Get Your Premium Membership

Mountain Storm Premiere Contest Winner

Cumulonimbus lurking
peering over white-topped peaks
like childhood's hunchbacked monsters
waiting there to pounce

Shadows lick the creviced slopes
as white and green become gray
lights flash behind the drawn shades
of ominous clouds

Darkness pours into valleys
where rows of birches waver
as if nervously laughing
on the river shore

Relentlessly advancing
the storm growls and cracks and snaps
and the landscape disappears 
behind wind and rain

God's angry swords slash the dark
each plunge deep with loud report
and all bow at its advance
some shatter and fall

Gone now like it never came
still grumbling as it departs
to disturb more peaceful scenes
beyond the valley

Halfway up the mountainside
the sun plays at the tree line
below a more peaceful gray
ushers in the night

March 31, 2019 / 2019 Poetry Marathon Final / Sponsor: Mark Toney
Published in a seasonal anthology Kind of a Hurricane Press

Copyright © | Year Posted 2017




Post Comments

Poetrysoup is an environment of encouragement and growth so only provide specific positive comments that indicate what you appreciate about the poem. Negative comments will result your account being banned.

Please Login to post a comment

Date: 2/3/2021 7:43:00 AM
Very clever to refer to clouds as hunchbacks, Craig. Glad to have found this lovely poem published in the 2020 PS Anthology ~
Login to Reply
Date: 4/21/2019 2:52:00 PM
I thought i was reading free verse and then looked at the form and saw it was dodoitsu. Excellent work, Craig. for me it could also be free verse and as free verse goes, this is the way I like free verse to read: deep yet at the same time, transparent. Congrats on your win. Very well deserved.
Login to Reply
Date: 4/20/2019 11:44:00 PM
Back with more congrats on this beautiful poem and your high placement in this marathon contest, Craig.
Login to Reply
Date: 4/20/2019 8:41:00 PM
CONGRATULATIONS on your well-deserved win, Craig! Janice
Login to Reply
Date: 4/20/2019 4:34:00 PM
Craig, after 122 days, 27 contests, and 945 submitted poems, you have won SIXTH PLACE overall in my 2019 Poetry Marathon Contest!!! Kudos to you for your well-deserved win! ~Mark
Login to Reply
Date: 1/1/2019 12:51:00 PM
A most deserving gold medal win, Craig. Superbly executed.
Login to Reply
Date: 12/30/2018 8:10:00 PM
Congratulations on your win, Craig, the imagery is fantastic in this well written poem. May you have a blessed Happy New Years. Hugs Eve ~`*
Login to Reply
Date: 12/30/2018 8:10:00 PM
CONGRATS on your well-deserved win, Craig. Janice
Login to Reply
Date: 12/30/2018 2:55:00 PM
Craig, congrats on your Dodoitsu first-place win on mile 6 of my 2019 Poetry Marathon contest! Love the use of simile, personification and action words galore :) FYI- I gave you a 1-syllable mulligan on line 3 of stanza 2. Cheers! ~Mark
Login to Reply
Toney Avatar
Mark Toney
Date: 1/3/2019 12:19:00 AM
Lol
Cornish Avatar
Craig Cornish
Date: 1/1/2019 1:14:00 PM
Thank you Mark, honored and I fixed that line, what a good spot. Very few will take the time to check forms! Thank you! After the way I played golf yesterday I need mulligans for real! Happy New Year.
Date: 11/20/2017 2:57:00 PM
The sun plays at the treeline ... there must be a rainbow:) So very beautiful to read. I love "God's angry swords slash the dark". So masterful Craig!! ~ Judy
Login to Reply

Book: Reflection on the Important Things