Clouds and Us

Rodrigo Toscano

Can’t believe clouds
are on center stage
again, bloviations
how clouds shape up
and stretch, make faces
puff up, darken
and pee softly
or raucously
friggin clouds
meaning everything
to hungry ancients of
five minutes ago
mixed chalk with oil
twirling brushes
making clouds talk
sock puppets
for dreams and hopes
of healthy clouds
as if sick one’s
could even be
here’s a set of four
ok, now three
make that five
clouds, we can agree
are non-numerical
neither the Dow Jones
nor S&P 500
tracks’em trades’em
nobody squawks about
break down of
cloud families
nor about clouds
going back to school
we can all agree
no jobs for clouds
unconscious drifters
Wordsworth wrote
“I wandered lonely
as a cloud”, well
that’s closing in
on the matter
the will to flee
but not quite like
“I floundered
antsy as a
socialist geek  
putting clouds
on center stage
for future ancients
to riff off
same mists
distending to nowhere
meaning everything
from drinking
to cooking
to bathing
to bottling – ok!
guess clouds are
tracked n’ traded
somewhat like
human labor
accrues steadily
hinting that
some kind of
cross-entity
solidarity arises
tween clouds and us
demanding tribute
and ritual, like
the scary gods
of yore”