Roller Clouds

High on this hill above the bay,
Waiting for the dawn of day.
“With head in the clouds”
Like my teacher would say–
Well now I am a silver surfer,
Browsing the sky, for gems above,
Doing most of all that which I love.
With cloud painters palette,
Of magenta and blue,
And roller clouds,you would love too.
So now as I descend this heady hill.
I see a gap, and walk right through.

(Kilvey Hill, October, 2005)

Sky

Beneath that lofty sky,
As leaden grey clouds drift by.
I want for nothing more,
Than to stand amazed.
And hear seas roar.
And on the far horizon,
A backdrop canvas bible black.
The stage is set
As I get wet.
And clouds move and stack-
In shapes and forms before the wind.
But beaten by the turning tide of time.
Retreat I must from this shore
Beneath that lofty sky.

(Swansea Bay, September 2005)

When I see clouds I wanna do it aloud

from Fall River, MASSACHUSETTS USA

CLOUDS

I lay down on the lush, green grass
looking up at the celestial sky
watching clouds perform
as they go floating by.

The sky’s theater sets the stage
as clouds pass through
on their merry way
entertaining my eyes
with wispy surprise
as I journey from earth
on mystical tours of billowy dreams
and marshmallow delight.

A castle that trails a rabbit’s tail
attached to the wings of a butterfly,
a whale and a cat,
a baseball and bat take wing
as they shuttle on by.

A jungle safari with lions and bears
emerge from a cumulus cloud
migrating in motion
to imaginative notions
embraced in pillow-y shrouds

Rhapsodies in white
and the fairest of blue,
pre-nuptial visions of tufted preludes
and painting a picture
within the mind’s eye,
I watch clouds perform
as they softly float by.

© Annette Nasser

Edinburgh, Scotland

Shuttered

I captured clouds
shapeshifters since the eye of time
blinked open
on a curved horizon.

H2O breathed
into the sky
chased by the wind,
illumined by the sun
so that they trailed their cloaks,
red matadors
to tantalise
the night.
But captured clouds
remain the same essential solvency
frozen by the shutter.
I did not mean to steal
their radiant breath
siphoned through lens

to finish
motionless
and matt corralled
on paper.
I should set them free
to roam again the wild ethereal plains
of cumulus and nimbus
where they could change
to storm clouds,
great herds of rain
heading
to arid Africa
or snowladen
crown
the high
Ben Nevis.

© Aine 1995

LA NUVOLA DISPETTOSA

Chi mi odia e chi mi apprezza,
a qualcuno do’ amarezza
per i panni da asciugare
o il bikini da indossare.
Ma se il sole va in vacanza,
perché fare la lagnanza?
Io lavoro anche di notte
e, se vi sveglio con le botte,
chiedo scusa a tutti quanti
per gli acuti rimbombanti.
Ora vado e vi saluto,
lascio il posto a quel Cornuto,
ma sul finir della giornata
ve la faccio una spruzzata.

© Annarosa Iacoponi 2010

Eyjafallajokull

BOILING, BURSTING, BUBBLING;
BLASTING CENTRE, SEETHING MAGMA, HEAVING,
SULPHURED SORCERY, NONE BELIEVING,
PUSHING ..TO.. THE SKY,

FIRE AND WATER, VOLVIC HISS.
ICE AND MOLTEN MATTER KISS,
EXPLODING NAGASAKI THIS.
PLUMING ..UPWARDS.. OF THOUSANDS ..OF FEET.

CLOUD AND ASH SURGE HIGHER AND HIGHER.
PYROMANIC TOWER OF FIRE.
WHY CAME THIS ATOMIC PYRE ?
CARBUNKLED.. CORTEX,.. PUSTULE ON EARTH,

PISHING AND PUSSING PUTRID DISPLAY,
GALACTIC ROCKETS, ARE UP AND AWAY,
HERE TO DISCHARGE FOR A YEAR AND A DAY.
CARRYING.. EXPLODED ..DUST.. AND DEBRIS;

CHARCOAL WITH ASH, BLACK AND BROWN.
WHAT’S GOING UP WILL HAVE TO COME DOWN !
WILL WE BE SAFE IN OUR LITTLE TOWN ?
SOME.. ASTHMATIC PEOPLE ..ARE GROUNDED ..AND HIDDEN

FROM SULPHURY GASES, DEADLY, SPARKLING WITH GLASS
SO FRAGMENTED, FOR POWDER WOULD PASS
TO OUR LUNGS, UNRETRACTING, EVIL AS GAS.
WE.. BREATHE IN ..A RAINBOW,

THROUGH WHICH PLANES SHOULD NOT FLY.
A SURGING HEAVING POWER IN THE SKY,
SPRINKLED ASH ON MY CAR, IN WIND PASSING BY.
I SANG ..IN THAT AIR, ..NOT A THOUGHT ..NOT A CARE.

I PARKED UP MY CAR, STRONGLY SUN FACING.
FINE PRISMS OF GLASS, AS DIAMONDS REFRACTING.
ALL OF THE COLOURS, THEIR PAYMENT EXACTING.
SPREAD ..ON MY WINDSCREEN,.. COVERED ..ALL OVER,

BEJEWELLED AND BEDAZZLED, A MAGIC DISPLAY,
THAT SPARKLED AND GLITTERED FOR OVER A DAY,
WHILE AS i TRAVELLED, BLEW / FADED AWAY.
WILL THIS ..COUGHING … EXPEL ..THE GLASS ..IN MY LUNGS?

THE SHOW TIME OVER, THE ASH PATTERN STAYED.
UNKNOWN CHEMISTRY EARTHWARD HAD STRAYED.
RAIN WET AND ASH GREASY PATTERNS DISPLAYED.
BLOTCHING MY MIND………………… WITH ARTISTIC THOUGHT.

© Anna Samuel-Eshete 2010

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

Mosman Park,

Western Australia

Cloudland

they
float
drift
sail on the wind
don’t need anchors
know tempest and calm
hide moon and stars
rain on our parade
enhance sunrise and sunset
depress us
inspire us
make us want to see beyond.

© Ann Brodziak 2007

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 lightening in

Smothered light fades shadows
With darkness drawing nigh to weep
As storm clouds explode
Rain falls heavily toward those that sleep

© Andrew Barrett

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

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.

Wiltshire, UK

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

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.

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

Genus stratus lies low in the hills
Waiting for strays and lost wills…

Black ink blotch clouds imbue the West dusk sky
Nebulous noctilucent drift ethereally up high…

Leeds. Yorkshire. UK.

Learning to name clouds

The sky wasn’t ready to receive us:
as clouds mopped after sun spills,
hills gulped heat then, shaded, cooled,
lobbed wind around in rowdy gusts.

The thermals puffed on their cumuli:
mediocris above us, blooming congestus
to the west where calving plumes rested
on collapsing columns. Our new canopies

lay limp and sighed. We wouldn’t get to fly.
The instructor saw the front ahead:
first, ice crystals spun to cirrus threads
stitched the tattered blue, then altocumuli

unravelled to stratocumulus stratiformis –
a muddle that lowered the sky. In grey
calm, we soared until rain stopped play
with a darkening drizzle of nimbostratus.

Grounded, I weighed up the trade: unlearn
the vast truths of the childhood sky,
the storied mind whose empires
rose for me alone above the plains

back home, and earn your place in a hive
stiff with Latin, riddled with equations:
the architecture of these brief cradlings,
their seraphim views, our thumb nail lives.

© Alex Fox 2007.

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-

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

Birmingham, UK.

Clouds of moods.

A cloudy day, a moody grey

I feel the same inside

You read me well, we share the mood

That neither of us can hide.

You show me your mood

Though I dare not show mine

So how do you see through me?

That all my thoughts are thine.

Thin and high, you are far away

Just like my thoughts right now

My mind is drifting, from here to there

You share my mood some how.

A ray of sun across the sky

You let it through today

Is this because you share my mood

And let me have my way.

A lightening bolt, a clap of thunder

You share my anger quite well

Yes, today I lost my temper

So just how could you tell?

I feel good today, all is OK

A gentle billow of fluff and white

How do you know? Do you read my mind?

Your mood is mine, quite right!

© Adrian Beckett. 2007.

And Wordsworth said: “I wandered lonely as a cloud…” But are clouds ever lonely?

Cloud Haiku

Underneath a cloud
A person can understand
The fact of the sun

© Adam Davis

[vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” text_align=”left” css_animation=””][vc_column][vc_column_text]This poem came second place in poem in the Cloud Poetry Competition that we ran with Candlestick Press. Sarah’s poem will appear in the forthcoming leaflet from Candlestick Press, Ten Poems about Clouds.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” text_align=”left” css_animation=””][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]

Flight

If love was like clouds and I leapt
from the plane, could I fall into you?
Could you bear me softly like faith,

muss my shadow with woolly devotion,
fold me into your core, where I could not feel
the rush of grave air?
Would you blind me, temporarily, please?

Let me glean this when I unbuckle, head for the exit:
your turning mass like milk in the belly,
your lack of certainty, the way your edges furl –

Or let me make my own cloud
here on the pane – let me hush you into an oval window
wipe a line through my breath with a finger
as if proving I have agency over love, and water and air.

© Sarah Westcott[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” text_align=”left” css_animation=””][vc_column][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” text_align=”left” css_animation=””][vc_column][vc_column_text]Sarah Westcott’s first collection, Slant Light, was published in 2016 by Pavilion Poetry, an imprint of Liverpool University Press. Sarah’s poems have appeared in magazines including The Poetry Review and Magma, and in anthologies including The Forward Book of Poetry 2017 – as well as on beermats, billboards and the side of buses. She is currently Manchester Cathedral Poet of the Year and lives in Kent with her family.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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.

Julie Stein, member 29213 from Athens, Greece has sent us this poem.