Bound Consciousness
by Odin Roark

Urban density
A dissonant crush of melodies,
Once heard from pushcarts and roof tops,
From sidewalks and crosswalks,
Stadiums and ball fields,
The tremolo of high Cs,
The basso profundo of low Gs,
Now a vacuous resonance,
Desperate gasps of id ignoring ego's ploy,
Sensory mirrors of fractured reflections,
Rapidly becoming shards of desperation,
Held tight to bosoms,
Long submerged in denial.

Such are the echoes of one's own company,
The hearing of one's own talk,
The seeing of one's narcissistic indulgence,
Yesterday's simple traffic jams of awareness,
Today's repetitive mash-ups,
Hubristic grumbling against the mind's cyclonic weather,
All while the lone voice of honesty,
The once integral essence of man,
Murmurs silent appeals,
Hoping its crumbling reality,
Its futile cries for help,
Go not forever unheard.

Puzzling is our modern awakening,
Seeing not the skyscrapers,
But cities decimated into surreal fields of rubble,
Where protecting oneself from oneself begs survival
From bound consciousness en masse.