New Brunswick , Canada.

Silently, clouds

Teach the grammar

Of a summer sky

Summer sky speaking

The language of clouds

So eloquently

© Kate Breen. 2009

LIBERATION

Today I saw Death come riding by,
On dress parade through the sky.

With helm of ivory and cloak of fine bleached silk,
He rode a giant stallion that was as white as milk,

On his way to free some poor soul from the bonds of life and earth,
To which he had been fettered since the night time of his birth.

copyright, Karl Stuart Kline
excerpted from from my book, “Going Without Peggy”
www.poeticat.com
© Karl Stuart Kline. 2009.

” Thunder in the distance,
looms now overhead.
I have sat too long. ”

© Jeremy Mitchell-Christian. 2009.

The Might of an Ephemeral Cloud

Standing on a hill’s summit
In high summer’s heat
All colours below seem flattened to a pastel palette
Faded and deadened by searing sunlight.
But it takes just the passing of a cloud
For village colours to waken and blossom,
Trees to stretch and breathe,
Rivers and hollows, mounds and forests
To leap into a life of abundant greens
Refreshed by the cloud’s shadow
Which is sliding down golden fields
Vaulting over tangled hedgerows
Chasing flocks and herds and boys on bicycles.
Nature’s dimmer-switch – the cloud –
Turns down the glare, the heat
And as its shadow runs and rises, soars and clusters
It caresses the earth’s miraculous face
And I see the might a cloud possesses.

Then later, lazing in the sun’s heat,
Reluctant to step out of it
Wanting, hopelessly, to store the glory
To get me through the poverty of winter,
That lies In wait like a cruel joke.
I know that this time of excess,
Of gorging on sultriness and light,
Will not rise vibrant in my memory.
I will forget the ease and comfort of a body
Relaxed by warmth and long-lit days,
As muscles and mind tighten in the numbing cold
And shortened days turn people inwards.
What I will remember is that instant
When the cloud, frail and transitory
Passing beneath the sun
Stemmed the great fire’s force
And I felt, and saw, the more powerful might
Of a thin, ephemeral cloud…

© Jacqueline Mai. 2009.

Topsham, Maine. U.S.

Water Dreams

When water dreams
its reflective eye gazes upward
to rarefied destiny;
racing with crystalline wisps of cirrus,
carelessly tossed into heights of blue summer,
or merging with whorls of foreboding lenticularis;
ceilings of smoke, faces and fire.

To be one of infinite droplets after a storm,
arcing in neon redemption,
or a reaching, radiant halo
around sun or moon;
oracles revealed at last.

Tendrils curling from a morning lake,
or fog, silent, sifting
through dark spruce.

Cumulus towers are impossible topiaries,
trimmed to the imagination,
or the works of overly romantic painters
that claim the sky.

Hurry now, toward gilded shreds of late autumn sunset,
before small warmth is pulled away,
and dim gates open to boundless shock of icy dark.

So many days of awakening to
ocean and gutter,
river and puddle,
casting an eye skyward
and dreaming anew.

© Jeniferlee Tucker. 2009.

Tempestuous Dawn

In the mornings you weep, like a newly shawn sheep.
Through the day you change shape, like a drunk playful ape.
In the night you’re subdued, like a mole without food.
Then skywards you drift, like a Stannah stair-lift.

It’s these things that I love, my big, cloudy dove! (above).
And it’s these I’ll watch daily, like my DVD of Bill Bailey (gaily).
And I’ll never grow bored, nor will you be ignored (my reward).
And though you’re like condensation, there’ll be no segregation (based on nation)…
…as we wait together for, the inevitable, precipitation (semantic relation!)

© Mark Peacock. 2009.

Cumulus Humilis

(a cinquain)

Cloud sheep

Do not gambol

Nor do they run and jump

Unlike their earthbound eponyms

They scud.

© William R. Brennen. 2009.

Vernon, CT U.S.

White Lights – White Clouds

I saw a big hole in a large white cloud

I stretched out to reach it

My arms were not long enough.

Sunbeams filtered through in dazzling display

A chimney of white light called to me.

It was a ladder with no stairs

Or a robe of light heading straight for me.

I could not touch it so high above

This chimney of Light and of Love.

I saw the circular hole in the middle

I heard the notes of a flute and a fiddle

Sweet notes of instant recognition

While the white light radiated through

This strong stable heap of white cloud

I could not touch it, not allowed

It was not my time to be lifted up.

I saw this shimmering white cloud that afternoon

It spoke to me without speaking,

But I saw it with a third eye

A mystic concentration with due respect.

I sat down but felt raised up and hovering

I think my aura was uncovering

As a bit of Heaven in a chariot low

Shined down through this massive cloud

I could not go, was not allowed.

But with my heart’s eye I could see

This emanation of eternity

Reminding me the white clouds

And God’s ove are free.

© James Webb Wilson(Jim the Poet). 2009

Vernon, CT U.S.

Where Do Dream Clouds go to Die?

Where do dream clouds go to die

After marching across the sky,

Parading monuments for dreams and daring

To spark ideals and thoughts of caring,

To catch a dreamer’s eye and soul

To spur a dream and make it whole.

Do they fall off the edge of the earth,

Off the precipice of their whimsy and mirth?

One time in passing and then gone

Clipped by the reaper of the celestial lawn,

Falling off the stage one scene at a time

Disappearing without reason or rhyme.

Do they just float and flutter off

Into thin fronds feathery and soft

Off as a mackerel sky in a foreign land

Dissipating the mountain so grand

Breaking down a dream so suddenly dismissed

Passed on, deceased, but by a poet kissed.

© James Webb Wilson(Jim the Poet). 2009.

River of Dreams

Oh boy, your heroism is unsurpassed.
and then, you obscure my ship’s mast.
Who goes there? Your guile is my past.
And to river, your swells are so vast.

My reunion has never been lost.
There’s a reason my pancake’s been tossed.
I’ve a line, daughter, that you have now crossed.
Brave soldier, let thee never be bossed.

Raise me amongst devil-demons, cry loud.
Have your moment of freedom, be my Turin Shroud.
Lets we forget, let men never be proud.
…but reasoning’s defunct when I spot a cloud.

© Mark Peacock. 2009.

Wilson, N.C.

Clouds of Emotions

The cumulus hordes the sky with it overpowering dominance,

blending the wind, light and rain to create its earthly ambiance

The darkness reflecting the spirit of my mood,

a lighting flash exposing a soul that needs soothed.

Within its cavernous body eruptions of sound echo loudly,

mimicking a newborn announcing itself to the world proudly.

A crescendo that builds to the intensity of a freight train,

and then it is quieted by the wind blowing sheets of rain.

The next chorus starts where the last one ended,

creating the desired affect the first had intended.

Lighting lashes out with no particular direction,

where ever it strikes has very little protection .

In a unique chaotic way it simulates love in every way,

creating attention to it self like a strutting peacock on display.

A bolt to the heart leaving one’s emotions shock and suspended,

and just as fast as it started, another flash and it has ended.

The quite after the storm, is a lonely period of seeking,

that leaves one searching for answers and self critiquing.

As children we hurried into the rain to play,

as adults confronting love, we seem to run the other way.

By

© Easy-LSM

William J. Houston 2009.

Clown Cloud

Cloud to the North, you blow back and forth.
Cloud in the South, you look like my mouth.
Cloud to the East, you growl like a beast.
…but cloud in the West, oh you are the best!

You look like a clown, but not one with a frown.
One with a grin, and wild laughter therein.
A clown with a nose as red as it goes.
And hair wild like Don King brimful of Rum-Sling.

I could watch you forever, but that’s not allowed.
Oh how I’ll miss you, my friend the clown-cloud.

© Mark Peacock. 2009

LIBERATION

Today I saw Death come riding by,
On dress parade through the sky.

With helm of ivory and cloak of fine bleached silk,
He rode a giant stallion that was as white as milk,

On his way to free some poor soul from the bonds of life and earth,
To which he had been fettered since the night time of his birth.

© Karl Stuart Kline. 2009.

Wiltshire, U.K.

The Cloud

Oh, fluffy cloud,

So flat, so small,

Surrounded by

An azure pool.

Suddenly you grow bigger,

Making me shout ,

Look out,

There’s rain about.

Heavier you grow,

Dark as dusk,

Stretching across,

Like a mammoth tusk.

Slowly you fall to ground,

Drip, drip, drip,

Making a splattering sound.

And there you lay,

The sad remains,

Teardrops cry,

Down our window panes.

The sun comes out,

And you are not there,

We step outside,

To look up and stare.

There you are again,

Forming high above,

Floating gently,

like a crystal dove.

Clouds are with us,

Wherever we go,

You might not see them,

But you’ll always know,

Where there’s water,

There’s always a cloud,

It’s not just blue sky,

In which they’re allowed.

© Amy Whitewick 2009.

Shepherdswell, Kent. U.K.

Clouds

Such clouds there are today,
such haughty clouds!

Look!

Follow their guiltless majesty
crowns glinting like steel
crucibles
in gothic caverns
fire sharpest of shadows
shade upon shade
of monstrous pustulous bubbles
oozing from invisible thermals
in turbulent air

Looking like mountains
these flocculent parodies
are thrown high
to the far backstage
of a theatrical sky
by an outrageous wind
hissing in contemptuous trees

Yet Thor’s insatiable thirst
cries
‘more, more!’
inconsolable lachrymose rage
soaking a sodden and disgruntled earth

But get used to them, these clouds,
these proud weather-sages –

They are immortal.

© Rosemary Dunn. 2009.

Vernon, CT USA

Clouds For Dreaming

These are the mammoth clouds for dreaming,

Piled high enormous mountains teeming,

Chiaroscuros toned layer on layer ever bright,

Puffy white upon puffy white.

They slowly float across our view

Dividing thew patches of azure blue

On a proud afternoon of a summer;s day

Gigantic masks of a surrealist’s way.

These huge conglomerate amorphous cliffs

Dominate the sky as each one drifts

As a winged sculptor etches a face anew

To form a future yet to come true.

They rise as some Herculean boat

Weighing nothing able to float

Across a wild and energetic sky in ease

As Rushmore4 images come to their knees.

These are the quiet giants of our time

The footless wonders of a higher clime

Which pass by and leave it may seem

Nothing, except per chance a dre3am.

© James Webb Wilson (Jim the Poet). 2009.

Newcastle upon Tyne. U.K.

SKY VIEWS – AUTUMN 2000

From a council-flat in Bury,
Through a wide window, I see –
Landing on neighboring tiles –
Some starlings, pied wagtails,
The hop of magpie and sparrow;
And hear geese bark as they go.

A fancier’s pigeons circle,
While a white flock of gull
Play the wind in a dark grey sky –
The contrast catching my eye;
As does the arc of a rainbow –
With sun and rain toe-to-toe.

Quiet thought turns to Constables,
As the wide-glass enables
Broad views of strong cumulus sky –
Changing shape as time goes by;
And – with moors, too, in the background –
It’s nice to briefly lounge round.

© David Franks/WalkaboutsVerse 2003.

Oh Wonderful Clouds.

I look up into the sky,
And see the cirrus clouds so high,
The cumulus clouds making many shapes,
Such as dragons, lions and apes,
I also see the fog, like a bedsheet,
And the altostratus floating at 10,000 feet,
To me cloud spotting is a fantastic game,
Until a cumulonimbus brings the rain.

My cloud spotting is not spoilt by rain,
When I travel abroad in an aeroplane,
I look out of my window and stare,
At the clouds drifting calmly through the air,
We are above the nimbostratus thats below,
Bringing bad weather over heathrow,
I was well and truly wowed,
To see the wonderful, oh wonderful clouds.

© Tim Percivial. 2009.

Am I Cirrus.

Am I Cirrus

Spiralled and curly

Like fingers scratching above

Am I cumulus

Classic and flossed

Adding colour to the bright blue sky

Am I stratus

Covering, enveloping

Cotton wadding the heavens

As I mutate and change with the wind

Giving light and darkness to days

Whitening and lightening

Or soaking in gray

Am I nimbus

Angry and broad

Stratocumulus

CumuloNimbus

Or

Am I Cirrus.

© Mesha Banerjee. 2009.

A u s t r a l i a

For the whole year

I was in Mr Watson’s class

I sat by Australia :

a little pink Australia

with a hopping kangaroo

on a massive map of the world.

My head was so close to Australia

I could have licked it. If I’d wanted to.

During Double Geography once,

Mr Watson asked me why I was smiling.

I pointed out the window and said,

‘Well, Sir. There’s a cloud, Sir. Up there.’

‘How interesting,’ he said. ‘Not.’

‘But Sir!’ I said, ‘It’s in the shape

of Australia – with the big wide bit

and the long pointy bit. Can you see it, Sir?’

‘Gosh,’ he said,’ ‘Shall we alert the BBC

to broadcast it to the nation on the 6 O Clock News?’

‘Well, Mr Watson, Sir.’ I said, ‘Maybe we should!’

‘No,boy.’ he said. ‘No. Anyway, we don’t have

time to hear about an Australia-shaped cloud

or an Australia-shaped rainbow

or an Australia-shaped snowman

or an Australia-shaped anything

for that matter. Do you understand, boy? Do you?’

‘Well, Sir’ I said, ‘Not really.’

I don’t think Mr Watson was too happy with my reply,

because he made me write out 50 times :

‘A cloud does not look like Australia

and Australia does not look like a cloud.’

© James Carter

C l o u d s L i k e U s

a poem for Mr. Wordsworth

You’re n e v e r lonely as a cloud

for like the sheep, you’re with the crowd

and plus there’s always loads to do

like soak a fete or barbeque

Us clouds are water – boiled you know

for we’re recycled H20

from stream to sea to cloud to rain :

precipitation is our game!

And how we love it when it’s warm

for then we cook a mighty storm

but when it’s time to help some flowers

we’ll brew up those April showers

Going back to our CV

we have a range of skills you see

from snow to hail and mist to fog –

to making shapes for you to spot!

A sunny spell? oh we’ll be back

you’ll need some rain – and that’s a fact

we’re high as kites and cool as jazz

that’s clouds like us – our life’s a gas!

!

!

!

!

!

!

!

!

© James Carter. 2009.

Taos Sky

Below its great white arm all day,
we gather and toil..
Light now fades,
its finger pointing home.
Time to be still,
tucked beneath its blue duvet,
One star to read by,
and then, sleep.

© Nancy Cohen/aka Nancy Koan/aka Arribella Pellicano 2009.

The Moon//and what i saw in the clouds drifting by…

I saw the moon cruising across the sky, like a giant jet fully lighted but moving slowly.
There was a cloud nearby that looked like a Tyrannosaurus Rex moving towards the moon.
It swallowed it whole and never made a sound.
The moon came out the other end again full and bright.
But then there was a hen approaching from the right.
The hen was large and ate the moon, but not to worry.
For when she left an egg was born full and white.
And further still again approaching very slowly now,
A giant turtle drifing courtly. It swam below the moon,
As if to say, “I don’t want anything in my way, goodnight.”
© Nick Houvras 2009

Gentle giants rolling through the sky
They pull at my desires
Make me want to shoot up in the air and fly so high

Tiny droplets of water creating such a beautiful sight Reflecting luminescence off the sun And scattering into a magnificent white

Fantastic shapes are strolling by
I see rabbits and princesses
Occurring way up high

Oh what I would give to be a cloud
To be lovely and puffy
To be oh so proud

Parading my beauty each and every day
Omitting wonder and awe
All along the way.

© Victoria Bell. 2009

Buffalo, NY

Clouds.

A pilot flies above the clouds
And often blindly through them
It is an odd perspective
For an ordinary human!

Here on solid ground I stand
Or drive on busy thoroughfares
Never knowing when a wondrous
Cloud may catch me unawares!

How to drive and watch the sky —
It may not be safely done
So I stop to take a picture
For posterity and fun!

People may pay little heed
To misty objects in the sky
Until one commands attention
Captivates the mind and eye

© Arlene McNair. 2009

Bournemouth

Oh,what a joy it is to see the clouds
Moving across the sky
And as they move they capture the hearts
Of watchers like you and I

It seems to me that life itself
Is mirrored by them too
And as they pass so quickly
There s a keener need to view

They change their shape and colour
And give us food for thought
Sometimes they look like objects
Or people,so quickly they must be caught

No doubt the break of day or sunset
Give clouds true majesty
When colours heighten the effect
And make them memorable to see

And so it is that clouds provide
Us with a moving panoply
With such ever-changing moods
That we are thrilled to see

© David Lindsley 2009.

KAUSWAGAN

2 Clouds

Rollmop stratocumulus-

so usually there, so easy and so common,

but just so much hot air.

But cirrus, now,

it lifts my head up high:

as if a cross-bowed gazelle,

cogitating,

might remark upon the beauty of those strands.

© Walter P. Komarnicki. 2009.

Sucat, Muntinlupa. Philippines.

Clouds

Don’t you ever wonder

what clouds are made for?

Why are they around?

Even they themselves couldn’t tell.

These angels seem to float around

and bump into each other only by chance

on where the wind would blow them to.

Some just pass through

while some generate a powerful, unexplainable energy

once they meet a certain type.

There are times when they just stumble in the darkness

and carry a heavy load that they can’t help but cry.

But to them it’s normal.

It’s just a thing that they have to go through

in able to show the world that light, though we see it everyday,

is such a wonderful thing.

Don’t you see what clouds are meant to be?

It’s a simple representation of life for you and me.

© Ryan C. Dayrit. 2009.

Dallas, Pennsylvania U.S.

Ode to Clouds.

Travel with my eyes
the beings under the stars
That pull with wind,
shade in Sun,
make shapely billowing white
sheets
colored before night

A landscape of the heavens

Reflection of oceans

Wanderers of open sky!

© Kathleen Bednarek. February 2009

Bournemouth U.K.

Clouds.

A cloud is a thing of beauty
A wonder to behold
It brings to all a sense of joy
As its many facets unfold

Its moods can be solemn and angry
Or welcoming and bright
Such are the changes we can see
From morning until night

Cumulus,Cirrus and Stratus are names we use
To describe them one from another
But earthly objects can be seen that infuse
A desire to capture them for ever

Sunrise and sunset can heighten the effect
Of clouds that pass above
And we can hold our heads erect
To marvel at colours we love

But most of all, mood reigns supreme
As clouds evolve and change
Reflected in our lives it would seem
Not something we can arrange

And so it is that we admire
Their beauty and their power
Of which spectrum we do not tire
Nor count the day or hour.

© David Lindsley. 2008.

Saint Plantaire, France

The French get it right

The word cloud

Is too loud;

Nuage

est plus sage.

© Tony Davis. 2008.

Melbourne Australia

Fair weather

Like spoilt poodles they spring around
Billowing together with their preened puffs atop their bouncy base
I long to hop around on their marshmallow nothingness
Textured wisps tickling my fingers as I roll in their heavy belly’s
And often have I held up traffic gazing through my windscreen at their shapely faces

© Rochelle Bree-Indiana Downing April 17th 2008

Melbourne, Australia.

Good Morning Stratus Opacus

A hemline
draping sleepily above a shadowed underlay
Fraggled edges curling up crisply in the morning wind,
but not breaking
Smearing on and on to the horizon like damp, grey cake mix
Only a lone, naked streak of the suns light hands reach through
the thicket of a woollen sky to warm the eager grass below

© Rochelle Bree-Indiana Downing. April 14th 2008.

weather poem

Saint Paul, Minnesota. U.S.

(spring weather report in the midwest, 4/2004)

Storm grey system
responds wolfishly
to our juicy subductive depression—

mares’ tails & question marks above,

wondering if the air’s
as rich and stimulating
over there, as here.

Only way to know
is to leave Spokane
and the Montana waste places,

to swift in skies over Rapid City
and the Missouri’s
bluffs, to our sweeter

climatic currents.

Then overflow
into volumes, high
as the mesosphere, that

stoop to kiss the Great Lakes
and the simple
rolls of land

that lie beyond.

© Tom Lewis. 2008.

Nebula Existentialis

The cloud,
there, if only for a moment,
In its beauty ever changing.

The cloud,
there, another shape, again,
Ever forming and transforming.

The cloud,
it makes me understand, the beauty of reality:
It’s ever changing, forming and transforming.

© Marcel Solca 2008

Kangaroo Cloud

Starkly on pale blue,
bleached sun, cloud blotched,
puffy white fluffy flumps,
statically sit,
in azure stable.

A single cloudlet,
singlet white perfect ,
thinned then fogged,
then volume vanished;
a pace away,
re-thickens.

A gust then weaves,
a kangaroo shape,
its tail wind wagging,
then slow float,
to mist as if,
to graze on gossamer,
then haze again,
back into ether.
© mountain fog August 2008

Foggy Night

An afternoon of mist, that’s nearly kissed the sun..
but not, I fear..
settles in the hedgerow’s shadows thick..
and snuggles and obscures the thistle sticks..
hastening to glisten upon the trees,
before slowly sinking to their knees..
to disappear just then.

All hints of stars or red of Mars reduced to white,
the mists enclose.
The world retreats and leaves our single hearts to beat,
befuddles a compass,
and seaman’s charts go incomplete..
..encroaches upon the faint of heart –
…entreats the loneliness of fog..
“depart”!!!!!
Heaven only knows how or when.

Tis true when as a child, I asked
about the mist that settled in and slowly grasped
the night..
“What is this whiteness of the air?”
“how do all things just disappear?”
to which they answered.. ” don’t despair,
’tis only a cloud that’s fallen down to earth
to sleep.”

© Cynthia Stamps July 2008.

Langtoft, South Lincolnshire, U.K.

LOOK AT THE SKY

“Not a cloud in the sky”
The people all cry.
Delighted it’s blue
They have things to do.

I love to see clouds
And cry out aloud.
When I see a great sunset
A picture I get.

Keep watch up above
I think you will love
The fluffy white shapes
Like angels in capes

A minute goes by.
“Look at that,” I cry,
It all looks quite new,
Now see a different view.

There is a society you know,
Twelve thousand or so
Have joined in to share
Their love of the rare.

In 64 places
They all turn their faces
And hold their gaze high
To examine the sky,

So let me urge you,
Whatever you do,
To look up and see
And wonder like me.

© Jenny Scott July 2008.

Middlewich, Cheshire. U.K.

The Clouds’ Reply to William Wordsworth’s “Daffodils”

“Lonely as a cloud”? Exception!
Mr Wordsworth, sir, we must
as clouds correct your misconception
to “content as a cumulus”.
Praise not earthfast daffodils
but Hosts of Silv’ry Celestials.

Golden blooms stretch’d along a bay
might present an awesome sight.
Yet all ten thousand, come what may
could never, breaking free, take flight.
Gaze above you. Reward your glances
with our infinite, shape-shifting dances.

Poets, artists, children too,
seeing layers, heaps and curls of hair
enrich their souls with what we do –
bunching, swirling in the air.
Those daffs outdid the waves? The dolts.
Let ‘em try Kelvin-Helmholtz!

Sir, when on your indoor couch reclin’d
(A habit too oft indulg’d?)
think cirrus, floccus – much more refin’d.
Enlightened, your inward eye will bulge.
Then your heart with pleasure fills
and soars amongst celestials.

© Julie Elizabeth Smalley. March 2008.

THE LONELY CLOUD

We were driving along on the western slope
We were kidding and someone was telling a joke.
When all at once someone spoke,
They spoke aloud,
“Look up in the air at that lonely cloud
It looks to me like it’s lost from the crowd.”

It was just hanging there in suspended flight
It was not very big but was fluffy and white.
We thought it was probably filled with fright
about where it would go or would spend the night.

All the rest of the trip we watched in the sky
But the little cloud was gone,
We will never know where nor will we know why.

© Glen L. Ewing. 1978.