hobo

I want to share a poem my sister wrote. She’s the woman who inspired my poem Mother of Squalor. With all its bizarre grammar and madness it is the truest thing thing I’ve read in awhile, with her in mind, and her permission, hobo –

hobo

im a hobo a hobo and im doing it solo

ive got boxes and boxes and holes in my shoes

im homeless but that dont mean im gonna lose

im here alive this isnt a life that you just chose

 

my den is my haven its under a bridge

u dont need money to feel this rich

im happy and peacful full of dreams

i just wish i had a can of beans

 

ive got rats there multiplying

and i cant take no more

there chewing holes in my carboard home

oh i wish they would leave me alone

 

my carboard den is unreal such a frill

the joys of building a mobile home

its so much fun an i have no bills

its small and cold and i love being alone

 

at nightime i sit in the window of shops

begging and begging for a pound in my box

but these little bastards always bring me something hot

but all i want is a tenner to bye some pot

 

i love getting high smoking pot

it chills me out and helps me sleep

helps the pain when the rats chew my feet

theyve had two toes already they think im a piece of meat

 

ive set up traps with my boxes

but them little rats are smart

i even tryed to get them eaten by foxes

but the fox didnt wanna take part

 

if only the people who look down at me

would give me a pound so i can buy rat killer

to kill these pests so i can rest happily

but fuck it thats life such a shame i dont have a knife

 

im a hobo im a hobo and im happy this way

it sounds like hell but its all i need

im gonna go busking now see if i can get someone to pay

to get some pot and brighten my day

 

 

And should not be at the beginning of this sentence.

I don’t know what the key to this whole writing thing is. I’ve spent the last fifteen years trying to find out. I must have read fifty books on the subject. I think maybe its clarity. So much writing is just filler, or confusing sentence structures.

It becomes a kind of music. I know I break some grammatical standards but hopefully not in a way that jars. There is no sensible reason for a sentence to not start with and. Or begin with or. Here is some dialogue between two students whispering to each other in an English lesson –

“Why can’t a sentence start with and?”

“Because she said so. And maybe she’s right. Fuck it. I don’t know. And anyway, that’s not how we speak so why write like that?”

“But what if we lose marks by writing realistically.”

“You shouldn’t start a sentence with but,” says the Teacher, overhearing the conversation.

“Why?” says the boy.

“Because that is the rule.”

“You shouldn’t start a sentence with because,” says the boy, “It’s a subordinate conjunction that requires more than one clause.”

“I’m glad you’ve been paying attention,” says the teacher, “but my first clause was in the sentence you interrupted when I said; ‘You shouldn’t start a sentence with but’.”

“This is all very confusing,” says a drunk man stumbling into the classroom by accident.

“Can I help you sir?” says the teacher.

“None of this is real,” says the drunk.

Why did I write that in the present tense? The second most difficult tense for a reader after the second tense. I’ve never written in the second tense before. I think I’ll give it a go;

               You walk into the gents at the pub. A man by the urinal is touching   himself inappropriately. You enter the cubical with the broken lock. You drunkenly undo your trousers and let them fall to the ground. You sit down and pee. You would have pissed at the urinal if it wasn’t for that masturbating man. Why did you sit down anyway? Too drunk to stand. You focus on a round convex lens on the back of the cubical door and think to yourself, why is there a camera in here? And decide it’s time to stop drinking in this particular watering hole.

Good. That was fun. You know, as these blog posts get further down the page the empty beer can count on my desk gets greater. It’s no wonder I lose focus.