The Woo Continuum

Inspired by the marvellous Crispian Jago's Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense I wrote this which will, if I ever get the right opportunity end up as a performance piece. I am sure there will be plenty of gullible people in the audience to be offended by it.

The Woo Continuum

I don't need to be a psychic
to tell you what's to come
if you keep believing things
that are really rather dumb.
Your end may well be sticky
no matter what you do,
if instead of evidence
you put your trust in woo
like crystal power and ley lines
like the ouija board and chi
like possession by the spirit world
clairvoyance, ESP.
You can be off with the fairies
or believe in Nostradamus,
let someone read your tarot cards
or hunt for chupacabres.
You can populate your fantasy
with manticores and bunnyips,
with vampires, ghosts and unicorns
statues with real blood that drips.
And if you're feeling sick and weak
whatever illness ails,
we've quackery both old and new
that's guaranteed to fail
to give any kind of cure at all
but please feel free to try.
I hope you don't come running back
to science if you die.
Try homeopathy or reiki,
acupuncture, shiatsu.
Try cupping, magnet therapy
or pray till you turn blue,
chiropracty or feng shui,
ayurvedic, TCM,
reflexology, trepanation
or massage with a gem.
The truth is very few of them
will cause you much distress,
but, if you're hoping for a cure,
don't count on much success.
Or else flip the coin around
and choose what you deny.
Moon landings? Didn't happen.
And AIDS? It's all a lie.
Vaccination's a conspiracy
dreamed up by pharmachem
and the everlasting lightbulb has
been suppressed by "THEM".
And if you want to know the future
please let me read your palm,
spill the entrails of a goat
or sell you a lucky charm:
four-leaf clover, rabbit's foot,
a lucky sprig of heather,
a dream catcher up above the bed
a shark's tooth hung on leather.
Crop circles were by aliens
when the pyramids were done,
Prince Philip is a reptile
and so was the Queen Mum.
You can sit down by Loch Ness
Just hoping for a sighting
and pass the time with poems
done by automatic writing.
You can speak in many tongues
in a random glossolalia;
and prophesy the end of days
certain of your failure.
You can search the woods for Big Foot
or the mountains for a Yeti.
You can dowse for gold or water
till your palms turn red and sweaty.
You can stick pins in a doll
of the fool who wrote this verse
but unless he's as daft as you
then he won't feel any worse.
You can pick and mix your madness
and be incredibly naive
as for me I'll trust in sanity:
I know what I believe.