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There I was, lost in a maze with nothing but a backpack of salami. I’ve been in worst situations, of course, but this was probably one of the more baffling points in my life. Not to mention this imaginarium kept capturing my thoughts and using them to manipulate me.

For instance, as I grasped the salami backpack, I saw for an instant my long-lost pet bird, trapped in a salami prison. In an attempt to break it free of its cell, I started chewing at the salami like a ravenous salami gobbler. Alas, there was no bird inside the meat, only a piece of (impressive) origami. With antics under every corner, and a gag around every turn I decided to suck it up and just devour the salami like Mr.Danish foretold.

Gnashing into salami loaf after salami loaf, I considered for a moment if this is what it’s like to live under a circus tent until the day you die.

Finally, it was done. My fate had reached its destination and the backpack weighed less having transferred its treasure to my digestive keep. A bubble rose steadily through my throat and bullied its way past my lips only to explode the second it reached freedom. This burp rang throughout the imaginarium and as the sound waves rippled across the land, they melted the maze and all the imagination that floated through the air.

Soon there was nothing in front of me but a small rusty barrel. In fear that I may be trapped in this vacuum for all time I quickly scurried through the rust barrel. Next thing I know, I’m being birthed back onto the wooden stage that belonged to Mr.Danish and staring into his garbage can face.

I said not a word to the gathered crowd, I was shaken from the inside out by the experience. Is this what I get for abusing my press credentials? Or maybe it was the overwhelming weight of the future of Moonshineopolis pressing upon my shoulders?

To this day I am baffled by the Imaginarium of Mr.Danish, but I now know that in order to deepen the divide between Bum and Hobo I must not let Moonshineopolis idle in our current wonders and achievements.

You remember where we last left off? Let me refresh your memory, I was standing in front of the gates to a salami maze. I love a good maze and have yet to meet a maze that was too challenging for my wit (something we cannot say for Mr.Nicholson). With a sense of duty I trudged through the entry gate, foreboding sign be damned

I made many turns through that maze, as a maze wanderer may do. I realize that describing the path I took would be utterly brain explosive, so let’s just say I made more turns than a wheel of fate makes during your lifetime. Eventually, I discovered a tin chest that had the craftsmanship of an elf. I opened it up, expecting a scroll with some hint of what was going on, but all I found was a backpack full of salami. I was perplexed, hurt and lonely in this salami labyrinth.

But then, out of nowhere, Mr.Danish repelled from a helicopter above my head. “Listen boy,” he said to me, “you think you’re better than this salami?” I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but he continued, “If you let any of that salami go to waste, you’re no better than those bums that sit idly on the coast of the garbage heaps waiting for fortune to jump into their mouths.” Then the helicopter flew away, with Mr.Danish dangling in the air. Is this what the imaginarium of Mr.Danish was all about? Self revelations and a call to action?

It was clear now that I had to eat all of this salami and continue the battle to advance the hobo community. What salami or anything else I met in this imaginarium had to do with this, I wasn’t sure.

So then I ate a backpack full of salami and fell asleep deep inside the labyrinth.

Here I am inside the Imaginarium of Mr.Danish equipped with a hat of confusion and boots of providence. This equipment is more metaphorical for how I feel than actual protective wear. Among my swirling dreams and desires was a small path that ran ahead of me and bent slightly to the left. Remembering what my mother always told me (“Never look down on a finely beaten path, no matter how crooked it may seem”), I started walking.

I’ve been in an aquarium before, but never an imaginarium (which only proves my point that words that rhyme aren’t necessarily similar (dimes, limes, dog, log, smog, bog)). As my boots scuffed against the ground I could feel my thoughts being dissected and analyzed by the mist flowing through my ear canal and out the other end. Mr.Danish was perusing my thoughts like a vendor of hot dogs scouts the crowd for the hungriest patron.

Then, in front of me, a large condor landed. “Hop onto my back, Princess Maxwella,” the condor said. This was weird because I’ve never thought of ever being a princess before, because that would just be so weird and absurd for a hobo like me to yearn for the title and privilege of becoming princess of a royal moonshine army . I’m not sure where this Mr.Danish gets his information from, but there seems to be a few kinks in his imaginarium system. Hahahahaha, right?

I hopped on the condor’s back, not bothering to correct it because who am I to right a condor? We swooped under rambows (a rainbow made up of a variety of rams), crashed through brittle skeleton bones and landed on the porch of an elaborate maze crafted from salami. A sign above it read, “Abandon all hunger he who enter here. Your salami salvation awaits. Salame!”

It should come to no surprise to you that I entered this maze with such haste that a hare, late for an important date, would not be able to keep up. Stay tuned for the exciting imaginarium conclusion.

Hobo Haikus: Fan Edition

We’ve had some great feedback from our fans on Facebook and I’d like to share some of the haikus they’ve created that celebrate Hobo Digest and the hobo lifestyle.

This haiku came courtesy of Jeff:

Dining on a shoe
Sipping Wild Irish Rose
Ah, this is the life

After the first two lines the poem can end one of two ways:
1) In a gutter, alone.
2) Celebrating and loving life.
I’m glad Jeff chose the optimistic route.
Next we have Christa, a stunning young lady in the hobo community.  She stopped by the Hobo Facebook page to drop off this haiku for me to take care of:

Enter a barrel
Into the mind of Danish
Hopes and dreams are found

This really sums up the my first trip to the imaginarium belonging to that Mr.Danish (I’ll tell you how that ends on Monday). This haiku begins so mundane and then slowly unravels to reveal a rainbow of mystery and mystique. “Into the mind of Danish” is so intriguing! I just can’t wait to read the next line after that and then BAM! I’m hit with “Hopes and dreams are found.” What a resolution.
As a bonus, here is the haiku I contributed:
Boxcar Rumbling,
House of cardboard crumbling.
I’m home. Finally.

What do you think it means?
For more haikus and your chance to have yours dissected on the Internet please join our Facebook group!

We are used to odd folks tumbling through our territory, setting up shop a few days where they either

a) barter with us until we are as bankrupt and hallow as the logs that line the  squirrel cemetery

OR

b) realize we have no money or goods they can utilize, no matter how clever they are (some just can’t understand the worth of a coffee lid with a smiley face (Prof. Lid Smiles)).

But most recently a man, saddled upon a double horse carriage, has set up a bizare bazaar who wanted no money, just the opportunity to share his gift. Spectators lined up, but I abused my press credentials to get to the front of that line. Mr.Danish, the man in charge, instructed me to crawl through his imaginarium barrel, a cylinder lined with rust that was half a cooper’s barrel and half oil-barrel. He said nothing more and stared at me with his cereal box grin until I complied. I must say that once I started my way through the imaginarium barrel Mr.Danish was the last thought my mind tried to wrap itself upon. At first anyways.

I emerged at the other end of the barrel expecting this to be a trick to capture some hobos and harvest our beard power, but I was in a prison of another kind. Colors swirled in front of me, clouds waved to me, tiny toilets yipped at my heels, and my mind began to boil over. Those clouds dissolved and in their place rose my deepest secrets. I began to barf into one of the tiny toilets.

In an attempt to strap itself to something normal, my mind began to ponder Mr.Danish and all his mystique. There I was, in the imaginarium, facing my lost hopes (all the news outlets I wanted to write for),  dreams (my goal of becoming the healthiest of hobos), and personal relevations I’ve been dusting under the carpet of my mind (I use artificial beard growth hormones). I began to distract myself by thinking, “Just where did Danish conjure this barrel from?” and, “Why was he wearing a duck billed hat…I wonder if he farms ducks?”

I finished unloading my waste into the toilet and decided to brave this maelstrom of imagination. I bet you can hardly wait to know what I discovered.

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