Where does one start if not with the absolute I,
Beginning with sight,
The sun kept clockwork in check.
The kids kept their songs in their heads
The parents kept photo albums full of smiles where a split second
Becomes the cover letter for years of dread.
The page kept condensing life that is better left unsaid,
While the reader kept considering the page a part of him.

Beginning with sound,
The ocean kept grinding the ground.
The guitar kept articulating the waves that come from
A place that can be found
In the engine of muscled bone,
Arriving at what you know
Through nature's transient code,
Read between simultaneous consideration of scope
And a song that keeps you on your toes.

Beginning with touch,
The cage kept the prisoner condemned
Who was slave to the ego's violent whims.
Hunger ravages the idealism of men,
Who kept on believing in sensory over stimulation.
While rapid eye sleep kept fostering shackled sheep
Towards their only release.

Beginning with dreams,
I start to seem incomplete
Fuzzy puzzles kept flagging themselves as urgent but unapparent in meaning
And even faster in disappearing
To make room for me.
A resurgent thief
That kept insisting on stealing a mind's freedom to be.