve Coel

Documentary Fiction Photography

Screamed Memory

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.

This particular 'word riff'...which became Half Stolen Buildings (2024), An 11.59 Publication...still fascinates me...Somebody told me they saw it as 'short story in experimental poetry form'...Fair enough...but I am not a Poet...for me this is not poetry...it is MicroFlashFiction...Steve Coel

Hollow Buildings - Steve Coel

Documentary Fiction Photography

Hollow Buildings

Here -

Where...hollow buildings shadow painted moment..

Where...dull flowers pilfer hedgerow litter..

Where...warehouse beams trap steel smile and welded arm..

Where...daily trauma functions alongside passing rumour..

Where...lost faces merge with condemned brick..

is the place language comes to die.

Frosted Vision - Steve Coel

Documentary Fiction Photography

Here - 

Where...narrow lane adventures are captured in muddy headlight and cry of tortured bird..

Where...broken lives are inherited..

Where...evenings shadow lies distressed on ripped rock and moss border..

Where...isolated youth walk through decades of frosted vision..

Where...small trees blanket fallen brick..

is the place language comes to die.
 

Fractured Acre - Steve Coel

Documentary Fiction Photography

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.

Hanging on to the Bruised Fence (1999)

Documentary Fiction Photography - Steve Coel

Extracts...

A stick tip tapping down the platform...sympathy and shock...crowds 

parting to bleak groans from grown men. Across the way, park fires 

are cracking an evil flicker and sidewalks glisten perspiring after 

another days heavy abuse.

*  *  *

Drunken shoes and ghosts remain dormant in a world gone crazy ... 

nightlife shovelled gleefully into demanding hands and ... gypsy 

souls drinking thimbles of wine and scuffles down the street.

Steve Coel

A series of Experimental Music+Word performances over a period of about 18 months or so, difficult to repeat even now. Still they happened and that is a good thing. This is a very short extract of a much longer Experimental Narrative. A bit out of my comfort zone, but again that too is a good thing. Steve Coel

Space Round The Back (2017)

Documentary Fiction Photography - Steve Coel

There are no animals. No birds, no cats, no foxes. Just desolation, emptiness, conceit. This is the 'gap'. Some people look at this space and see the past. Others look at this 'gap' and imagine the future.

Some people are dealing with realities.

While others consider possibilities.

From Seeing This All Over: De City Tour - 2017/2018.

Road tours were a constant feature of...well life...for so many years. Meeting so many creative people, doing so many creative things. I could listen to the same person as you yet come away with differing ideas/viewpoints/skills...this was always a good thing.

Much new tech. has [for me] sort of killed the impetus to tour as much...but I'm always amazed at the sheer amount of really interesting/challenging/original stuff that continues to happen 'off grid' so to speak when I do/can.

Steve Coel

Iron Shelter - Steve Coel

Documentary Fiction Photography - Steve Coel

Iron Shelter

Here -

Where...music is day time dead..

Where...beaten up strangled trees steal fenced air..

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..

is the place language comes to die.

Steve Coel

Apples and Pears - Steve Coel

Documentary Fiction Photography - Steve Coel

Got another letter...just another reminder...just like all the others...

Then.

Times were different and some will still tell you that if you can remember what you were doing you weren't there. But I remember and it was great. Saturday nights dancing at the 'Apples and Pears' with all the other Mods and then off we'd all go Sunday morning to Southend or Margate for a laugh. For me though it only took one big mistake to make all the good things stop and that was seeing that stupid card in the pub window down the Old Kent.

All it said was - 'Fence - Good Money. Ask for Chick before closing'.

So, for a dare really, next Saturday, after listening to new singles with the girls down Woolies, I went over there and asked for Chick. Don't really know what it all meant back then.

Do now.

Now.

Down the market this afternoon people commented about my lovely sixties hairstyle and how it suits me. Some even asked after mother. But I don't like talking. Never did. So I just got on with things. I mean after all those years inside I learnt to keep myself to myself. And as for mother well least said really.

So here I am. I keep myself clean and live off the money I got given on release. It's what they owe me after all seeing as how I've kept my mouth shut all these years.

So when each new letter arrives, like the one today, I'll read it just once and put it away with others. There's no way round it. I am what I am...a rich woman with no life.

Pity mother isn't alive to share it with me really.

[Originally written/published/distributed - 1988, + Tin Collector: Collected MicroFlashFictions - 2015]

Notes: 

My experiences of old street market stalls that sold medals and badges, random shoes and Sunday morning leather jackets from Saturday night gig venues (if you lost your jacket you sort of knew where you could get it back the following day!).

On just one night out down the Old Kent - a large organised bare knuckle fight in a pub backroom, a person being chased out of another pub, and down the street, by someone with a samurai sword and another person being thrown through a window into a pub...good grief...

Steve Coel

Twisted Ornaments - Steve Coel

Twisted Ornaments

Here -

Where...seagulls congregate to share daytime information..

Where...mudless lanes fracture industry and metal..

Where...cold slab chipped rock fountains are smiling and love struck...

Where...glitter ball glamour is boarded and gig postered..

Where...glass shadows stretch into shoeless avenue..

is the place language comes to die.

*  *  *

Six Month Empty Paper Towns: small communities peopled only by those left behind...nowadays, as far as I can tell, an increasingly older and more reflective group of resilient residents who are daily learning to cope with emptiness and lean times...I can only ever be a visitor to these places, but I am always struck/horrified/bewildered by the underlying despair/bitterness of the conversations...

*  *  *

In my own local community - an hours walk shows all the shades and shapes...the movers...the shakers...the chancers...the winners...the losers of the area...Some are clearly falling between the cracks...the gaps that exist between each moment. Snatches of conversation. Moments of aggression. One day this. One day that.

*  *  *

I am drawn to the loneliness of busy places ...the emptiness of crowded places...what is happening is not on the margins of the community...something has gone is missing...opportunity probably.

O ble mae'r bobl wedi Mynd? / Where have all the people Gone?

Steve Coel

Meic Agored: February, 2025

Steve Coel

Smells of Time

In you comes

in your sad seven year old ironic tracksuit and pair of box fresh

in you comes

looking for deals on the board behind the counter

in you comes

doing quick sums and ordering a dozen shots with your release money which you quickly shares out to punters who aren't interested

 

in you comes

barely missed and completely blitzed, just another forgotten madman hero

in you comes

a hero bent by routine

a hero twisted by addiction

a hero caught in the to and fro of time outside which has turned its back and good riddance

in you comes

smelling of time.

Steve Coel

Half Stolen Buildings

In her regulation daytime armour 

that still cracks 

with broken promises and yesterdays 

coarse park bench whisper, 

the young girl pushes her 

vape shadowed baby carrier 

past boarded window and 

gummed railing.

Her world is the High Street 

where each day a bitter grey tide 

shambles downhill 

towards abandoned blue churches 

and disappearing city light.

And it is here her plastic shoes

will slap into one off needles, 

and it is where, even on dry days

the pavement is wet.

Steve Coel

* * *

I often write quickly so as not to lose the spark of an idea...

Aside: Painting in the studio I am also initially quite spontaneous, because I am in most cases, confident both with what I'm doing and with the materials available I am using. I also like taking photographs of the images I make at all stages, because sometimes impressive/important early stage work can get hidden behind overpainting, scraping back and so on..

Steve Coel

Meic Agored: February, 2025

Steve Coel

False Doors

Here -

Where...shop doors embrace the bubble gum smell of illegal cheap drink..

Where...curled up steel yard hideaways become legend..

Where...broken promises are public..

Where...nylon jumpered youth blankly congregate..

Where...aimless driving is deliberate..

is the place language comes to die.

Steve Coel

Band Stand

Here -

Where...top floor swearing is frequent..

Where...poor disguises are deliberate..

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

Where...derelict woods shelter shriveled worlds..

Where...doorstep begging is hasty and mindless..

is the place language comes to die.

Steve Coel

Lon Ganol

Here -

Where...cheap tables split abandoned doorways..

Where...cliff edge bramble holds litter to ransom..

Where...puzzled footstep is matched with clumsy frail voice..

Where...second hand clipped fashion rails spill strong alcohol and stained toxic mist..

Where...beauty is hooded..

is the place language comes to die.

* * *

Note[s]:

* Previously i've been asked about humour in my narratives. Difficult question to answer really as it's sometimes just out of reach and occasionally even i don't recognise it when it occurs. Go figure.

* I have listened to other creators when they reflect that they are drawn to things, events, places that a lot of people often don't see. I like walking and looking but I also I like listening to places. So I guess both listening to and seeing places might begin to explain the driver for the MicroFlashFiction /experimental narratives here.

Steve Coel

Severed Road - The Right Shadows (2025)

Documentary Fiction Photography - Steve Coel

This severed road blankets the hill. Grey and undemanding it reluctantly 

i

 n

  c

   l

    i

     n

      e

       s 

towards the sea 

creating as it falls

regimented lines of steel 

brown with industrial rust 

that envelops a cowering park.

The park - where...

lovers argue and kiss...

young men drink...

and children play. 

From the sea below 

comes the smell and spell 

of promise, 

as dredgered stones 

rattle loudly on concrete and flesh.

Steve Coel

***

In the studio I am surrounded by the archives and leftovers of previous projects and exhibitions. They are a constant reminder of how ideas either developed or fell apart. Success' and failures I suppose. Having finished The Mercy Path (2024) and Half Stolen Buildings (2024) I have now started placing all my work: MicroFlashFiction, Documentary Fiction Photography and Painting, under an umbrella working title - The Right Shadows (2025).

Again, I'm guessing, work will accumulate in the studio, get mixed up with previous bits and pieces and go off at tangents that I'm currently oblivious to. It's how I like to create...

Steve Coel

Dead Air into Warm Harp

Documentary Fiction Photography

Since I bust my legs down The Works I've had to spend all my mornings blowing dead air into warm harp by the Central Library. Bust my heart too truth be known. Lost everything now. Still; once I get enough coin I has a mild and Clark's pie down The Vulcan, and, often or not, I end up talking to the old girls warming themselves up before they go and shelters under the bridge by The Glastonbury.

Clink Hotel across the road gets noisy in the afternoon so I usually wonder back into town for a bit of a stretch and go and cadge a cup of tea from Asteys before heading back down Bute to the Sally for warm meal and early bunk.

Doesn't have time to feel sad really. Not me. Trick I finds, is to forget past and just stick to what I knows. Need change of shoes mind. Guess I'll find some in the box by side door Sunday morning.

The Right Shadows (2025)

Steve Coel

Notes -

Warm Air into Dead Harp reminds me of so much that is never fixed properly...I noticed a lot of damaged adults growing up...some from the war and too many others from closures of steel works and the docks...I still see damaged adults today, we all do...all ages, from all over...it's never right...never was...Steve Coel

Promise is a Promise

Documentary Fiction Photography

Today - doorway, long corridor.

Place used to be arcade, not now. Shops are long gone, the roofs caved in and now mesh windows are being ripped out by scrappies and decorated courtesy of local youth. No charge. Nice touch that.

So you could say it's quiet round this way now there's nothing left to nick.

Council keeps saying places like this are going to be developed. We'll see.

Meantime it's where I come to spend my days. To finish jobs I been doing during the night. I'll have finished in six months anyway. Do what the fuck they want then. All of them.

And, if they ever finds out what I've been hiding round here won't be any come back.

Promise is a promise.

The Right Shadows (2025)

Steve Coel

Notes -

In 2015 I completed a series of MicroFlashFictions which I called 'The Tin Collector'.

Spontaneous, improvised short story ideas mainly...responses to the dull echo of a so called change in the local area...older people talked about the past and little else, younger people about an unknown, uncertain future...Promise is a Promise was an observation of a guy who would just sit all day among the bricks and demolished area behind the High Street...talking to himself...

Steve Coel