ages end/lonely city, find your way

living, toiling wandering through life's maze, sweet bliss state of mind

the maw of dark opened wide its cavernous jaws

to swallow alive the wayward intruders

stumbled through straits of

vegas' hellish halls of heats

impaled hearts pierced through roulette's' wheel

boarded fast track plane back home

slammed in the crucible of the grind

human flesh ground powdered

placed themselves, their molecules swept 

in civilization's wild wind 

rats' race some crawled out of storm

none the less, some drowned in flooding debt

traveled lost, far over vast scapes of salty water

to land ashore; the jagged reach of broken cliffs

basin of eternal drought and listless death

narrow fjord, ice cold wet

missed their course, 

forgotten ages 'go, boarded rat race storm

none the less, some drowned in floods of debt

spent, out of body fuel

all abandoned, left alone shipwrecked

on city's streets of gold, foreign shore

won the lotteries' sticky fly traps

thoughts would take them back 

to the basin, almost had forgotten 

how they'd  barely made it home alive

tattered torn bruised battered

scarred in face of broken bones

no help nearby, no paramedics,

vastly far

the wretched time, live or die

electric pain let come what may 

might wonder how made it thus far

perhaps 'tis time to let it all go

plummet cliffs depths, sweet fall

seek seaweed krill, softly wrapped 

suffer salt sickness, search delusion

illusion's elusive grasp, shattered dreams

outside the grid

the baking sun will render their minds

dissolve in molten mess, purge the dross to surface

purify, squeeze out the wise from their beaten hides

sit on sand and weep O man

look to yonder horizon's razor's edge

unbroken line of fear and dread

stand/fast your shipwreck's hopes of rescue's wait

await world's age/end instead

O happy wretched stranded man!