Days Of A Hobo Poem by James Walter Orr

I miss the days of my wandering youth,
Traveling disheveled, unkempt and uncouth;
Since I owned nothing, I’d nothing to lose;
There were no options to pick nor to choose.

Those were the days with just one path to walk.
My actions I lived by; not by my talk.
My choice was eating; no other shed light.
Fires beneath trestles were what eased my plight.

Stew made of Lamb’s Quarter flavored with frog,
Caught where the creek near the bridge formed a bog;
Cooked in a tin can, on my cow-chip flame;
No one to talk to, and no one to blame.

I found, with some luck, an old cardboard box,
And denned for the night like an old red fox.
I shivered and shook, all chilly and damp,
While raccoons and pack-rats plundered my camp.

In all of this world, the most lonesome sound,
That drifted the plains; that crossed the high ground;
Made the best music man has created,
Since Adam and Eve first met and mated:

The whistle’s sound on an old train of steam,
Called me awake from a hobo’s bad dream,
Back when I traveled that long stretch of track:
All that I owned in a brown paper sack.

How I enjoy what I tell to the kids,
Piping in sunshine, when down on the skids;
No one to help me nor cut me some slack.
I liked it then, but I'll never go back!