I’m in a small cold place
perched on the edge, the solo late
night representative of Shell.
I’m researching the after
-life, heaven or hell, really can’t tell.
Muffled shadows shift beyond bullet
-proof glass, reveal inner
shit. Look away, look away.
Unleaded or diesel, Red Bull or Rizla,
Twix or a bit of smut, reformed
cheese sarnies, sausage rolls, Golden
Wonder or a pint full cream.
I don’t give a damn, all pie in the sky.
Make sure you buy before you die.
Dive in from the black
well into my bright, where pumped up
demons and angels self
-service, sniff hydro-carbon light.
It is the hour of the wolf,
and we are all overdue.
The Purple Hermit 
It is that hour, Nikita. I like the eloquent way you’ve captured the feel of the late-night petrol station, brightly lit and deserted. I know it well, from both Australia and Latin America. Is it that, without people, without movement, we can touch its emptiness? Anyway, please continue the research (beautifully expressed, BTW). The photograph is captivating, the juxtaposition of elements, the symbols, and the family of phantasms on the left, of which I am one.
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Thanks for your comments Steve. I’ve always been interested in petrol stations as cultural phenomena since a summer job as a petrol attendant when I was a teenager. In the sixties and seventies when petrol was cheap and driving carefree, there were free gifts and an air of jollity! All gone now. In northern Scotland all the village fuel stations have closed and we have to drive more than fifty miles to fill up. A few years ago I made a project of photographing the deserted pumps with their hauntings and decay. Hope you are well.
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Interesting. Yes, the nature of petrol stations has changed a lot, I also remember from my youth. I still occasionally see the husks of petrol stations outside Sydney. In the city, some smaller ones have been converted to other purposes.
I’m surviving the new age so far, slower than ever with everything, and plenty of off-the-planet ideas. Hope all is good with you also.
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I like your interplay between words and images, also interested in abandoned buildings. When I lived in Sheffield in the 80s seemed a city full of ghosts,vast rusting steelworks and many on the dole in enormous concrete tower blocks. I dont know if you ever this Scottish Film Shell about a remote petrol station in the Highlands, well worth seeing I saw it at Eden Court a few years back. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpSCJA38ORY
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Thanks Alastair. Yes I’ve seen that film. It’s a good one.
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