Howard Pipe

Nerve cells tingle
as a sharp bolt
of energy
switches power
...

I am passing through time,
and in the morning light
she waits at the bus stop,
like yesterday in black and white
...

Their chiselled contours are featureless
when the wind changes,
no cairns to mark their traces,
buried by a falling sky,
...

You will be spending time
like last year, on your knees
raking back the dead leaves,
like a child again.
...

Windswept clouds turned slate grey
edge the blue skies of morning.
The air feels fresh
as if the swan song of Summer is over;
...

Memories linger
like mist on a turning tide,
then fade
into the unknown.
...

A buzzard rides the thermals
above the winding beck,
where the old stones hide away
and weary travellers trek.
...

He slips through the shadows, early morning rises slowly.
Feels its naked breath
as the day splutters into life.
Shivers, alone,
...

Before the sun falls
into long nights,
trees trace their empty outlines
against the hollow landscape.
...

I can splash warmer tones
on a watery sky,
nudge the drifting cloud,
touch the Spring shoots,
...

A letter on the mat appears, unexpected,
a moment in isolation.
No waiting, no slow burn like a candle wick,
no drip drip from a kitchen tap.
...

Now the sleepers lie no longer,
and cinders, cold and lifeless, remain.
Coal black smokestacks and the ghostly screech of brakes
flicker as memories fade.
...

When she waited for a coffee
and lost her thoughts he was
a face in the crowd, and he missed her
by a table when she poured
...

We watch the dying embers fade,
the evening fires of summer
float on a sun drenched sea,
and we breathe still
...

All eyes on the departures screen
on the hour and in between,
weary folk with bags in tow
pulling wheels against the flow,
...

Light hands work the leather footwear,
door bell tings, eyes open wide,
behind the work bench grinder screeches,
hammer, tool box by its side.
...

We drill and mine our fragile earth
for mineral wealth and all its worth,
against the flow that nature forces,
leaving scars on scarce resources.
...

Only yesterday,
when the sun had passed its zenith,
did it occur to me
that Summer is a brief affair.
...

Castle headland stands defiant,
wave washed shoreline sweeps below,
windswept cliffs hug sandy beaches,
waters bathed in sunlight glow.
...

A double decker at the bus stop
meet the driver's cheery smile
it always was the way to travel
ride the extra country mile.
...