Hobo poetry

A hobo always goes and goes
He does not stop to change his clothes
He rides the rails that he has chose.
Water pours out from a hose!

Do not show me tramp or bum
Tramp may ride, and bum's a chum
But both beg from the other one.
Kids: stop chewing chewing gum!

Neither works like hobo does
Carving coin and twisting fuzz
Into a pretty pair of gloves.
The past tense of "to be" is "was"!

A hobo he will never steal
Unless it is to get a meal
Or cash, or gems, or fur of seal.
Some Japanese eat broiled eel!

But saddest: those who do not ride
At all, but stand and die inside
As world spins on and throws aside
The past, and hope, and faith, and pride.
In one direction do trains glide
Not looking back, on windward side,
Across the continent's divide
The hobo rides and rides and rides.
I will eat anything that's fried!

--written by the hobo known as "Mind-bender Steve", as told in a book of hobo history by John Hodgman