The Crowd Within the Soul
Within the gathered body of the crowd
I weave amongst the other souls
along the weary flagstones of the city street….
We are the heaving driven
One beside and one behind the other…
And each is fixed within themselves
….as singular …alone…contained
just as a mollusk in a shell
moves with a shoal of fish.
…. The crowds and I are interchangeable
We laugh at clowns and weep at weeping times.
We mask and masquerade
and bathe in fantasies …,
In hope of heightened ecstasy…
….we dream , we live and lust.
….We shun the empty corners of the World
…where rivers run bucolically and skies are starry thing
Where people roam on stoney land beneath a splitting sun
and tranquil women with cracked lips and feet
pick cocoa beans beside a soothing hill.
…We shun all that in order to be here ,
restricted by the throng.
This is the prostitution of our lives.
The compromise
In the imagined orgy of our days.
The noise we make.
Drowns out the murmur of the swaying leaves
….the wisdom of all other beasts.
And so…
we cling to fleeting feeble things…
Our shirt …our shoes …our golden rings
Our ego in the camera…our smile… our fame
Satin Bonnet for the fair…..bright lips and blond curled hair
A tattoo arm..a leg… a frill…
…catch catch to catch….again.
Strangers pass by.
Kristine Byrne…18th Oct. 2014