In Competition No. 3334 you were invited to submit a poem about conspiracy theories.

Trawling the net for examples, I found, alongside the more familiar ones – a reptilian elite, JFK’s assassination, commie fluoridation – whispers of chemicals in the water to turn the frogs gay and that Finland is a myth.

In a hotly contested week, Adrian Fry, Sylvia Smith, Janine Beacham, Nicholas Lee and Nick MacKinnon earn honourable mentions while the prizewinners, printed below, snaffle £25 apiece.

Our WhatsApp know what’s what. We know
the council’s spying on our bins
with microchip-type spyware, so
they know who puts out unwashed tins.
Ken says they read our post as well
and pick on those who read the Sun
and the Express, and they can tell
the way we vote and Dave’s the one
who says the bins will programme us
until we can’t think for ourselves
and then we’ll end up like Liz Truss,
all lookalikes for Santa’s Elves.
There’s cameras watching us all round,
not just for speeding but to spot
the skiving smokers, offie-bound.
Oh yes, our WhatsApp knows what’s what.

D.A. Prince

They seek us here, they seek us there;
They spy on all we do.
They’re out to change the way we live
And master me and you.
They’ve secret files on UFOs
But keep their knowledge back
And one day when we’re least prepared
The aliens will attack.
God knows what plans they have for war.
We’ll be the last to know;
Then out of nowhere we’ll be told
It’s time to face some foe.
Sweeping aside our pleas they say
We sing the same old song.
Conspiracy theorists we may be.
It doesn’t mean we’re wrong.

Frank McDonald

Fakery, wokery,
Jiggery-pokery,
Making us think what they want us to think;
Daggers-and-cloakery,
Fake fairy-folkery,
All politicians belong in the clink.

Moon landings, Covid and Elvis and Di,
Climate change doomsters: ‘We’re all gonna fry’ –

Lies! Hocus-pokery,
Practical jokery,
Fake news to lead us a right merry dance;
Mirrors-and-smokery,
Hokum ‘mis-spokery’ –
Invoke John and Yokery:
Give Truth a Chance.

David Silverman

Seductive to be heterodox –
Makes you the people’s other vox
That calls the mainstream view absurd
Then jumps to join a different herd.
You’re sure of where the plain truth lies,
Whatever the duped world denies:
They see just surface ‘facts’, quite blind
To what your sharper sight will find.
It helps that you’ve like-minded folk
Who share the cause that you invoke –
Confederates who allow no doubt
Which version of the truth will out.
And lastly what cements the fiction
Is your unshakable conviction
That you are right and called to fight
Weird phantom forces of the night.

W.J. Webster

The Eagle hasn’t landed. Deeley Plaza
Held seventeen assassins, rifles cocked.
There are no Jewish prisoners in Gaza.
Titanic, as we all know, merely docked
Until the iceberg’s aliens came to sink it.
And Anastasia? Married à la mode.
Paul is dead, although you might not think it:
Check out his shoeless feet on Abbey Road.

The Holocaust was just a Nazi picnic
Devised by all the fakers from Big Pharma.
Marilyn inhaled some poison lipstick.
Covid was a Deep State psychodrama,
While Lucan was the brains on 9/11,
And Jesus swapped his cross, a common thief:
The truth is all at sixes or at sevens,
Or beggaring the borders of belief.

Bill Greenwell

Don’t let Alexa hear this, for I warn you that I fear this
Will mean trouble if it leaks to MI6 –
Who’re a small but crucial part of the deep darkness at the heart of
Everything – I’ve seen their dirty tricks.
Their evil machinations (based in the United Nations)
Spread through networks linking Roswell to Rangoon.
They control all kinds of media, from the Times to Wikipedia,
And of course, they faked the landings on the Moon.

Why were they so desirous China gave us all the virus?
And just what was in the vaccines they supplied?
They’re behind the shits who worked to cover up Fujitsu;
They protected Jimmy Savile till he died.
They’re the same illuminati who control the Labour party
And helped Biden rig the 2020 poll,
So what’s their real intention? Just to stamp on any mention
Of the aliens behind the grassy knoll.

George Simmers

No. 3337: Square eyes

You are invited to submit a soliloquy composed by Giovinni Fontana’s statue of Shakespeare in Leicester Square. Please email entries of up to 16 lines by midday on 14 February./>