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Category: Cloud Poetry

Why not send us your own cloud poetry? Remember to include your full name and where you live.

May 8, 2017
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‘Flight’ by Sarah Westcott

[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]

May 8, 2017
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‘Hazy, Massed, Dappled’ by Lesley Saunders

[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 is the winning poem in the Cloud Poetry Competition that we ran with Candlestick Press. Lesley’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]

Hazy, Massed, Dappled

after Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Annuaire Méteorologique 1802

Hazy, massed, dappled, their cotton shifts, their furs and velvets; bringers of lambs’ tails and almond-blossom, suspended ceilings of heartbroken thunder and storm-damaged childhoods – you are never as alone as you think you are. But in the walled garden all that fills you is sky and the wisps of someone else’s weathers: spring snow, a rag of fire in a bare tree, roofs smoking with dew-mist. A cirrus of midges. Then sunlight bursting each pane of glass as it passes, like a housemartin crashing softly against the picture-rails. Afternoon darkening in all its parlours and pigeon-holes of grey. Now move hands like clouds (seven times). Carry tiger to mountain.

© Lesley Saunders, 2017[/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_text]Lesley Saunders is the author of several books of poetry, including Cloud Camera, a book of poems about the dream lives of scientific instruments and medical techniques (Two Rivers Press 2012). She has performed her work at literary festivals and on the radio, and has worked on collaborative projects with artists, sculptors, musicians, photographers and dancers. Otherwise, she works as an independent researcher in education. www.lesleysaunders.org.uk[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

November 14, 2016
by

Our Clouds by JJ Evendon

A layer of cloud covers the summer sky,
pleasant without menace.
Tantalisingly beautiful.
Serene by absence of noise.
Drawn by wind carriages.
The sun’s rays exposing momentary holes,
transformed into stilts of light.
Radiant.
Only to disappear then reappear.
All random.
The shadow makers continue their passage,
individually, collectively –
it matters not,
for they are there,
above.
Always above
without torment or whisper.

© JJ Evendon January 2016

April 30, 2015
by

From John Alcock

Clouds Above Lark Hill

Pillows and sheep
sheep asleep on pillows
bellwether and teg
pampered and plumped

Clouds that meander
from vale to wold
patient flocks billowing
bold as bolsters

Along the horizon
cloudwisp collies
rounding up sheep
in the tapering wind

Hurdled and huddled
close to the fold
delighting in dreams
of grazing sky-free

Cloudtrails of wool
woof and weft woven
hillside and valley
of sleep-grazing sheep

All down the sky-long
Warwickshire feldon
from Ilmington to Adlestrop
into Gloucestershire

© John Alcock

June 3, 2014
by

From Greg Kern

If Clouds Could Talk…

What if clouds hold conversations
That would be a revelation
If they can talk, then they might say…

“I hope it doesn’t rain today!”
“I’m freezing, my hands are cold as ice.”
“It’s too hot! This breeze feels nice.”
“…Hmmm…What color should I wear?”
“This wind is messing up my hair.”
“My! It’s raining cats and dogs!”
“I can’t see through all this fog.”
“Look at that romantic moon.”
“Winter will be coming soon.”
“I think that I’ll just hang around.”
“CAN’T SOMEONE TURN THAT THUNDER DOWN!!!”
“The stars are shining bright tonight”
“Have you seen the Northern Lights?”
“Mom, can I go out and play?”
“Yes, but don’t go far away.”
“We’d better go, it’s getting late.”
“I think that she’s put on some weight!”
“I like to travel to far-off places.”
“I can’t remember names, but remember faces.”
“We should really get together.”
“I’m tired of all this crummy weather.”
“I wish that I had wings to fly.”
“I wonder what happens when we die?”
“This Summer sun can be so soothing.”
“WHAT’S THE PROBLEM!? WHY AREN’T WE MOVING!?”
“I really am not into crowds.”
“He thinks that he’s God’s gift to clouds.”

I don’t believe that clouds can’t speak
…I’ve seen them dancing cheek to cheek And in those times of deep devotion I’m certain they express emotion

© Greg Kern Olmsted Falls, Ohio