In the clearing
on the down slope of
a knotted hill
lay three transient men
by a smoldering fire
The night before was
wet with rain
the unsheltered three were
soaked through
and dead to the world
in a more literal sense
Such a parable of happenstance
as the officers walked around
this one night shanty town
they surmised what ill-fate
had fallen down upon these
three homeless men
who in a different era
might have been called hobo's
but the world of today
is much too politically correct
to label said lifes that way
Officer O'Mally kicked the remaining
embers of the fire out with his
service issue boots
and knelt beside hobo number one
and could smell a familiar odor
While his partner Jones
opened the slats on
a rain swollen box
and in the breadbasket of
lay eighteen bottles of
alcohol
A godsend from the heaven's
thought hobo number two
when he and hobo three
came upon this highly precious
forgotten commodity
And so they fumbled the box
from the side of the road
where it had landed after
some delivery truck took too
sharp a turn
brought it to their bonfire
of the un-vanities
for rumor had it
that if you distilled alcohol
through three layers of cloth
you could drink it like vermouth
high living without the onions
And as we surveyed this scene
on the tv news
I thought back to Jester
the family dog
who had to be put down
by my grandfather behind
the milk barn
after getting his sniffer
into the anti-freeze
one spring morn
But unlike that poor mutt
these three had each
others arms to die in
But in the scheme of things
I guess they are much the same
ol' Jester and the hobo's three
(c) Erik Lauritzen 2003
on the down slope of
a knotted hill
lay three transient men
by a smoldering fire
The night before was
wet with rain
the unsheltered three were
soaked through
and dead to the world
in a more literal sense
Such a parable of happenstance
as the officers walked around
this one night shanty town
they surmised what ill-fate
had fallen down upon these
three homeless men
who in a different era
might have been called hobo's
but the world of today
is much too politically correct
to label said lifes that way
Officer O'Mally kicked the remaining
embers of the fire out with his
service issue boots
and knelt beside hobo number one
and could smell a familiar odor
While his partner Jones
opened the slats on
a rain swollen box
and in the breadbasket of
lay eighteen bottles of
alcohol
A godsend from the heaven's
thought hobo number two
when he and hobo three
came upon this highly precious
forgotten commodity
And so they fumbled the box
from the side of the road
where it had landed after
some delivery truck took too
sharp a turn
brought it to their bonfire
of the un-vanities
for rumor had it
that if you distilled alcohol
through three layers of cloth
you could drink it like vermouth
high living without the onions
And as we surveyed this scene
on the tv news
I thought back to Jester
the family dog
who had to be put down
by my grandfather behind
the milk barn
after getting his sniffer
into the anti-freeze
one spring morn
But unlike that poor mutt
these three had each
others arms to die in
But in the scheme of things
I guess they are much the same
ol' Jester and the hobo's three
(c) Erik Lauritzen 2003

