At night on the road,
after 10 days alone,
I find an old hobo
in a ditch laying prone;
He\u2019s a drunk and a mess
and seems glued to the land,
but there\u2019s something familiar
in this corpse of a man;
Though the rain\u2019s pouring down,
I get closer and see
that this man has a gun
and it\u2019s pointed at me;
He\u2019s ranting and raving and counting to three.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said, \u201cPut \u2018em up!
It\u2019s a stickup, you see!\u201d
And he tried but
he couldn\u2019t take nothing from me;
I gave all that I had\u2014
all I had left was me;
But he thought, and he said that might do, if it\u2019s free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just walk with me this tired road a while.
So I try.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the road\u2019s too long,
and the load\u2019s too heavy;
I try to show him the way,
but my hands are unsteady;
And I keep on pushing,
but I\u2019m just not able;
There\u2019s a horse in my heart,
but it\u2019s far from stable;
And it rocks and it shakes like a three-legged table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I keep trudging on
What else can I do?
There\u2019s a chill in the air
and a rock in my shoe;
I summon my strength and
I try to keep hiking,
though the thunder\u2019s a-rolling
and the lightning\u2019s a-striking;
And my stomach is empty,
and my eyes want to cry,
and I call out for help,
but my mouth is too dry,
and at this point I\u2019m thinking I might as well die.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just a few steps more,
and I fall on my knees;
There\u2019s a wolf at the door,
there\u2019s a snake in the trees;
I\u2019ve been walking in circles,
been crawling in place;
There\u2019s no sign of the hobo,
not even a trace;
With my nose in a puddle, I can see my own face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cause I slipped and I fell,
after 10 days alone,
I find myself down
in a ditch laying prone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At night on the road,after 10 days alone,I find an old hoboin a ditch laying prone;He\u2019s a drunk and a messand seems glued to the land,but there\u2019s something familiarin this corpse of a man;Though the rain\u2019s pouring down,I get closer and seethat this man has a gunand it\u2019s pointed at me;He\u2019s ranting and raving and … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1024,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/nik-shuliahin-jWCwAssgYQ4-unsplash.jpg?fit=640%2C347&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=996"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":997,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996\/revisions\/997"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
John Clinkscales is an aspiring poet and author living in Oakland, California. Originally from the East Coast, his work wrestles with the question of American identity in an increasingly fragmented culture, and he considers low-rent travel his official religion. His work has previously appeared in True Chili.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"