Weight of a Cloud

FIELDS in DROUGHT

Capsized earth,

Fields belly up,

Clouds skirt the area’s fringes

But are selfish

With their floating oceans;

Perfect plowed rows

Are in memories now or in

Photos.

MUGGY TUESDAY

Today a muggy Tuesday.

Glad the clouds are stopping momentarily

(They drift on by).

With so many of them

Sun peeks in on me only on occasion

Then blinks out behind the shape-shifting aerial mass.

It’s much greener now (the city) throughout.

It has rained steadily most of August.

Mature pine and pecan trees in surrounding neighbors’ yards

Look ten years younger now

But even dogs pant and then pant some more,

Half-cloaked in the shade.

Shirts get tacky on body as if spray-glue misted

And necks get damp with one’s

Own secretions.

Really, I don’t mind the muggy. Not even

The bug explosion that comes with it.

CLOUDS COLLIDING

Looking up

 

There is visible blue sky

within the h o le in the middle smashing clouds.

 

I watch the top of one cloud

Curling in on itself, so titanium white—

As if a small part of the sun is trapped within it.

Mostly, all the upper atmosphere is various shades

Of gray cloud.

 

Some have a pale yellow dirtiness to them, all shape-shifting,

Cross-cutting each other’s flight path.

 

Some have wispy-smoke edges,

Others, sharper detail, in-focus,

With seemingly ripped out heaps of dangling pillow cotton.

 

Some strike me as though a fetus-in-progress

Stretching in the womb.

 

Others seem to writhe, inter-looping in momentary knots

As if locked in death’s chokehold.

 

I watch this all unfold for five minutes or so,

The blue sky gap now closes.

Gray takes hold of the entire sky (this evening’s anyway).

And, strangely—

With the over-head collisions taking place there is hardly a murmur,

Nothing of thunder or the like.

It is peacefully silent, just the slightest

Perfect evening breeze, and me.

 

 

 

 

 

CHANGE isn’t ALWAYS GOOD

The new me is calling;
I want my old life back.
No one answers…

FROM the RECESSES

The thought is a dark butterfly,
Perched askew on thorny bush
Frayed wings held closed;

It launches into reality,

Sputtering about.

 

It almost reaches

Neighboring bush, but with

Bike-sprocket teeth for wings

It crash lands again, only, this time,

Too close to the mostly

Hidden cat.

It launches into reality,
Sputtering about.

IN the SOUNDHOLE SEEING

The hours when lizards hide

And the mountain’s detail

Is as clear as the fly’s wing etching.

Lumpy cracks in asphalt elbow one’s tires.

Brains are calculator components moving

Tic-tac-toe graphs into orbit.

 

Acoustic guitars are being tuned

And a fly is in

The soundhole seeing

Too many hands

On one finger.

DOPPLEGANGER

Light bulb filament
Hums, the noise
Breaks in and out,

Then becomes silent.

Footsteps sound

Further and further away…

I stop walking,

But the step sounds don’t.

It is too dark to see

Myself in the mirror.

The cold is arresting,

Unforgiving…

Now I see

The cold is my legs

Missing.

 

 

 

 

THIEF of BLISS

Is hiding

In a cloud,

Poking

Holes in it;

Thief sleeps

Between blades of grass

Where happiest, stolen, moments are

Forever buried.

A FINGER REARRANGES SAND

Stars obscured by haze or, maybe, ghosts

Of slow-moving zeppelin. Sand

Dunes under moon mimic

Sleeping women.

Rising winds begin buffeting

Hair and ears in random cycles

puncturing sleep pat t e rns

.

Shades of flame taper high and sharp—

Silent parade of dancing daggers.

Small things attempt to

Reach the top

Of the food chain.

Big things are cramping from

Holding upright too long.

STEAL the STARS

 

There is no escaping thieves and crookedness.

In the future, when we live on space stations,
Far away from

The new Mars (EARTH),

People will somehow manage to,

One by one,

Steal the stars.

 

[LOST in BLOWING MASS
of WHITE SMOKE]

We are window to window
An empty parking space apart.
No words are exchanged, just a quick smile

Between, you and I, two strangers
Having just got in their cars.
Both like what we see, we maintain eye-contact.
Until I start my car and your unforgettable face
Gets sucked into a sudden fallen cloud—
My white smoke exhaust surging from tail-pipe—
Killing the moment.
That potential moment ,
The “us” probability.

 

 

 

 

 

 

ONE HELL of a LONG POEM

Still reading it
As I write mine
Which you just finished
Reading…

 

 

 

FIN

 

 

• * * * * * * * *

 

 

Material for Weight of a Cloud

First published in electronic format online in 2016.

All content written by, cover artwork and design by RJ Williams.

All Rights Reserved RJ Williams © 2016

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