Hobos, Gypsies and Bums

Hobos, Gypsies, and Bums I always wanted to be a Gypsy but I never really met any. But I did know bums personally, and spent some time with them. My mom called them vagrants. my dad, he called them bums. They called themselves hobos, but my brothers and I called them friends My mom used to whip us for hanging out with them. But we'd steal food from her pantry To bring it out to them. They gave us each, an old cigar butt and taught us how to smoke it. We learned how to roast pigeons over an open fire, using only a stick. We learned how to play poker, and were shown how to cheat at cards. Learned how to steal vegetables, if we got hungry from other people's back yards. We learned where to go for a charitable hand out. It's the house with a red X scribbled somewhere about. They had no TV so their only source of entertainment, was an old harmonica and great stories they made up. Great stories of places they'd been and of women they wanted to meet. And places they would rather be, if they could just hop the right freight "Why don't you have to work, like my dad," we said. They said "Why work for something that you can already get?" we saw them work occasionally, odd jobs here and there to buy whiskey. My friends the bums taught us how to survive. In a lonely and desolate world And the meek shall inherit the earth, If there are any of us left alive! Wordplaya, Dec 2008 Isn't it something, that when you have nothing, you appreciate everything? Wordplaya