A.G.E's Joint

  He disappeared a long time ago Chasing demons along the avenue Always scorned No empathy Sympathy A life thrown away By his own choices? A puzzle maybe It's hard to say. Just another body Sweltering in the swampy sun Hoping for alms Hoping for love

Where are the places silence goes ? Places to escape the shock of real Looking to be healed. The stalled car spoke to him while he trailed an elk, as it did to any who passing by. Its existence here was a profanity to all the wilderness stood for. A poster child to the world of greed and cruelty.  The same one that used him, spitting the empty husk like a dormant seed. And the wilderness accepted him as one of its own, allowing regrowth before his returning to dust. The buck jumped twenty feet into a shifting snow shelf. He sighed and realized no meat today. No way to follow without a collapse.The sun was getting dangerously close to the opposite ridge. Night will be coming soon. Looking back to the metal ghost. It would make good cover for the night and maybe there will be some supplies. As was his habit, he looked both up and down the ridge for tracks. There were none and he approached. The gray silhouette contrasted with the back lit snow. White eyebrows adorned edge...

I live in the suburbs along with the rest of the corporate sheep.  We put up with our bosses and hold our anger at the ineptitude and stupidity. Then we are released at the end of the week to hustle, bustle and consume the fractional distillates of our corporate culture.We hit the bars, wishing we were on Mars and away from the madding crowd. But we have been trained by the masters to worship things over people.  And this is what we get: Mall Madness My favorite description of Hell is from Dave Berg. He was a freelance writer best known for his strip "The Lighter Side" in MAD magazine. In one of his books, he describes a room with a banquet table that stretches as far as the eye can see.  It is sumptuously laid out with the best food and drink available in all the world. The guest are all gaily dressed and starving.You see, their arms are locked in a right angle, making impossible to feed themselves.The only way they can eat is to feed their neighbors and they are too...

She felt dirty when the call came. Like a stain on the carpet that wouldn’t clean up.   And it was his fault. A sack of potatoes looked back from the mirror while she thought this. She never had been very pretty, and she certainly wasn’t pretty now.   Drooping breasts against a beach ball stomach. She took a slug from the pint and the tears came. Cheap booze is a false economy . She had read that somewhere. The voice began its litany: “It’s time. Kill him and kill me. It is the only way to end it.”   Maybe another drink would help. No. The fever kept rising as she applied her makeup.   She selected the silve r corset, rigged it could be tightened without help. The carbon colored stockings, held   with silk garters, were a garden design and didn’t stand out. A maroon chambray top, long black skirt and simple three inch black pumps rounded it out.   She put on a couple of bracelets and a spray of Obsession.   Before she put on the...

Stepping out on the wet sidewalk, Mark straightens the tail on his ragged shirt.  What’s the hustle today?  Asshole pissed all over his sign last night, so sidewalk cruising is out.  No back up.  It’s the story of his life.  Get a scheme set up and some jerk screws it up for you. Of course, his warm bed was gone when he plowed the fat face into the wall.  At least he did snag an extra cup of coffee as he went out the door.  An ambulance screams past, turning in to the hospital across the street.  Anybody he knows?  Who cares?  Most of the idiots he knows would stick you as to look at you.  The clang startles him as the purse misses his head and hits the pole.  He looks up to see a strange woman screaming at him.   She is a molten mass flowing on the sidewalk. A bored cop materializes in front of them, writing notes about some attack she claimed she witnessed.  Nice to know there are crazier people than him....

A pile of laundry tossed against the cold stone staircase, at least it looked like that until the sun began to shine on it. Like a lizard sunning itself, Terry slowly began to move. He had survived another night. Struggling to his feet, he wipes away the brown and kaleidoscope in his eyes.  A chill shook him down to his core making his hands feel like they would break off.  The muscles along his abdomen clinched uncontrollably as what little there wanted to be set free.    “Jesus.  Where am I?”   Wiping the spit from his face, he reached down and felt for his pants.  Still there.  Better than the last time.  It wasn’t that good and he nodded off.  It scared the crap out of him when the cop’s baton touched him down there. The girl wasn’t anywhere in sight, either. Just another day. He ended up leaving he jail in the jumpers he had been booked in with. Bastards couldn’t even find a donated shirt. A bit of sadness set in...