You use sex to live as a means to pay
Attention not to mention evade escape
Any responsibility in bills mortgage or rent
Pretending to love like you are heaven sent
You’re good at what you do making lovers a fool
Only thing you own between your legs a tool
Like butter your words melt like moth to flame
You sleep earn your keep playing mind games
Often attractive at least in their ebony eyes
But what if wisdom strikes they denim decide
To face teal truth look within them within you
find what is worthy of being used blue truth
You say you watch the kids instead of work
Not to say homemaker’s job isn’t God’s work
But you’re not an asset rather a dependent
You’re healthy not wealthy without even tent
Too lazy to work you don’t even panhandle
The nerve to be a jerk feelings manhandled
You’re like a lime leech sucking money green
And resources you eat don’t provide anything
You must grow inside pull your own weight
Have you ever tried to be an adult any day
Mental health issues are no excuse to fake
If I see you others do too make honest way
The sky turned dark
The poet built a fire
& warmed his hands
Worms crawled thru
His skin& angels
Cried & moments
Slipped pass like
Lavendar melting
The Santa Fe Chief
& coyote serenaded
The wanderer
Remembering
Your hot breath
Cascading like
Moonlight on
His back
The freight train puffs a veil of smoke into the night.
The iron rails rumble.
Be still.
Now.
There it is, the engine's call, fading
To the distance.
Between shadows, a lean figure grips tight to the rolling steel,
His pack worn low on his back, and now he's gone
Wholly, into the night.
I stand alone by the coal yard, I do not dare speak
Or move.
I listen.
The train bends away into its own darkness,
And I lean toward mine.
I once had a buddy named Bob
He was an unbearable slob
I pressed him a suit
And dressed him up cute
He dirtied it quickly, the knob.
hobo
perambulates
through the concrete jungle.
he prowls the city streets by day,
pushing belongings in a shopping cart.
he's a gifted entertainer,
performing magic tricks;
unique sort of...
hobo.
A hobo
ought to know
the sound of a train
from that of acid rain
Cos' if he don't know
he'll be good as dead
by the time ~
the last whistle blows
Step right up
come down below
welcome
to the side show
See rodeo clowns
spiral down
tendrils
twine around
Hobo
give us thrills
break our hearts
Star attraction there’s
no sadder show revealed
Sure...
to tear you apart
Mangrove Jack
He might attack
Always lurking
Never twerking
Twigs in his hair
His smell everywhere
Dirt under his nails
His creepiness prevails
Mangrove Jack
He will be back…
She is a hobo, they said, shrinking back in horror.
Maybe it’s my mismatched clothes, my moldy socks.
The fact that I no longer bathe or brush my teeth.
I am delighted by their eagerness to flee
This is what I had always wanted
But never had.
No one ran toward me to tell their life story
No one rushed over to become my friend
No one asked me to help them do anything.
I cannot pinpoint why, but they are horrified.
I am grinning widely, so they can see the spinach
Sticking out of my happy teeth.
Why do you want me
To shoulder your bags?
That are made of filthy rags
Yet this seems to make
You quite glad
Can’t transport your own stuff
Enough is enough
You are a vagrant incarcerate
But the only thing you can
Say is “I’m so sorry”
For what congesting decades
Of my life, even you realize
Nothing about our history
Has turn out to be genuine
A wanderer of a forgotten era
Keeping in touch
Only to give me a rush
Of the paraphernalia you can’t let go
You are a hobo
That does not comprehend
The meaning of “hell no”
I am hitchhiking rides to Britt, Iowa this week, and I’m not green.
Fully intend to be named the glorified, brand new 2021 Hobo Queen.
Wish people marked cars like they put hobo symbols on a fence post.
I do not wish to get in with an axe murderer, a most horrible host.
Used to jump in box cars but the rail yards are computerized now.
They have surveillance cameras that count the hairs on each brow.
Live by wits, my hypervigilant ideas keeping me alive, it never fails.
The quickest way to the hoosegow is to get close to one of those rails.
A prissy lady stopped and handed me meat sandwiches yesterday.
She thinks if she wants to get to Jesus land, she somehow has to pay.
Uh-oh. The cops are here to give me a ride to the county line.
Riding rom sheriff’s car to sheriff’s car I should get to Britt just fine.
HOBO CHRISTMAS PAST
(Hannibal, Ill., 1960)
Old toothless queen with rheumy eyes,
I'm seeing you again, across a smoky fire–
near an underpass, hillside grey with weather.
You hold forth over a can of hot soup,
stopping to guzzle wine, mutter in your whiskers,
something about peace and love
– a wink at the words–
wind cries in the pines overhead,
snowflakes are dancing, falling on the siding,
a December afternoon turning bitter cold.
Hobo Butterfly
Rest here
Weary Monarch
Though Monterey calls you
No flight for broken wings that seek
Healing
Born in this arbor - this hospice -
Begging release to fly
The wind express
Again!
4/28/20
Based on an injured butterfly, in our garden, that hitched a ride on the grill of our car. We think he finally made it to Monterey and we have had butterflies in our garden ever since that summer.
A Peace Poem for Jim Link and Word Hobo:
This close to CHRISTmas what may I say
You two have seen so much, fought so well ...
And for the underdog, Prof. Jim Link, you and I
Travelled the Maryland trails of poetry and "News"
As in Greenbelt News Review (OLDest community paper,
in the Grand Old United States. An honor I wrote with Thee)
And now, you are both uttering "So Long, Adios, Alvida"
I could cry, and hold onto your hand; but the pain
Is what you know intimately, almost as Jesus did
On THAT Cross at Calvary to reconcile rebellious,
Ingrates, and egregious law-breakers (me) with Abba Father -
As in John 14, or even in John 8: "You cannot come with me!"
Echoes of Jesus --- in the good times, foretelling & teaching
As only He could do. I must go so better things will come:
THE HOLY SPIRIT: parakletos, a Helper of the Same Kind!
May the Spirit heal Thee in Jesus' Name, or take over
The driving ... with the celestial wings. Or is it Holy Breath?
Much Love this and EVERY CHRISTMAS I will celebrate without Thy wishes
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