THE CLOUDS
a song by Fabrizio De Andrè
Translated from Italian by Enrico Pelos
They go
they come
sometimes they stop
and when they stop
they are as black as the raven
it seems they look at you with evil eye

Some time they are white
and run
and take the heron shape
or the sheep shape
or some other animal
but this is seen better by the children
who play running after them for so long

Some time they advise you with noise
before coming
and the ground trembles
and the animals become quiet

They go
they come
they come back
and they will even stop for so many days
that you do not see the sun and the stars anymore
and it looks like you do not know
the place where you stay

They go
they come
for a true cloud
thousands appear faking
and they remain between us and the sky
to leave us only a desire for rain

Translation © Enrico Pelos

Fabrizio De Andrè was born in Genoa and he was a very famous Italian songwriter and musician. He also translated and sang some very famous songs written by the Canadian songwiter Leonard Cohen. See the original Italian version here.

Burkesville Kentucky US.

Clouds.

I stepped outside just before dinner tonight. Girls come quick, I
hollered.
They ran outside expecting something exciting.
The sky was ablaze with magnificent clouds in the sunset.
A heavy line of thunderstorms was moving in from the south and
a couple of smaller cells were to the north and west.
Enormous billowing clouds reached thousands of feet into the sky,
as the tremendous winds tore apart the smaller nearby clouds
and whipped them into intricate filaments,
set afire by the setting sun.
Reds, oranges, yellows, white, dark gray and even greens
all set upon a scattered blue background.
The girls kept yelling for mom until she finally joined us.
We kept picking out our favorite shapes and textures,
but our favorites kept changing as the scene in front
of us succumbed to the high winds and fading light.
This is your birthday show, I said to Kaysha, (who had just turned nine)
and just think, we will never see this again.
I was a little reluctant to go in to eat dinner and felt a tinge of
sadness
to think of this show ending, but I could feel that these precious girls
at my side had gained a new respect for the awesome beauty
of these every day objects. Clouds.
And with that I could feel my heart soar up
into the thick of that beauty for a moment
before I turned to head inside.

© Chris Korrow.

Hong Kong.

The Story of Clouds.

The top of the sky,
the writeboard of the creator.
He depicts in black and white,
the story told by the clouds.
In heavenly words,
they transform, they tell,
they migrate to reach every part of the world.

© Ken Fung.

Shelton, Connecticut. US.

A Cloud

I’m a wonder to behold
A marshmellow if you will
On sunny days
I’m as white and fluffy as can be
On cloudy days
I’m shades of shadowy gray
I float gracefully across the sky
A work of Art
And if you look closely enough
You’ll see that I can become
Anything you Imagine me to be.

© Bernadette Marie Zvonek.

Torino (Italy)

CLOUDSPOTTING

I observe the veils flowing
Between us and the mount of gods
Yun that is
The union of Yin and Yang

If I live life
With my heads in the clouds
It’s not because
Of the western blue-sky thinking
Of some cloudless monotony

I don’t judge anyone
I only observe the veils dancing
Between us and the mount of gods
And see anything created
Under the ever changing shapes of all

I see
The ever changing existance
Apparent as ephemeral beauty
Or horrors

Call me cloudspotter or an idler
Le flaneur like Baudelaire
Clouds are not for dreamers only

But a way of living careful
Of ever changing feelings
And thinking and seeming reality
To benefit the experience of
An ever changing soul

I want to see the risen Christ
In the doomsday
When he comes in a cloud
With power and glory

© Davide Riccio.

Cloud Story.

Tumbling clouds in sunlight sky,
That’s a sight to watch go by.
Strange stories are revealed.

A lady flees from a dragon’s lair
All flying skirts and windblown hair.

Then!

Through the scene of filtered light,
Speeds her champion, a mighty knight,
Riding bold upon a creature strange.

Unnamed. Untold.

No sound of thundering hooves are heard,
No snap of flag or trumpet blare.
Only cloud shape and sunlight glare.

They clashed upon a flat topped cloud,
A rip of claw, a slash of sword;
A whorl of power to erupt in fury.

Cloud shaped legs and wings
All hurled in separate ways.

Now the scene is tranquil set,
Is that a pennant flying yet?
Now, blow wind!

Part the skies
Let me see where the lady flies
But the cloud curtain unriven stays
And holds the mystery of her ways.

© Tony Kendrick.

New York City.

”Ever stood for a moment”

Ever stood for a moment
looking up at the clouds
noticing their shapes
colors, movement
configurations
constantly shifting
relative locations
in space?
Ever stood for two moments
and wondered what it might
feel like to lie down
on some of those soft
cloud beds up there
taking time off from work
without having to notify
anyone, without having to care?
Ever stood for three moments
exhilirated
watching storm clouds
scatter in a hurricane wind
rooting for the weak one day
for the strong, the next:
which side are you on?
does it make a difference?
does it?
Ever stood for four moments
feeling dizzy
when perceptions decieve
and you start swaying
with skyscrapers
dancing to the music
of an invisible breeze
while the clouds seem to
stand still?
Ever stood for longer
much longer, staring
till clouds disappear
not the same ones, mind you,
but some other clouds
some other place: ever
stop contemplating
and just savored
escape?

© Sheila Desmond.

Westminster, Maryland U.S.

On the Sex of Clouds

The clouds glowered,
All gunmetal gray and threatening.
They lowered their booms
All might and fright.
Beyond the clouds’ darkness lay
A deep and endless azure sky — beckoning
The world to its sunshine and warmth.
The clouds spat out rain in protest
Angry drops ratatatting on rooftops
Even clouds must posture, it seems
Surely, these were boy clouds.

© Muphen R.Whitney.

Anchorage Alaska.

Visit Marybeth’s site

The Painter’s House.

At first, the horizon began
sinking lower on the canvas,
far beyond the rule of thirds.
Then she did away with the horizon
and the canvas altogether.
Now all she paints is clouds:
cumulus gathering on the door handle –
cirrus streaking across bathroom counters –
stratocumulus upon the night stand –
altocirrus fringing the edges of the full-length oak mirror –
cumulonimbus, complete with the anvil shape
of the cirriform cap, waiting presciently in the front hall –
and in the narrow space of counter and wall
between stovetop and refrigerator,
altocumulus and cirrus at sunset.
Sometimes you can glimpse undulations
of middle clouds, sliding around a corner or
sidling up beside the couch,
and ice crystals of high clouds lie
like broken glass upon the coffee table.
But it’s the low clouds that envelope you
as if they enter through the skin,
damping the breath,
revising vision.
By then it’s no surprise that
thunderheads converge over the bed
and the single pillow
which should promise fair weather
has swallowed the vaulting blue.

© Marybeth Holleman.

Mont Pèlerin poems above Vevey, Switzerland.

Low hanging the clouds
No sky, just grey
Dismal is this another day
……………………..shrouds

Funeral flowers
have withered away
…………………..shortlived

No sun, no sound.
A bell chimes
As in gone-by times…….

*********************

Steam engine of bygone days
Puffs its clouds across the lake
Disappearing, reappearing.
Reappearing, disappearing.
Mountainous outlines of another age.
Horn blasts out of the fog
Boat slides by on the ripples of the lake.

**********************
Distant drone of motor cars
Occasional bird call
Rain pattering. Muted
voices, doors opening, closing.
Rain pouring.

Lonely chair
sits looking at lonely view
Empty, cold and wet.
Strange Summer this.

***********************
Sahara heat baked July
Green fields burnt brown and dry
Farmers harvested in the corn
fearing unexpected thunderstorm

A diamond collier
this cobweb
wet with rain drop pearls
shimmering in the cold grey light

Torrent after torrent
through the darkness of the night
Wake up again to the same sad sight…

*******************************
The summer of the many butterflies
All colours, all sorts
Fluttering here, fluttering there
Accompanying the bees, the wasps,
the hornets too
Who built a nest outside our loo
They buzzed and zoomed and droned
like the villagers who wailed and moaned
Too cold this winter and now too hot
Never satisfied with what they’ve got

******

Another day
Above Vevey
Still and grey –
Still grey.
Where the August blue sky?
The Alpine panorama?
Where the mirrored reflections
in the still water of the lake?
Where have they gone those golden rays
Of long warm Summer days?

******
Grey is not always grey.
Sometimes lacklustre yellow or bilious green.
Or acid blue or shady mauve.

Day is not always day.
Can be night. Or morning.
Hell or heaven.
Short or long or in-between.
Colourful and bright
like a rainbow between earth and sky.
Or shades of metal, icy, hard
sickly hues matching the mood.

© Heather Cameron- Fischer.

Nevada US.

Poem

Reflected puffy dabs,
floating on metal
windscreen
and her sunglasses

an old photograph,
blue desert sky
rented silver cadillac
unrented happy girl

© Duncan Edwards.

Drew from Maidstone UK.

Drifting Vapours.

Do clouds sleep as they stroll the skies?

While their haunting beauty is outlined by full moon

Yet with morning dew still on the ground

They awaken without a yawn, stretch or sound

With life not always knowing that they are there

They look down with a devious stare

A suspicion is aroused that when they huddle together

That they are plotting

For only they can decide the weather

Passive white turns to undecided grey

Which seems an omen for the rest of the day

Afternoon departs as blackness overlaps

With an open arm to the wind

Storm cloud also invites lightning in

Smothered light fades shadows

With darkness drawing nigh to weep

As storm clouds explode

Rain falls heavily toward those that sleep.

© Andrew Barrett.

Ashford, Middlesex, UK.

How I became a Cloudspotter.

I was pedalling my bicycle along a country lane,
Quite oblivious to the sky above my head,
When a shout went up, “That cloud, sir! That cloud, sir! Look up there!”
And I brought my cycle to a stop quite dead.
Alas, I had forgotten ancient lessons learned at school,
Newton’s laws about inertia ‘mongst the pile.
And continuing on my journey whilst my bicycle stood still,
I sailed through empty air with silly smile.
Descending to the tarmac in an exponential arc,
Like a diagram from some artillery book,
I landed with a bump upon the unforgiving turf,
But thought that while I’m here, I’l take a look.
But oh, the giddy whirling that did greet my star-filled eyes,
Everything went round and round my aching head.
And whilst recalling visions from my dim and feckless youth,
I was placed upon an ambulance’s bed.
Upon discharge from hospital, I went back to the scene,
Of this mishap caused by someone’s hasty fuss,
And looking at the sky to see what all the noise was for,
I was greeted by a flock of Cumul-us. ‘
Twas wondrous to behold this glorious vision of a cloud,
As it sailed across the heavenly expanse,
But looking up like this gave me a right pain in the neck,
So I lay amongst the beetles and the ants.
Alas, I had not reckoned on the man who gave the shout,
Returning to the scene as I had done.
He thought I was a speed bump as he drew up in his car,
A vehicle which must have weighed a ton.
So the ambulance was called for once again to pick me up,
And rush me to the local A & E,
Where, ‘pon my due arrival, they worked hard to stitch me up,
And repair my painful neck and injured knee.
They warned me of the perils of gazing up into the sky,
(Quite needlessly, I thought, but there we are).
And they sent me home with collar surgical upon my neck,
So my head was held in perpendicular.
At least that was the theory, but their plan had come unstuck,
For you see, they had not read the bulletin,
That was issued at the hospital on my obesity,
They had not reckoned on my double chin.
With my chins upon the collar surgical that I now wear,
My line of sight is now on upward track,
Ideal, I think, for spotting clouds without strain to the neck,
And since wearing it I never have looked back.
So perfectly inclined I am to view the cloudy scene,
And completely unable to see the ground,
Well, if I’d been a botanist I’d really be depressed,
But with spotting clouds my joy may now abound.

© Dr Wm. R. Cooper.

Houston, Texas. US.

What I See

I love to look up toward the Heavens,
hoping to catch a glimpse of GODS Face,
watching the clouds as they pass by,
showing me tiny pieces of His— Glory.
You see, as I watch I am greeted by the most awesome sites,
clouds I believe are telling me a story
There are those that look like people, animals and objects,
but what I most Love is What I See when I really look up and meditate..
I see Eye’s, looking down on me, watching and guiding my every step, I see shapes that I can’t explain but somehow they bring me joy and peace.
This is when I get lost and close my eyes and relax.
I thank the Lord for his wonders and for allowing me to see them.
So the next time you are out and about, I hope you take time to see
Some of the most outstanding pictures you will ever lay your eyes on
and then and only then will you see What I See.

© Cynthia Miller Mims.

in Adelaide, South Australia: based on a conversation with his youngest granddaughter.

The girl and me

well there we were.
litlest grandaughter and me
siting front of the big window
her perched on my knee,
just watching the passing parade.
tufts of fluffy clouds scudding,and folk walking
in the front, over the park and by an old gum tree
“What can you see, robbi” she says to me
so I say to her, respectful like
you have be that when little girls are three,
“oh I see a big galleon, and look some horses
and there’s a big bad bear”
“I got teddy and he’s a bear,
but he’s nice”
“look there’s a shark
not much for him to eat in the park”
she laughed.
then said out real loud.
In her sweet little voice
and it was a little proud
“oh robbi, you are clever
you, can see lots, just in a cloud”

© Rob Shattock.

an English translation of the German poem sent in by Maximilan Kleibeler

They fly up and down, to and fro,
Go all over the world.

Now light, now dark, now light, now heavy,
And sometimes on a lake of colour.

Now we see them as tigers, now as dragons,
And also sometimes soaring up
From a person’s throat.

Sometimes they pull themselves apart, sometimes as beautiful as poetry;
Sometimes they cast spells, like magic.

You can love them, you can’t hate them,
One thing is certain, you can’t do without them.

You observe that they are immortal, like it or not;
So they belong to life, as light does.

© Debra Wetherell.

in Croydon, Surrey, UK

Staring

Cocoons of changing
Animals or
images from
Childhood nightmares
Faces unseen
Since family days out
Zoo like mess
Depravity in white
I stare skywards
Eyes crinkled
Sunlight hidden for moments
Before I stream salt tears
Wince in pain
At jumbled elephants
Tigers and dolphins
Gliding into trains
Sliding downwards
Into blanks
And shapeless
Wisps of
Vapour

© Frances Roberson.

in Fortrose, Scotland

Filling the sky
Moving silently above my head
The childhood comparison: Cotton Wool
Huge and heavy
White and whispy
Silent and watching
As the world passes beneath you

© Amy McIlhenny

in Teddington, England

“I will hear in heaven”, Beethoven once said,
And he does, sitting there on a cloud,
With wild hair, wearing wings, writing quartettes for strings,
Still talking exceedingly loud.

“I’m waiting for Brendel”, he shouts out to Handel,
As Mozart floats past with a smile,
“The best pianist alive to play Number Five,
But he won’t be up here for a while”.

A great orchestra plays his works night and day,
Which a Maestro conducts with closed eyes;
Each composer you love has a cloud up above,
It’s the Radio 3 of the skies.

Gershwin comes along, composing a song,
On the piano he’s playing forever,
“It’s genius, Mr. B, which has brought you and me
And some lesser immortals together”.

Make a note to be good – you might meet Henry Wood,
Promenading about with a baton,
Introducing to you a composer or two,
And the best seats that you’ve ever sat on.

© Lisa Foster.

When I see clouds I wanna do it aloud

Then aged 15, now Dr Ailsa G. Thomson Zainu’ddin, aged 78:

Clouds – A Reverie

When a fleet of high-piled cargo boats, the argosies which sail
Like some stately shadowed castles, cross the ocean of the sky,
They could never know the fury of the equinoctial gale
For they glide like placid dream boats to the harbour just near by
Where they anchor in the glory of the slowly setting sun
Which is glowing now half-hidden by a dream boat’s woollen veil
Like the Golden Fleece of Jason, showing ere the day is done,
Like a cloak which hides the glory of the sacred Holy Grail.

Like a wind-torn, bloodstained bannerol, the gorgeous cloud flag
streams
Where the tomb of gaudy Day lies in the vivid, flaming West
And the blazing mass of colours only met in wildest dreams
Turns to darkness, as the sun sinks from this glory into rest.
As the moon climbs through the blackness of the ragged, floating cloud
All the world is briefly lighted by the ghostly silver light
Ere it sinks into the darkness of its inky, tattered shroud
Leaving all the storm-tossed earth to face the horrors of the night.

When the wind is painting patterns on the canvas of the sky
Lacy folds and floating fern-fronds melt into the heaven’s blue
Like the creamy wings of angels from the Paradise on high
When they need the wings no longer but have others which are new.
When the wind becomes a shepherd to a drifting crown of sheep,
They may hurry through the meadows to the distant pipes of Pan,
Or may crop the fragrant herbage on the blue-clad valleys steep
Where the soil yields grass more luscious than the pastures tilled by
man.

When the sky is covered over by a cloud of silver-grey
There is quiet in the coolness and it seems the House of God.
He is present in the stillness of the peaceful, dreaming day
In the pureness of the air and in the firmness of the sod.
And I love to lie and watch the countless cloud forms through the day
And to see them, in the calm or in the fury of the gale
Or to watch the anchored argosies at rest within the bay.
Oh! that mine might be the merchant ship which bears the Holy Grail!

© Alica Gwenneth Thompson, 1941

Passing

Passing, passing˜our lives
like ships on blue horizon,
like clouds, like rain,
like something ephemeral, gauzy,
like thinnest cotton lace.
Momentary wisps streaking
past minutes, past days
disappearing.
like dreams, like pain.
Everything passes, everything,
this transient life
so fleeting
until awakening
until only heaven remains!

© Susan Sawyer

Haiku for Howard

Luke Howard, named clouds
Naming what we could all see
By name we now share

[Upon passing, by chance, where Howard lived. Once.]
© Jay Sharma

Clouds 6-3-06

It’s a mostly blue and clear day
As I’m driving home on the freeway
Large and majestic cumulus soar
Like white islands with shimmering shores.

Off to my left is a very low, deep-gray mass
With dark grasping fingers
Which quite slowly I begin to pass
Yet my gaze insistently lingers.

Its nearness to the ground is curious
As if it risks proximity to a world
Which the white dares not
Cares not to associate with.

Or perhaps it had trouble during takeoff.
Or got weak knees.
And found it couldn’t or wouldn’t compete
With the holy white.

Suddenly there’s one drop
That becomes many plops
Upon my speeding windshield
And all else in my vision field.

Elated, I lean forward
Forearms behind my steering wheel
And peer up at a second gray mass
Invading an otherwise sea of bright.

Then a drop falls through
The crack of my window
And wets the blue of my jeans.
I lower it slightly more.

And peer up praising
The lack of pride in the gray.
And worship it
For its humanity.

© Ben Rubinstein

Becoming Clouds

Conspiracy, soft around its edge
swiftswirl shapes
becoming clouds
little cotton continents sliding
sliding towards
each other

Soft docking, become one
infant smudge
detaches
swims into the blue-bellied sky
mothership of white whispers,
slides down South

© Priscilla Taylor

The Other Side ( Of God )

I am in the ether ; and the clouds;
The air you breathe today .
I may not be too visible ,
But I am not far away.

Whenever beauty strikes you
In birdsong , flowers or sun
Just know that I am in them
Speaking to you through each one .

And then when you look upwards
Clouds always play around the Sun
God’s painting on our canvas
For each and every one .

Deep in the dark night’s sorrow
The travail , and pain and tears
I’ll sit and hold your hand there
Wiping away all the tears.

You may know me as a person
But I AM the living God of all days
Immutable in my presence –
And myriad in my ways .

© Anna McKenzie

Sky The Guide Dog

Sky is a guide dog.
He will lick you
into light.
His eyes are pools of sparks.
He is a star hound.
Sky leads us across the universal fields,
opens up the lids of daydreams,
teaches us to feel
those tender rays.
Sky’s vista runs deep,
shows up a braille galaxy.
In this cold, blind dark,
we follow his moonlit trail.
We marry our lonely visions with his
and see
heaven.

© Keith Armstrong

My Birthday Present

Today when I opened my presents
I saw Spikey had bought me a book
It was wrapped in fancy pink paper
I thought I should have a quick look

I tore off all of the paper
Too excited to take in my stride
What was the name of this volume?
It was “The Cloudspotter’s Guide”

It is packed full of information
With photos of clouds like rude signs
And detailed descriptions of every one
Of clouds of all different kinds

Can anything get any better?
Surely nothing better could be
Than knowing it’s an official publication
Of the “Cloud Appreciation Society”

I rushed to access their website
To find out if I could join
I could and it only cost me
332 one penny coins

So now I await the postman
To bring me my cert, badge and bumph
Then I can read all about it
At work when I’m having my lunch

I need to learn all the details
Of clouds and how they are formed
The white fluffy candy floss cumulus
Which look like bulls with some horns

I can’t do this any more…

Dreams

A man dreams of a forgotten sky
the colours of my eyes seem whitened by the morning dew
the speckled rain the falls from broad shoulders
the lining of my skin seemed hidden from me
the smell of seeds and the taste of trees
can only comfort a mans dreams
how softly can you tread?
if you tread on my dreams?
if god was up there, would he be the sun or the clouds?
who knows, just a dream
just a thought, like the rain
falling out of my mind…

Jets

Not even the sky is free from our graffiti:
air-currents all day long smudge and emboss
flock trails scrawled by planes over the blue
latitudes of summer. Fine crystals of ice
drawn by the billion through that high cloud-chamber
in the wake of our irritant particles of business,
haste, anxiety, longing to be elsewhere,
they leave the sky’s intangible islands and cities
barred or netted with oblique lines. Beautiful
when a sinking sun touches them off or a breeze
frets them to solvent lace, still they inscribe
our failure to leave anything unmarked, our helpless
filling-up of our own space, as we thincken the mind
with noise, with chatter, with a scratch-polish of dullness.
Or so the mind reflects, pondering its mirror
nature: and yet those fine-scarfed veins express
tranquillity too and something vulnerable,
ephemeral, and though entirely our own, no less
assumed by nature than the pattern of Dorset fields
or the New Grange rock-incisions. Restlessness
is what we’re made of, as much as breath or water:
you can read it there as another jet goes over
and the dwindling chord of its engine-music spreads
to a rolling monotone with a hint of thunder,
drawing a white thread into a haystack of clouds.

Sunset Clouds

The sky blue tortoiseshell.
Mixed on its palette the curded marquetries
and stones, the scumbled
rag and piled muscle, a slow
pondering manoeuvre
on the estuary. Fingernail flecks,
apricot-vanilla scoop
stealing a march; the fibreglass
escarpment pitched
on a silent thunder of surf.

[Both from Selected Poems (Carcanet, 2000)]
http://www.grevel.co.uk/

Drifting breeze- blown clouds:
Shadows glide across the grass..
Apple blossom falls.

Clouds – The Loud Dreams

Fluttering, chittering land the
humming birds, just in front-

And I rush out to watch
As I reach, the birds fly away-

Sat I in the cane chair
open in the garden-

Right top in the sky shuffeled
white clouds to form a bunny-

I run in to grab my camera
to take a snap of the bunny-

As I return, I find the forms vanishing
but clouds are still there –

How true, they say
There is always a slip between a cup and a lip-

But then, there is no life
if you dont have any unfulfilled dream-

5 Cloud Haiku

1
Slate grey shimmering
Shot silk, Strom Loch with storm clouds
Scudding overhead.

2
Here rain-veils, cloudscapes.
Here the music of silence
Here, near always, you.

3
Arched cloud blaze to west;
Salmon pink to north and east;
Bid the sun good night.

4
Big sky; dark grey clouds;
Bright white clouds; a rainbows end;
Weather to enjoy!

5
Sun and rain and cloud.
See the rainbow, not the rain,
See the bright-edged cloud.

White

The blank paper is beckoning.
I don’t know what to say.
Mt mind is empty; I was not reckoning
On writing any poetry today.
But when,
Yesterday lunchtime,
I saw the gannet in flight, then
I wanted to write, but rhyme
There came not. His ink-
Tipped wings
Made me think
Of all sorts of beautiful things
To say, as the wind blew
And fluffed every wave crest
To cloud. The gannet flew,
Taking no rest,
His back briefly silver in the sun.
Whilst on the cliff a daisy
Bobbed in the wind, dancing for the sheer fun
Of being. And the usually lazy
Billowy clouds sped
Across the space above,
While the milky horizon led
My thoughts to someone I love.

[From “Colour Poetry – a first palette”]

Cloud Cover

hiding in the clouds
miles from the ground
settled in the sky
never to be found
everyone in sight
but you are never seen
sleeping in the white
where you have only been

Amid the daffodils I roamed
And stared as far as space allowed
When all at once I saw a domed
high-soaring silver cloud

closer than breath through a telescope,
dreams lie in wait.

blessed impermanence writ,
up there,
a bit.

(Glimpsing clouds, uptown New Orleans, April 2006)

I plummet earth bound.
I wish I could fall upward,
clouds are not so hard

by Andrea de Majewski

The other day I lay down to watch the cloud channel, and I saw the most interesting show. A woman with long wavy hair was wearing one of those Jackie Kennedy hats with the big brim curled up, with a long translucent ribbon tied around it, which waved in the breezes behind her. She was looking up, higher into the sky, as if expecting something wonderful.

I closed my eyes to watch the woman some more, the rest of her outfit, her smile and eyes, and what she might be waiting for. When I opened my eyes, she was gone, of course. Actually I could still see where she had been, but now she had been transformed into a grimacing sock monkey.

The cloud channel has several advantages over regular TV. First off, you don’t have to choose between rabbit ears or taking out a mortgage to fund a dish or cable package or whatever. It’s free, and whether it’s on or not is completely beyond your control. Here in Seattle, it’s broadcast more often than many places. Move here, if you want to watch a lot. If it’s not on, you must do other things. The laundry, grocery shop, whatever. But if it’s on, you can postpone chores and lie down and watch it.

It’s very relaxing. One reason for this is that there are no ads. Not even the things on public television that are just like ads except shorter and more boring. No one tries to sell you anything at all on the cloud channel. So you can just relax, and enjoy the show. It’s been proven that ten minutes of the cloud channel is more relaxing than a whole night of TV.

But the kids, you say, what about the kids? They will never settle for one channel, and even if they did it wouldn’t be the cloud channel. Kids, it turns out, are actually big fans of not only the cloud channel but also the star channel and the grass channel. In fact, I learned about a channel the other day from the kid next door. The worm channel.

And if you look closely, you’ll find something on the cloud channel to please everybody, a real diversity of tastes. Once I saw Bullwinkle humping Whinny the Pooh, as Crusty the Clown looked on. Oh, that’s right. I should mention that there’s no rating, and no parental controls. No controls at all, remote or FCC-enforced. TV for those who hate control. The Cloud Channel.

© Andrea de Majewski

Emotions

If emotions had shape,
they’d look like clouds.

Happiness would wander across deep blue.
Small and fluffy
with no grey hue,
just bright and white
and light with the joy of it all.

Sadness would be dull and flat,
Covering all with deadpan still.
Heavy and low.
An oppressive pall
that stills and removes the reason for all.

Anger would billow up mighty and high,
both screaming white and threatening black.
Flashing and roaring
and threatening the world,
diminishing all in it’s track.

Love would be smeared across calm grey blue
like watercolour smudged with tears.
With tints of orange, pink and red
as the fiery sun finally calms
and leaves us to be content.

Hatred would be roiling low
with turbulent tones of black and grey.
Rumbling past at tree top height,
spitting and glowering
and dulling the light.

Jealousy would be hazy and thin.
Oppressive, confusing with Turner sun
corrupting the light,
distorting our sight
and leaving truth limpid.

Compassion would settle gentle and still.
A quiet white mist
on the valleys and hills
and cause us to stop
and consider the ills of the world.

Hope would be high and textured and white.
Bright lacy ribbons stretched across blue.
Threads of potential
with definite shape
that hold new promise of change in the wind.

Fear would be fog, silent and dark.
Obscuring the truth, sly moving stillness,
drifting around us to get round behind us.
Sinister spirits that steal our judgement
and make us like fools, lost.

[© David Kitching 2005]

Mindclouds

There’s something that drives me
to want something
more than what I have.

In considering what my life
amounts to,

I see a cloud that set out to be
a majestic thing that strode
across landscapes.

But it was waylaid.
and merely drizzled

and became fog that did nothing
more than obscure.
I didn’t want that.

But wanting makes what is
and sets us our challenge.

And when we fail,
as we certainly will, we learn

to see how now is what we are
and not some vision of what might be.

Some bulbous cumulus that
thinks to force the world to be
and then blows itself out.

We are more drifting nimbus
that can quietly watch
and no more.

[© David Kitching 2006]

Among the daffodils I roamed
And stared as far as space allowed
When all at once I saw a domed
High-soaring silver cloud.