Apophenia

Tin-foil hats
to protect your brains
deep fryer vats
for drive-thru lanes,
AM radio talk
on the commute,
spooks that all walk
along your route,
fluoride water fountains,
vapor trails overhead,
melting ice mountains
and nanites in your bed,
a face on Mars
that watches the earth,
eugenic candy bars
to control rates of birth,
high fructose corn syrups
that fatten the “sheeple”,
lithotomy stirrups
while they get a peep-full.
Merit badges of
a conspiracy trend
which hate and love
and idiocy lend,
proudly worn,
from idiocy born,
and proudly displayed,
American-made.
Flat Earthers
and a chandelier moon,
Obama Birthers
denying the monsoon.
Shit-throwing baboons,
science-denying loons,
they
say,
“Dull the edge
of Occam’s Razor,”
as they wedge and hedge,
each a fraternity hazer.
No, ostracize
those thinking
contrariwise
without blinking
in the glaring stare-down
of conspiracy wars,
the Lizard Crown
and the alien spores,
each conflicted sect
never of an accord,
each president-elect
of the Secret Board.
Free-for-all
online chats,
slippery snowball
nefarious fat-cats.
Beware chemtrails
that socially engineer
to change males into females
and straight men queer,
or so one conspiracy entails
built on their greatest fear:
that the speaker might be gay,
falling out of the closet someday.
It is thus
a lot of fuss,
out-and-out
about
mass sensiogenic illness
in the heartland from this
opioid pill mess
and yet it would be remiss
of us to not mention Soros
the leader of the Cabal,
that snake, Ouroborus,
the herald of the Zionist Call.
Trench warfare
from the pews
against those who declare
opposing views.
When your candidate starts to lose
just blame a “Cabal of Jews”,
but don’t forget the “Deep State”,
the shadow government
made of all the people you hate,
but none from your favored tent.
How nice it must be
to be one of the Good Guys
in your head, free
from ever thinking otherwise.
And when you ask for proof
they say “prove me wrong”,
but that is not the way to Truth—
denial sure is strong.
Burden of proof means nothing
to such riveted brains,
bolted and ironclad with bluffing,
taking great pains
against commonsense
and contrary evidence
people who like
to ride a tin-foil bike
in the emergency lane,
thinking themselves sane.
I say, “You fly to the moon at night
speak to little Boy Blue,”
and they say, “I am right
because you can’t prove it untrue.”
But can you prove that the sun
is not made of unicorn glitter?
Or that the earth is not on the run
from a cosmic bull (shitter)?
They take the pieces
of a puzzle in disarray
and, like a cryptid species
that is whatever they say,
gluing the parts
however they wish,
like Post-Modern Arts
a pollo loco dish,
forcing all to fit a narrative
preconceived in their heads,
rather than following the imperative
of reasoning, logic, their meds
untouched, uneaten,
the Man
thus beaten.
Look here,
see clear:
the only false flag
operations
are politicians who brag
about their lapel pins.
Humans are natural pattern seekers
and see what’s often not there,
happening by like streakers
bare in the cold, shriveling air,
thrilled by the thought
of a network of nasties
that has bought
figurehead patsies.
They look for
conspiracy games,
and what’s more
a card deck of names,
but mostly there is only chance
and happenstance.
We are social animals, too,
and are programmed to see Man
in everything,
even out of the clear blue
of a toilet bowl ring.
From random occurrence
of act or event or feature,
whether it be gods, fairies,
or whatever other humanoid creature
that strikes our fancy; it varies
according to our brainwave currents.
That is not to say
that conspiracies do not exist,
whether it be those who we obey
as autocrat, dictator, capitalist,
communist, lord, senator—
they are all in a labyrinth,
as are we,
and Necessity is the Minotaur
and we wish to be free,
but civilization, in fact,
is a kind
of conspiracy, a compact
with which we bind
each other, and how we behave
as we all conspire,
each a slave
to the mire.
Everything confirms the script,
even when cliche plot points don’t pan out;
all reason and sense is stripped
so a true believer can forever shout
without sense
of embarrassment
forever hence,
abstaining only on Lent.
And while you like to think
you are the one that is waking,
you only drift away and sink
into the pillow of your own making—
many pillows in a padded room
wherein you tell yourself tales
of aliens and lizard men and doom
or Hollywood, if all else fails.