[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]

[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]

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

“Our Clouds” is from the latest collection by JJEvendon: Apocalypse

I follow the dancing ball moon
over the rolling waves…

No watcher of the TV weather I,
Go outside and read the sky…

I ask myself as the clouds sure to form
If you see it as I do from where you were born…

A flotilla of ships in grey and cream
Are the clouds I see in a waking dream…

I assessed the ladder’s size,
clothed by familiar skies…

Here I sit under the giant tree,
it does not bear fruit for it is a maple you see…

The ephemeral beings that roam our skies for all of us…

I dreamt the clouds were all asleep
Feathered pillows resting their heads…

There is perhaps a city
Above those fluffy clouds…

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

Fluffy puffy cotton wool,
High up in the sky,
Bringing rain, making rainbows,
Silent ships drifting by.

Grey-white, surreal, fantastic,
Light as cotton…

Almost describing
almost wondering…

How can we feel young again?
We can do it if we try…

Sail on; sail on
The Celestial seas…

The cloud, he woke at break of day, with sunlight in his eyes…

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

We all wish that we could be, like clouds so lazy and carefree…

Clouds are great, they play an intrinsic part in the earths Eco system…