Joey Cloudy online

Never let the Motherfuckers take your Balls

“I may not be a poet of the people, 

but I have always been a poet for the people.”

I feel sorry for all of those poor Bastards 

out there writing their poems

 for a bunch of suburban self loathing sycophants w MFA

in creative writing courses all over America 

the gatekeepers of the portals to publishing 

they guarding all the gates they are holding all the keys 

middle aged soccer moms nostalgic for Punk Rock 

lovely even with all the hard years carved into 

ever deepening lines in the cracking makeup 

MILF tits stretched marked and out and sagging over 

a flabby gut relax muffin top momma you still got style 

” you sure do have a pretty mouth” 

and that’s better than a tight piece of ass any day. too 

old to pull off  kool colored hair look but 

too old to give a fuck what any one else thinks 

because the soul of David Bowie hides in your poems

I don’t want to write delicate little poems 

for the little magazines I write big black uncircumcised monster

poems. somebody has to keep the faith, 

someone has to never sell out 

and that somebody obviously is …  

The rest of you I can’t read 

that trite self indulgent pity party

you have the audacity to label 

poems a minute longer at my age all that saccharin 

coated nihilistic bullshit just makes me want to vomit 

in your mouth. but 

Most old men as they lose their edge start to write 

with a language so delicate and synthetic and flowery 

I thought I didn’t know a man could queef but there it is 

wafting up from the page camouflaged as a poem it’s a damned shamed 

it’s the sort of thing that passes for poetry on campuses 

these days I suppose more pretty words that mean nothing 

but she’s too being the victim to notice and beside everybody knows 

plastic flowers don’t grow.  Outside 

sirens in the distance now faded away 

Doppler crimson shift 

cobalt shift long shafts 

of light and dark 

falls across the desk and I am in 

the mood of an old man 

who stayed up too late talking to old poet friends 

on the phone at 11 pm 

then again at 1 am 

butt dialed 

then 5 am 

I’m in a drug addled stupor myself by then 

mood suppressors help me sleep I think 

he is saying something about snorting lines 

of Xanax, hell is that a thing, do people do that? 

I don’t keep up with drug culture 

anymore the pills I pop these days are prescription 

the usual list hypertension, 

antidepressants, 

pain medication, 

mood stabilizers, my personal favorite. 

I tell him I love him and the he says I love you too brother 

It’s always like this with us. 

last Wednesday afternoon I dreamed about him 

he was outside screaming my name in the parking lot 

drunk as fuck 

I got up hurried downstairs and looked 

into an empty parking lot my friend was not here. 

I never have dreams of any of my wives or girlfriends 

calling my name and me waking up happy to hear that voice. 

I love him because he’s the only poet in America I’ve ever met 

whose balls are as big as mine.  

That’s as good a complement as I can pay a writer. 

Our conversations are always epic 

full of laughter and sorrow and tears and regrets 

and old and new loves 

and children and women of legendary beauty 

all of his women hate me 

and all of my women hate him 

because they all know who we love the most 

and I know you sitting there thinking that mother fucker 

how dare you say that out loud. It’s in the eyes 

there are people that I love as if 

I have loved them for a 1000 years. 

How can I explain to my old lady what is certain 

to sound like the ravings of a lunatic 

an unhinged mind and yet on some level she knows 

that it is truth, that we have met before on some ancient battlefield 

fought and died together 

over and over again and again 

throughout all time 

this man is my brother 

I know my own blood.

My own kin.

We can smell our own. 

In a poem.