how do I take my old iphone 5 off the cloud? It is locked somehow and my passcode I had in it won't open it

Do you mean passcode locked or activation locked? If it's passcode locked and you don't know what the passcode is then you need to restore it. Power the phone off and then hold the home button down as you plug it into a computer with iTunes. This will delete all data from the phone. If you have a backup on your computer you can restore from that or if you had iCloud backup turned on then you can restore from that.

Try this:

1. Make sure the phone is powered on and plugged into your computer.

2. Hold down both the home button and sleep/wake button at the same time.

3. After about ten seconds release the sleep/wake button but keep holding the home button.

4. Wait ten more seconds then let go of the home button.

If you got the timing right your phone should have a blank screen but iTunes should say it's detected a phone in recovery mode and it should give you the option to restore it.