Bound, the flesh

First published in 2009

'see', I yell, to the gathering crowd,

but 

rather than 'seeing',

each eye, slack jaw and gaping mouth

sees

me and nothing more.

caught and bound

societal thrall:

only few ever wake

if they wake at all.

and if they wake,

there they sit,

and claw and climb,

crushed by the weight

of every lifetime lived before.

age ravaged bodies, clutch

nothing but the cold.

a wasted chance,

a wasted word: 

a lifetime written

before 

we are even born.

to bondage born,

to bondage death,

tantalised by minds great breadth.

yet bound by rules,

bound by flesh,

fantasy, cruelly jests:

this simulacrum

made of flesh.