Life Without Passion is Unforgivable…

In the words of my Hero, ‘I’m like a bat-out-of-hell’…
My vacation’s back on due to fervent ground-swell!
I’ve been worried for weeks that I’d not see those clouds,
but my prayers have been answered by the wild, baying crowds.

People say I’m a moron for endorsing this struggle,
But clouds and my duties are tough things to juggle.
So when my chance shows it’s face, I’m not biding my time,
And I’m straight in that taxi with my partner-in-crime.

…and I don’t mean my wife of course, she’s still at home.
It’s my rich neighbour Bernard, and his Schnauzer, Jerome.
I don’t like being a postman, I get cold hands and the like.
But it does have its plusses such as this lovely strike!

This means I can wonder o’er hills and o’er dales.
Topping it off with a few fine cask ales.
I take photos all day, I never want to go back,
but I must or it’s likely they’ll give me the sack.

How can I get round this? I’m hatching a plan.
It involves Bernard of course, and some de-icer-laced ham.
I watch as he chews, like a mad, hungry cow.
…and when he’s gone we swap clothes, “BECAUSE I’M BERNARD NOW!”

© Mark J Peacock 2009

of Dubai, UAE

What is a Cloud?
A cloud is a fluffy white kitten on a soft blue blanket.
A cloud is a sail on a sailboat drifting through calm waters.
A cloud is a magical sheep flying in the sky.
Clouds are sun parasols shading us from the sun’s scolding rays.
They are eco-friendly cars that run on wind power.
Clouds are cotton candy from heaven’s fairgrounds.
A cloud is a teddy bear waiting to be cuddled.
Clouds are the jail keepers for the rain until they’re set free.

© Rebecca Charlotte Williams 2009

East Midlands, U.K.

HAIKU – 2

the sky a thunderous
black – summer leaves tremble
in anticipation

upturned to the sun
flecks of white on brown leaves –
autumn has arrived

speeding panther clouds
leap across the wasteland of
a cerulean sky

the cloud – a tuft of
cotton wool lingering on
the sky’s fitted sheet

the encroaching night
turns the shepherd’s flock
from embers to ashes

sycamore leaves spoil
the patio – dropped litter
from tired trees

low clouds meander through
sad willow trees – branches
drooping in the mist

the dark housecoat of
night opens to show the silken
lingerie of dawn

the vapour trail – a length
of cotton trimming
unravels across the sky

shadows cross the
quiet roads – it’s the morning of
Remembrance Sunday

© Brenda Barnard 2009

Cold Heart

I wonder, did wife remember my lambswool sweater?
As we arrive, park our car, and release our Red Setter.
Then the clouds take my breath but my wife rolls her eyes,
She’s seen Lunesdale, the bakers, and their famous game pies.

The trip looks to be doomed as she licks both her lips.
…but I might have a plan involving ‘hot’ fish and chips!
I say “Pies are for tea, wife” and jump back in the car,
and coax her aboard with a Mars Delight bar.

We race to the chippy and I rush right inside,
with a grin on my face and a strange sense of pride.
As we gorge in the car, wife crows…”yours looks much nicer”.
But then hers is the one I’ve laced with de-icer!

Within minutes she’s gone as I’m spared from more cawing.
So I look to the clouds and begin a rough drawing.
Then the irony hits me, goodness, what a caper!
I’ve only gone and forgotten my paper.

© Mark Peacock 2009

The ‘Beast’ Humbly Replies to the Chemist

“Why am I over here?” Sir, don’t you see?
We clouds roam the firmament, ‘megaform’… and drift free.

No need to be fearful, hypotensive, caught short
or strut around looking in places ‘we ought’.

Nor do we, as a rule, emit light or heat white.
As ‘cumulo-friends’ we’re not here to give fright.

High in the sky are utopian trysts!
Hugging land? Less lovely – we’re then fogs and mists.

Perhaps, sir, and I speak with some pride,
you might care to beg, borrow or buy the The Cloudspotter’s Guide

in which our terrestrial champion Gavin Pretor-P
extols ‘bodies without surface’ (and that’s Leonardo da V!)

© Julie Elizabeth Smalley 2009

Distopian Megaformation

Why are you over there, you massive white beast?

In the North, near the moon instead of Southeast.

The fear takes me over, as I fall to the ground,

and my eyes start to water as my trousers are browned.

I’m confused my great cumulo-friend, at how this can be.

You’re not meant to be there, though you may disagree.

I tighten my belt as I hop to my feet.

And I shout to the skies “White Light! White Heat!”

Then my temperature steadies and I paw my own eyes.

I pack up my rucksack and say my goodbyes.

For my affair with you is over and I must return home,

To my job as a chemist who makes polyurethane foam.

© Mark John Peacock 2009

from Middlewich, Cheshire, UK

A CLOUD COUPLET

Beware! Endless contemplation of Nature might weary us,
for a cloud’s existence is Very Mysterious!

A CLOUD HAIKU

In awe of the clouds,
I wonder. Do they ever
appreciate us?

A CLOUD McWHIRTLE

We’re sure as hell lucky that
G. Pretor-Pinney
started to celebrate the Celestial Un-clear.
For with his wise guruship
meteorological
our oft-cloudy skies now fill us with cheer.

A CLOUD PANTOUM

Ever considered the curious shifting shapes in the sky?
Perhaps you’ve pondered the view from a ‘pilot’s office’.
Didn’t you wonder about clouds…the how, what and why?
Well, we’ve got just the Society for a cloudspotting novice!

Perhaps you’ve pondered the view from a ‘pilot’s office’,
unable to express in terms arty or formal.
Well, we’ve got just the Society for a cloudspotting novice!
(Thousands of Appreciators think the practice quite normal.)

Unable to express in terms arty or formal?
Nature’s nebulous variety puts on her show free.
Thousands of Appreciators think this is quite normal.
Yet, to learn how please join us for a very small fee.

Nature’s nebulous variety puts on a show free.
Advice is hereby addressed “To Those Who’ve
Yet to Learn How”. Please join us for a very small fee.
(Marvel, observe when you look at them move!!)

Advice is hereby addressed to those who’ve
ever considered the curious shifting shapes in the sky.
Marvel, observe when you look at them move.
Didn’t you wonder about clouds…the how, what and why?

“CLOUD QUARTET” © Julie Elizabeth Smalley 2009

Ode to Cloud Nine

Thunder a-comin’.
Skies gawn dark.
Where’d tha fluffy
Cumulus gow?
Winds a-gustin’ –
‘Ard.
You’se loomin’,
Hangin’ on yonda.

Won’ be long now.

Incredible vorh-ex.
Gigan’ic,
Terrible –
Cloud galaxy of
Atmospheric nebula.
As you lay quiet,
Broodin’ an’
Gatherin’ energies.

Won’ be long now.

Thump!
You hit roof.
A straturspheric
Punch.
Anvil like, you
Start to tritle –
Rain –
Belts it down.

Won’ be long now.

Bit nippy like,
Shivrin’.
You’se dominate;
Skye Marster,
Lord of clouds,
Number níne.
Tree’s is screamin’
Before you wake.

Won’ be long now.

Won’ be long
NOW!
Cack, crackle.
Heav’ns chime,
Valk-ries
Time for livin’.
You’se,
No,
WE’se alive!

Migh’y-number-níne
You ebb
An’ flow.
‘Lectric fingers
Kneadin’ grey dough.
You’se is almos’ spent.
Dissipate an’ i’ll watch.
Another’s growin’.
Cumulonimbus!

Won’ be long now.

© Stephen Taylor-Matthews

From Egypt

Clouds

to find the origin,
trace back the manifestations.
Tao

Between being and non-being
barely there
these sails of water, ice, air –

Indifferent drifters, wandering
high on freedom
of the homeless

Restlessly swithering
like ghosts, slithering through substance
in puffs and wisps

Lending an enchanting or ominous air
luminous or casting shadows,
ambivalent filters of reality

Bequeathing wreaths, or
modesty veils to great natural beauties
like mountain peaks

Sometimes simply hanging there
airborne abstract art
in open air

Suspended animation
continually contorting:
great sky whales, now, horse drawn carriages

unpinpointable thought forms,
punctuating the endless sentence of the sky.

© Yahia Lababidi 2009
Visit his website www.janestreet.org/press

poem in the sky (@10972 metres)

flat sea fog island
in rolling boil to
massive bank of nuclear mushroom pillars shading
bays and bubbling cotton wool candy floss snow
stark, light-framed toppling plumes poised
to fall into chasm and then flattened misty sea
and on

fluffy buffalo clamber out of mist and skirt
the edge of sea with massive mothers-a-leaping
and merging to a rush to who knows where
concealed in grey

and
sudden tower erupts
but is washed under by
unlikely cataract cloudfall rehearsing
a later moment as
water

four frozen polar bears
race to the ice shelf watching
still distant archipelagos
rings, real ridged rings topped by
frozen explosions of
crisply
defined moments

and sudden whiter outgrowths reach up
almost close enough to touch and the mind
will not stop comparing and decoding each and
every unique cloud play up here
and each and every unique cloud play here

just is and
i will not let it be and
it just is and ever will be
when we’ve passed
but different

© Peter Stockton

Bala Cynwyd, PA, USA

Reflection

A field of flowering flax
mirrors the blue summer sky.
A flock of white sheep
wanders through a gate ajar
spreads with deliberate dignity –
cumulus clouds drifting in a flaxen sky.

© William R Brennen

Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

ABOVE EVEREST

When flying from Nepal to Thailand,
I was given a “good-side” seat;
And, as I looked out the plane window,
The view I saw was really neat.

For breaking through a thick sheet of cloud
Were the high Himalayan peaks;
And, rising the highest of them all,
Mount Everest – heaven bespeaks!

© David Franks/WalkaboutsVerse 2003

Vernon, USA

White Sails Riding High

I saw the white sails ride high
A massive armada across the azure sky
Each thought in a mighty seaworthy craft
White sails afore and white sails aft.
A thought drawn taut and billowed out
Providence assured without a doubt.
Soft sails of pride, genuine and real
With a bold mast and a sturdy keel.

I saw the little skiffs on the bay
A gay regatta on a blustery day.
They danced about, all in good sorts
White sails dancing while the sun cavorts
With the sweet allusions that tantalize
By sending white sails before our eyes.

I saw the summer breeze chase
One after another at its own pace,
The pace they keep right from the start
Seeking a temporal identity of heart
Living for now in this brief encounter

© James Webb Wilson 2009

RELAXING AFTER SUPPER

I was tired from a long day at work,
I sat out in my lawn chair reading
It was shortly after a good supper
While Muffin the cat rested at my feet.

The sky was silent and much above me
It lent me clouds of classical design
White Ionic columns of a great temple
From Zeus’s grin to Minerva’s dimple
Where divinity seemed simple
As they sat on their Olympian thrones,
Settling over my Connecticut bones.

Then by the evening breezes led
Their white horses coaxed were sped
From one corral to another,
Some were as Pegasus promptly tethered
Others in white mare’s tails drifted off
All the Gods horses were so well aligned
They floated in symmetry and silence refined

I count the serenity of each cloud I see
As they steady me and put me at ease
I wonder why Rushmore does not have knees.
I watch the clouds in the evening air
And merely let my imagination
In the majestic drama unrehearsed
Each guess is as good as the first,
Each scene gets its rave review
On this stage of clouds and peace.

© James Webb Wilson 2009

WHITE SAIL REGATTA
I saw the skiffs upon the bay
One by one as they raised their sails,
White linen sails to catch the shy summer breeze
Billowed out and ready to race.
This great fleet of a nautical regatta
Ready to drift across the celestial sea
While the crows watched from the hill

We needed no tickets and never will
As we sat up in our box seats at home.

I saw the wild race begin
With a slow but steady start
The way all boats start out,
Adjusting t the currents passing by,
Feeling the tension in the sails,
Setting the rudder for direction.
They moved out in one procession
Their white sails proud impression.

Then the Levantine breezes stirred
And set the skiffs a challenge strong
Each skiff seemed told to move along
Some skiffs died along the way,
Some struggled on courageously.
Perhaps upstream somewhere.
Or dissipate, dissolve and be gone
Clipped by the reaper of the celestial lawn.

© James Webb Wilson 2009

from Sydney, Australia

Cloud gazing

I saw an elephant up in the sky
On a serenely lovely summer’s day
A myriad of clouds went drifting by
Wispy, fluffy, streaked in white and grey

Such afternoons as these are made for play
The temperature is warm, the sun is high
I love how in a child-imagined way
I saw an elephant up in the sky

All lives have trials to bear and tears to cry
Commitments to be honoured, debts to pay
But we’ll forget our troubles by and by
On a serenely lovely summer’s day

Across the farming lands we made our way
To find a pleasing place for us to lie
And while we were reposing in the hay
A myriad of clouds went drifting by

Their ever-changing forms enchant the eye
Parading past me in a vast array
To name them is a game I like to try
Wispy, fluffy, streaked in white and grey
I saw an elephant

© Michelle Willis 2008

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

Montrose, Angus, Scotland

Five minutes about clouds

Thinking about clouds
Can be stormy or calm
From the darkest of grey
To the softest of balm
Now your head’s lost in fluff
And your smile is a charm
Then it’s back to full gloom
And a sign marked ‘alarm’

© Rachel Fox 2009

San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA

Mare’s tail or ghost hair
White whips or slubbed silks
Breeze training cloud scarves
Translucent linen strands afloat
Big brush gesso strokes
Swiped and twirled, wrist
Dancing loose and free
Clouds in the sky
Joy in me.

© Jan Lewis 2009

Sarasota, Florida, USA

Cloud Viewing

The old masters went snow viewing
and inked poems by brazier light.
Letting go of arising & passing, they
shivered with the nature of mind.
Genial, life & death haunted hunters!

In Florida we go out cloud viewing,
eyes filled with wine-bodied, innerlit
here-and-gone Spanish armadas
of fleeting shape shifts. All summer
greedy & guilty & crazy with excess.

I give my eyes & heart. At sunset
take a camera to the quay beneath
the Sarasota bridge that arcs to
St. Armands Circle & capture high,
warm luminaries in watery sky drifts.

From nowhere a half-naked fisherman
drags over a hooked catfish. It’s
eye fiercely piercing clotted last light.
“Can’t eat ‘em,” he says & plunges in
his knife. Dark falls, chafes & ignites.

© John Wark 2009

CLOUD HAIKU (Western style)

storm clouds smooth
across the summer sky
wet spots at my feet

a shepherd’s evening sky
clouds and sheep
are tinted pink

the fairground ride
split the sky
shot the clouds

the clouds are down
bruised by leafless trees
– winter has arrived

the dying tree
scribbled its distress across
the cumulus sky

© Brenda Barnard 2009 (member no. 17887)