“The Crowd” (A Poem)

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com

You should not want to fit in with the crowd.

Do you not know about ‘the madness of crowds’?

Why would you willingly choose insanity?

Not all individuals are sane,

I will agree with you on that measure –

But

At least we know that a true Individual,

At least has a shot at trying to be sane,

And a shot at actually becoming sane.

A Crowd or a mind infected by The Crowd

Is not afforded that that luxury whatsoever.

Of course I know my words will not be followed.

No one reads anymore,

Let alone wisdom-orientated poetry,

Residing in the backwaters of the Web.

Or perhaps that is The Funk speaking.

Perhaps I am sliding into artistic melancholy –

For surely all Poets who talk of people have it as a bedfellow.

And now to segway from surely’s to Perhaps’s.

Perhaps those not in The Mob aka The Crowd have never truly entered it.

The worst Crowds perhaps very much have ‘black hole characteristics’:

Once you enter its ghoulish grasp – perhaps you cannot ever hope escape.

At least not alive that is – be it physically or spiritually or both.

Perhaps do not be a fool to think otherwise.

And so this quasi-sermon of dire warning almost ends.

But I will end on a positive note:

There are reports of Individuals escaping said ‘black holes’ –

Like a basketball they scooted cyclically around The Crowds ‘event horizon’,

And thanks to the Universal Principle of Uncertainty –

Where saved from falling into the irreverable abyss.

Thanks to a quirk written into the very fabric of the cosmos,

They were spat out as Individuals,

Zipping merrily through the cosmos with permanent ear to ear smiles,

Exclaiming all the while:

“Phew – that was close”.

(or Perhaps they said “zounds that was close but ultimately inevitable”)