The Hoi Polloi

[dukealien]

Much improved!  Just a few remaining observations and suggestions.

L11 - "Dimly" doesn't quite fit here, IMHO.  "Darkly" would give too much credit (for thought and menace) to the eyes' owners; perhaps "blankly," "flatly," or "frosted" to connote that they're not very reflective?

L14, 16 - Typographically, quotation marks at beginning and end of these lines should be double quotes rather than single, the single quotes around "in" are correct.  Single quotes imply the speaker is quoting someone else; double quotes are the speaker's exact words.

L20 - I find this confusing, and read it as an inversion (of "to reach darkness").  Is the inversion necessary?

L21-22 - "[O]n fours they/loiter" suggests several things which could fit (on all fours, that is, hands and knees; in groups of four - a taxi-load; standing on corners, i.e. where four streets meet) but doesn't say any of those.

L40 - Every time I read this, I say "nonetheless" (assonance with "stunning").  My error, but perhaps a suggestion.

L54 - Repeating the critique of "to" here - "within" is how I interpret it (or just "in"), with "confines" a noun connoting something like a harness.  If you mean something else, I'm not seeing it.  If the verb were "Confined," "to" would be perfect, but that would double "confines."

3rd Edit

1. Across the bridge
   
2. forms blend; eyes hazed, numbed
   
3. minds, in circles they saunter.
   
4. Back upon themselves
   
5. glide shadows,
   
6. silhouettes dancing on
   
7. bleak cobbled stone.
   
   
8. Out of the club they
   
9. spilled, raucously giggling
   
10. -Taxi! they cried.
    
11. Eyes dimly bright on
    
12. hanging feet-fixated heads.
    
13. “Oh- What wonderful brogues!”
    
14. ‘Naturally, oxblood is very ‘in’ this Winter.’
    
15. “How utterly splendid.”
    
16. ‘Indeed.’
    
    
17. Adamantine chains bind;
    
18. stark and stripped, myriads lie,
    
19. shapes crawl towards
    
20. nothing to darkness reach;
    
21. on fours they
    
22. loiter with passive disregard.  
    
23. Content are they, for the
    
24. mind can conjure a
    
25. Heaven of Hell- and
    
26. what light have they known?
    
    
27. Decisions loom,
    
28. futures hover with
    
29. impending regret.
    
30. What choices shall be made-
    
31. today and tomorrow,
    
32. as eternity beckons?
    
33. To revel in glorious apathy-
    
34. shall we watch a little Netflix
    
35. - or is a joint enough?
    
    
36. Cast away shackles, He beseeches,
    
37. see light in rare lucidity for
    
38. ethereal beauty so staggering.
    
39. Painful? Yes. But stunning,
    
40. nevertheless.
    
    
41. They awaken
    
42. in ones and twos
    
43. from blissful slumber,
    
44. standing before darkness
    
45. visible to embrace that last
    
46. inch of greatness and
    
47. horror
    
48. too long held captive-
    
49. Shocked, they flinch from
    
50. light so blinding as
    
51. flesh is singed by unruly flame; the
    
52. Beast appears as man
    
53. himself chastises,
    
54. cowering to mental confines and
    
55. the ranks of the
    
56. hoi polloi, in their
    
57. intoxicating naïvety and
    
58. compelling simplicity.