Short Stratus Poems

Everyone has grown up
and so their level and status
I am still struggling to cope
with this world, waiting for the stratus...

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Rainbow
High and mysterious
Perfect symmetry and shade,
You grace the sky
Sitting on stratus clouds 
Your presence after the rain...

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The moon sat, plunked in a cobalt sky
punctuating the stratus
a wane full note on a blank scale
resonating, pulsating, pregnant in it’s fullness
and the string was plucked....

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A dark island
Surrounded by sky blue
With strands of stratus spread
Far across its range
On the boundaries of said skysea
Is a ring circling all not white
What a beautiful blue-gray...

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Jesus' Eyes

Eyes alive with love
Warm, crystal blue, cirrus skies
eternally loving eyes.
The sun, His love light 
Stratus, flow, eons ago
Two universes of love!

by Jean McLoughlin...

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Cottony vapour fluffs, 
Caravan shape-shifting, 
Can be stratus, nimbus, 
cumulus or cirrus, 
Cover the blue with white, 
Cranky storms turn them black;
Chariot of the Lord. 

...

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I turned and stood to face it;
fingers ran all over me;
arms of the wind wrapped around
and played music in my ears.
Tattered stratus strewed the sky,
above me dragged and shredded 
Droplets pricked my tingling skin,
blown out from clouds to cleanse me....

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The rugged moor top
grew shapeless hiding
within the grey shroud,
invisible steps
to endure in lieu.

The dense stratus
manipulates
the morning sun
losing the day.

Distant call,
tower clock
chimes the way.

On track 
soon home.

Safe.

 © Harry J Horsman 2019...

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It's winter again
in little Michigan
The north wind
has grown cold.

Seem to need
brand new boots
These leaky ones
Have old holes.

Those stratus clouds
Prove the truth
With six inches
of new snow.

It's winter again
in little Michigan
GOD bless our
Home Sweet Home....

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So hot  this drought
actress actless
active status

campus fratus
student madness
Kansas baptists
tactile stratus
plastic, mattress 
so hot, need drink
lactose liquid
fractus, cactus
gratis,  tractive
fractus, cactus
fastest  lactic
DRINKen cactus...

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Clouds encircle
sage colored dreams,
ice crystals block the sky

Today in shadows,
yesterday’s warning,
 memories start to cry

The stratus thickens,
impending doom,
prophesy to remind

Aeolus has woken,
his rain of tears
—ablution most unkind

(Dreamsleep: April, 2021)...

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Smoggy, foggy, damp and cloggy,
cloyingly moist, feeling soggy,
lost in a shroud of stratus cloud
muffling the voices of the crowd.
Whirling, swirling, wraith-like curling,
absorbing the light, as dark unfurling
it reflects the moak, thick as smoke
all life hidden in its nebulous cloak....

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The harlot maples crimson tipped nails
tap, drum, strum, and plunk;
at Aprils blasted blue sky.
Raking a wind born trail 
across skeletal palms
and forearmed branches,
in a come-hither dance;
reawakening the cerulean stratus 
above the dense sugar maple forest.
Sap taps a tune into tin buckets;
and, so, Spring is sprung....

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The dense stratus manipulates the sunlight
Rugged heath fades as day turns to night,
Solitary tree recoils
Unaware embroils
In respect
Toils,
Self respect
In winter’s turmoil's
Evokes and then disembroils,
When with groans of naked limbs doth fight
Sees off the weary wind on its way in flight.

© Harry J Horsman 2021

An Andaree form...

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I plucked the moon out of a blackened sky

To save it from the music of Orion's wrath

The universe, now without its lover

Played its tune among  the stars




Adapted from 

Moonsong by Deb Guzzi


The moon sat, plunked in a cobalt sky
punctuating the stratus
a wane full note on a blank scale
resonating, pulsating, pregnant in it’s fullness
and the string was plucked....

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what you won't hear
what you will never hear from me:
pieces of words that fit together
unheard
like a mantis prayer
but still i bother
like a bite that's stronger than it's size
a little thing that breaks the sky
like a box jellyfish
a crack in a sheet of stratus clouds
a golf ball at the speed of light
one unit 
fulfills its purpose in it's own way
but right now
it needs to rest....

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To the onslaught of night, daylight is retreating.
In the western horizon, the sun is receding.
Stratus clouds display a reddish hue.
A gloaming precedes the dark, which is due.
In the foreground, I see silhouettes of trees.
They bend, but never break in the breeze.
It is a rare and beautiful sight.
I see vermillion clouds before night.
They seem to signal the coming of the moon.
A silver waxing crescent makes its presence soon....

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SEEDING CLOUDS


A giraffe’s head is so high it
Lets him eat clouds for a diet
But in skies where there are few clouds
Cloud eating is not allowed
Science has shown there’s little doubt
That eating clouds causes drought
But the giraffe just eats and laughs and laughs
Because that’s the modality of giraffes
Eating clouds is a must
Cirrus, Stratus, and Cumulus
And so, he eats the clouds he needs
Carefully spitting out the seeds...

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When stratus is strung
 with artist's lattice
 and letters are spun
 as cotton cumulus

I bend in awe of
 resounding matter
 expressing substance
 beyond human dressings

Stilled in silvered
 lines of sanity
 hanging covertly
 for all to survey

Wisdom proclaimed
 displayed openly
 for viewing;
 pursuing

 should perception's
 glance be longer
 than a split second

Imagine what
 awaits 
 a discerning eye

 if only?...

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If I could climb on top of a cloud
I’d have the world’s coziest mattress
A cumulus quilt that’s softer than down
And beneath it, a silk sheet of stratus

A nimbus puff to pillow my head
With matching lenticular duvet
And perhaps I’d get an extra set
In sunset pink and stormy gray

Some say I must surely be insane
For I’d be doomed if out of bed I fell
But in the likeliest event of rain
I’m more worried that my bed will wet itself....

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stars of clarity hide - muffled
lost in a flurry of blizzards,
like the screams of famished owls
that echo through a silent wood.

wet snow falls - frozen tears
coat skeletal arms where
oaks and maples shiver and
birches bow - their dreams forsaken

will they break before morning?

where? the clarity that hope hugged tightly?
perhaps there, beyond the stratus coverlet,
or, horizon's born in a different wish or

the morrow's shattered tears......

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Behind a gauze of softest grays 
In a sky of baby blue 
The moon in waxing gibbous phase 
Rises slowly into view

She rests her cheek upon the haze
Of stratus thin and few
For so content is she to laze
As a goddess is wont to do

A precious gem to be appraised 
A pearl, a treasure true
I feel I should avert my gaze
As dusk arrives on cue

Though mysteriously mute she stays 
I still bid her adieu 
The moon is set in her old ways
And I in my ways, too....

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The rugged moor top
grew shapeless,
eternal stratum
hiding
within the
greyish shroud,
that cloaked
every enduring
contour.

The dense stratus
began to manipulate
the daylight,
while encircling
shadows
cast reflective
illusions
on shallow
murky pools.

Obedient trees recoil
in stark awareness
while inspiring to honour
the insensitive violation,
bowing,
waving in verve respect
as if only
to appease
the impending tempest…

© Harry J Horsman  1991...

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