Among'st a non-judging expanse,
Creative clouds dance.

Through fields one might prance,
Find a tree and sit
Or take a different stance.

See it fully or just give a glance~

The clouds, they form in multiplicities,
Reflecting simplicity;
Expanding creative form explicitly.

What'll it be?
How'll it grow?

Beautiful sky of freedom's form,
Modify your figure and break the norm.
Show me what never dies and is forever born~!

And reveal to us in time what is on the inside,
Usually hidden when worn.

I saw this in the clouds today, when I was bored..

Hot on the tail of that wily, elusive beast
named ‘inspiration’, I travelled north.

North, where colours mute
and transformative shadow
bends in darklight,
revealing the world as it really is,
as it once was.

Hundreds of years pass,
rolling back time, boiling clouds
rushing over peaks in reverse,
a tiny tornado ***** in on itself,
and hundreds become thousands.

Rain blackens the babies of volcanoes,
engorges forces with greater purpose
and cleanses every shred of vision
from my grasping, desperate mind.

Thousands become millions
And I am stripped of incentive to try.
There is no ruination, here.
No furious nor frantic need
to imagine past lives
in this manicured, managed place.

High-vis’d toilers scuttle on mountainsides
carefully placing and re-placing rocks,
funnelling feet and discovery
on a prescribed and sensible path.

Only the rain
wreathing a secretive misted ribbon,
creeping in glacial cut-throughs,
is possessed of fanciful virtue.

Nothing shatters but the slate
and the landscape does not turn inward
to eat itself
in gnawing, atavistic need.

It says more about me,
than it does of the Lake District
that I would wrench out and offer
my super-heated heart
to see the mountains fall.

Earliest morning, switching all the tracks
that cross the sky from cinder star to star,
        coupling the ends of streets
        to trains of light.

now draw us into daylight in our beds;
and clear away what presses on the brain:
        put out the neon shapes
        that float and swell and glare

down the gray avenue between the eyes
in pinks and yellows, letters and twitching signs.
        Hang-over moons, wane, wane!
        From the window I see

an immense city, carefully revealed,
made delicate by over-workmanship,
        detail upon detail,
        cornice upon facade,

reaching up so languidly up into
a weak white sky, it seems to waver there.
        (Where it has slowly grown
        in skies of water-glass

from fused beads of iron and copper crystals,
the little chemical "garden" in a jar
        trembles and stands again,
        pale blue, blue-green, and brick.)

The sparrows hurriedly begin their play.
Then, in the West, "Boom!" and a cloud of smoke.
        "Boom!" and the exploding ball
        of blossom blooms again.

(And all the employees who work in a plants
where such a sound says "Danger," or once said "Death,"
        turn in their sleep and feel
        the short hairs bristling

on backs of necks.) The cloud of smoke moves off.
A shirt is taken of a threadlike clothes-line.
        Along the street below
        the water-wagon comes

throwing its hissing, snowy fan across
peelings and newspapers.  The water dries
        light-dry, dark-wet, the pattern
        of the cool watermelon.

I hear the day-springs of the morning strike
from stony walls and halls and iron beds,
        scattered or grouped cascades,  
        alarms for the expected:

queer cupids of all persons getting up,
whose evening meal they will prepare all day,
        you will dine well
        on his heart, on his, and his,

so send them about your business affectionately,
dragging in the streets their unique loves.
        Scourge them with roses only,
        be light as helium,

for always to one, or several, morning comes
whose head has fallen over the edge of his bed,
        whose face is turned
        so that the image of

the city grows down into his open eyes
inverted and distorted.  No.  I mean
        distorted and revealed,
        if he sees it at all.

A cuckoo sings its first spring voice
The cider maker cracks his cork on this year’s choice
English apples presented from pre years press
Picked and selected to impress
Bottled and ready for drinkers wide and far
Vision distorting with every jar

From orchards up and down the land
Drinkers search the best in town
Scrumpy be the drinkers rot
Weak willed should try it not

A test once tasted of a brewers fare
An enjoyment discovered but just take care
For once you have past the half way mark
You’ll soon be singing and dancing with the larks