Glue.

Because we see things differently, and that's that.

When some people look at crop circles it’s absolutely clear

That they’re alien announcements in the grass.

Signs of sage, enlightened beings from an undiscovered sphere.

But to me, that’s just unmitigated arse.

When some people truly think that they can read another’s mind

And communicate with spirits they awaken.

They amaze themselves with all the psychic hits they seem to find,

But I notice all the times when they’re mistaken.

When some people see the footage of Neil Armstrong on the moon

They see someone acting out a complex fraud.

They claim lighting, sets and camera tricks, filmed earlier, in June

But I’ve seen it all debunked, and now I’m bored.

When some people listen closely and hear hoof-beats coming near

And think, “Wow! A herd of zebras! Awesomesauce!”

They prepare themselves for dazzling stripy mammals to appear,

But it is, as I expected, just a horse.

Why do some of us see magic while the rest of us see tricks?

Why do some prefer a hunch to actual data?

Why do people bother searching for ground water using sticks

When electroseismic methods are much smarter?

When a hard-core true believer has a notion in their mind

There’s no point providing rational relief.

‘Cause it seems the strongest substance ever known to humankind

Is the glue that holds together a belief.

Therapy.

Because psychology has woo, too.

On Day Two of the Australian Skeptics National Convention last weekend, clinical psychologist Dr Garry Bakker talked about a range of treatments - evidence-based and otherwise - for depression and other conditions. Like many other areas of health care, psychology is not immune to the creeping influx of woo therapies that ebbs and flows as years go by. 

I studied just enough psychology at university to know that there's a lot more to it than most people who still think Sigmund Freud is relevant would imagine. While psychology has, historically, struggled to convince other doctrines that it is a real science, it can be scientific. But any practitioners who entertain therapies with no empirical evidence of effectiveness to back them up may, if you'll pardon the expression, get the hell off my lawn. 

Here's a wee pome I wrote about such a practitioner. 

Thank you, dear client, for coming to me

To discuss your continuing anxiety.

In a session or two, for a reasonable fee

I’m quite sure we can lessen your stress.

We can try a whole range of creative techniques

Some are new; some date back to the Classical Greeks

But I’ve tried them before, and in just a few weeks

Several clients reported success.

Now, although my advice might sound silly or wrong,

And you can’t see the purpose of playing along,

Anecdotally, evidence seems fairly strong,

So bear with me. Right, here’s what you do:

First, be mindful and challenge those negative thoughts,

While you sew a small crystal of zircon or quartz

In the hem of your jeans or a nice pair of shorts

And reprogram your neurons anew.

Have the static removed from the length of your spine

Try to keep both your feng and your shui in line

Mix with those of a fixed astrological sign

Picture me in a large purple hat.

Slow your thinking and exercise breathing control

Notice birdsong and breeze when you go for a stroll

Put three crow feathers into a platinum bowl

Give your sub-sternal chakra a pat.

Utter positive mantras and visualise calm

Wear a dove on an amulet wrapped ‘round your arm

Smear the end of your nose with olfactory balm

Drink some soothing valerian tea.

Shut your stress in a box by your bed for the night

Bathe your body in nut milk and indigo light.

Toss a mind-juggling ball right-to-left, left-to-right

Stick a needle or two in your chi.

I’m aware it seems strange to use such an array

Of unusual techniques when it’s safer to stay

With a method that’s tested by experts, but hey -

There’s a theory behind such a mixture

‘Cause I’m not very good at this therapy game

All these theories and systems, to me, look the same

But if somehow your symptoms subside, I can claim

It was something I thought of that fixed ya.

The I Don't Know Hole

Because we don't have to know everything.

Now a vacuum is something that Nature abhors.

It’s not one to acknowledge a void.

If there’s ever a spot

In which something is not

Then Nature gets really annoyed.

It will go to great lengths to fill in such a blank

With whatever approach it is able.

It will seek to replace

An unoccupied space

‘Til the balance of stuff becomes stable.

Human knowledge abides by a similar rule

When cognition encounters a gap;

We refuse to maintain

Such a gulf in our brain

So we stuff it with ludicrous crap.

So when something occurs and it can’t be explained,

Or we see, hear or feel something odd,

Then it’s aliens, ghosts,

Or it’s heavenly hosts,

Psychic powers, dud chakras or God.

What is it that makes us impatiently jump

To conclusions so clearly absurd?

Why are people so prone

To escape the unknown?

Why are flimsy delusions preferred?

What’s so hard about leaving some things unexplained?

Is uncertainty really a foe?

When our own perspicacity

Reaches capacity

Why can’t we say “I DON’T KNOW”?

A love letter.

Because I want it to know how I feel.

Oh science. My darling.

I don’t remember when we met
Or how
But you’re with me now.
Making sense of time and space
The human race
The turning Earth
The rocks and trees and shifting seas.
The beasts with fur and scales and wings
The minuscule things
Planets and moons and the stars that go with ‘em
My four-chambered heart and its galloping rhythm.
Life, the universe and everything.

No matter what I want or mean,
Or think I might have seen,
Without you it’s all just faith and guesses
And shrug-shouldered reckons.
With you the present progresses
And the future beckons.

By knowing only what can be seen, heard, felt and measured
My senses are pleasured.
You melt my will as though with drinks
You don’t care what the public thinks
Flirtatious minx.

You drew me in with your premises.
Promises
Of rocket boots and flying cars
A holiday resort on Mars
Robocops and time machines
And designer genes.

And now, like Skinner’s pigeons, I can’t get enough.
You set me abuzz like a Faraday cage.
You fill me with life like a Cambrian age.

This love is no miracle, it’s strictly empirical
Bypassing my heart and my soul for my mind,
It’s hot and cold and cruel and kind
And double-blind.

We haven’t had a perfect run:
The Piltdown Man was embarrassing
And that Manhattan Project thing.
Thalidomide was not much fun.
But you never meant to hurt anyone.

Oh science, I’m not like those others
Who love you just for a little while
And wear you like a shawl
Of substance . They might be tender
for a minute
but their heart’s not in it.
They take what they want then run a mile
When you don’t fit their agenda
Like some factoid-fetching booty-call.

You know the ones.
They love you when you make iPads work and aeroplanes fly
And babies live and mosquitoes die.
But when you tell them fossil fuels
Can mess with how the planet cools
And you want to build a wind farm in their town
Or bring the population down
Or modify the food they eat
They’re not so sweet.

They don’t know
That you’re the reason they don’t have polio.
You’re what fizzes their beers,
Changes their gears
And makes their toilets flow.

But me? I’m sticking around
‘Cause you’re the best way humankind has found
To know the truth.
You strip away the layers of doubt
Until all that’s left hanging out
Is what’s what.
And that’s hot.

Conventional

Because I went to a thing in Canberra and talked pomes at people.

I have just this afternoon returned home from the 2013 Australian Skeptics National Convention (#auskepcon) at the CSIRO Discovery Centre in Canberra. As everyone knows, these conventions consist of a room full of cranky, beardy old men sitting around hating everything and patting each other on the back for being so good at hating everything.

Except it wasn't. Thanks to everyone (especially the Canberra Skeptics) for a top notch do, and to all the people who spoke, organised, attended, made tea, drove me around, introduced themselves and didn't think I was creepy for hugging so enthusiastically. And thank you extra-specially for inviting me to be poet-in-residence.

I wrote and delivered seven pomes at the convention, all loosely based around the theme of conspiracy theories. So I'm going to post one pome a day for a week to make up for my blog-silence over the last couple of months, and then things should return to the usual pattern whereby I write intermittently about strangeness and idiots.



Poem One of Seven:  JFK

Fifty years ago, in Dallas, hatched a plan both cold and callous:

Rifle shots rang out and sped toward the presidential head.

On that day in late November, many here may still remember

When the news from Walter Cronkite came: “the President is dead”.

Then when Oswald was arrested and his innocence contested,

People thought he’d soon be tried, but something else occurred instead.

Two days later, one Jack Ruby shot him underneath his booby.

He was acting independently, alone. Or so he said.

Questions raised about the story of the book depository

Made the single shooter tale begin to look a little lame.

Soon the doubt became a series of scenarios and theories

About how Lee Harvey Oswald was set up to take the blame

To avoid the repercussions of revealing that the Russians

Working with J Edgar Hoover had been plotting with the aim

Of removing Jack from office, while a friend of Jimmy Hoffa’s

Worked with Castro and the mafia to bring about the same.

Still, distrust and obfuscation, after much investigation,

Linger on, from nineteen-sixty-three until this very day.

But this tale, though worn and dated clearly isn’t isolated;

There are many dishes served at the conspiracy buffet.

Like the fluoridation drama and the birthplace of Obama

HAARP and Roswell, GMO and Chemtrails’ evil, toxic spray.

Love ‘em, loathe ‘em or ignore ‘em, we’re all gathered in this forum

To investigate conspiracies, and why they’re here to stay.