Joey Cloudy online

Liberty Spikes Live in Deep Ellum

My son Jamaal has driven for 2 hours to have coffee

With the old man in Deep Ellum.

Ok, he wanted Kalachandji’s but I needed

Coffee in Café Brazil

And this he understands.

The waitress tells us to sit wherever we like

And I choose the table 

near the plate glass window that faces Elm street.

I sit in the chair so I can look out the window

while keeping an eye on the front door.

The waitress takes our orders

smiles at me and says she wishes she could grow

Her hair down to her ass.

We all laugh and chat

While we wait for our food.

Outside across the street

I see a kid with a black number one Mohawk.

I confess to my son that I am having boot envy

Then a girl in a black skirt and even cooler boots

Joins him followed by a stocky kid blonde boy

With Even cooler boots and dual Liberty Spikes!

They are bewtiful standing together

Beneath the concrete gray 

clouds on the remnants of rain

Slicked sidewalks in full punk rock regalia.

This is why I come here to see the beautiful people in all their glory

3rd wave suburban punks in their natural habitat.

The urbane wilderness within the cement shadow

of the silhouette of skyscrapers in the setting sun.

I follow in the tradition of my heroes the great anthropologist

Thomas Leaky, Jane Goodall, and Diane Foosy.

I don’t want to spook them so I stay in my seat 

as I drink my satin cherry cupcake coffee

while eating cheesy fries and chicken quesadillas.

My god those boots are breathtaking in their design

I wonder if they are doc martins?

It must have taken them hours to get dressed

and ready to go out tonight.

I appreciate their efforts as I admire the results

of our shared esthetic.

They look fantastic. I say staring out

the window rapt in admiration

Me, an old black man into dungeons and dragons,

watching old independent films

and writing neo-beat absurdist poetry. 

I love the nerdiest,

Un-coolest things in the world.

The waitress smiles and touches my dreads.

In the end I decide that they are trying too hard. 

As for me, this is what cool looks like when you 

“don’t try.”