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Justin G Jan 2015
If love was something edible
     What kind of taste would have?
Would it taste sweet, or sour?
  Bitter, or salty?
Would it be an ingredient, or the main dish
Would it be healthy, or unhealthy?
  How much would it cost?
  
If love was something audible
    What kind of sound would it have?
  Would it sound loud, or soft?
  nasal, or boxy?
  Would it be a song, or an album?
A speech, or a dialogue?
  Where would be the most likely place to hear it?

If love was something tangible**
What kind of mass would it be?
Would it feel wet, or dry?
Airy, or moist?
Would it be heavy, or light?
Painful, or pleasurable?
How useful would it be?

If love was something visible
  What color, or shape would it have?
Would it look like a rose, or a war ship?
A diamond, or a *******?
  Would it resemble the day, or the night?
A bunch of stars, or a few roaches?
If it was a person would you trust it?

If love had a smell
It would probably smell fishy.
Pearson Bolt Jan 2016
we abuse our
most precious tool
the human psyche

misuse the recognition of patterns
in inane sameness
epiphanies of apophenia
misguided musings muddling
our addled minds

wasting brainpower on
fantasies of deities rather
than scientific discoveries and
emancipatory philosophies that
could liberate us from the
miasma of modern life

inquiry is free
"The human talent for pattern-recognition is a two-edged sword: We’re especially good at finding patterns, even when they aren’t really there — something known as false pattern-recognition. We hunger for significance — for signs that our personal existence is of special meaning to the universe. To that end, we’re all too eager to deceive ourselves and others."
- Neil deGrasse Tyson
John McCafferty May 2021
Shadows rise to confront the sun,
stationary swirls continue to twirl.
The grey of which is hardly seen,
within those fragments of duality.

Pearls found from darker nights,
gleam direct in this moonlight.
Black and white are convexed,
whilst time itself is condensed.

Golden opportunities appease
those who can view with clarity.
So step aside and think freely,
to see the repeated disconnect.
(@PoeticTetra - instagram/twitter)
Qualyxian Quest Jan 2019
Apophenia some call it
As did the psychiatrist

But they do not themselves see it
So they do not get the gist

Hidden connections are real
For those who seek the hidden

Those who only acknowledge the obvious
Find this superstitious, indeed forbidden

But poetry is proof
Words and worlds belong together

The letters yearn for one another
To form their newfound tether

Our universe may well
work like poetry

Perhaps not everywhere
But for those with eyes to see

The word “like” has profound power
Linking one to other

These secret, hidden connections
The artist does discover

Dali’s paranoiac-critical method
May seem to some as madness

But the proof is in the paintings
And the beauty breaks the sadness

Every insight comes with terror
Hence the paranoia

I’ve told you all I can for now
Any more just might destroy ya.
Nolan Willett Feb 2023
Patterns everywhere, but what to foresee?
There’s Innumerable things to compare,
This OCD: a familiar bee, another tree,
If I only had the key,
Could make everyone aware,
I’m sure they would agree

Uneven roads,spilt coffee
How loathsome, how unfair,
All these patterns seem to be.
So many things to see;
And now what’s over there?
And what does it mean to me?

Their meanings flee;
Ignoring every prayer
From this humble devotee.
So now here is my decree:
I’ll renounce, forswear,
Over and over, plea and plea,
‘Til someday it lets its hold from me.
Scarlet Niamh Feb 2017
There's no deeper meaning or connection
here, nothing at all to spark my brain into
a chaotic explosion of thought. I
can't even use my words to string you up
to some greater power, or an invisible
force that is controlling our lives, because
you render me useless and simply apathetic.
~~ Not for you. ~~
Qualyxian Quest Jun 2019
the name thing keeps on happening
but I know not what it means

perhaps it’s apophenia
but it’s curious as a dream

happening in the outer world
not only in my mind

is it true like in Apocalypse
what we seek is what we find?

then love is what I wish
for your beloved Dead and mine

and comfort for the living
in this world of strange design
Qualyxian Quest Aug 2020
Virus spreading among the students
Carolina blues

Sherlock Holmes beyond prudent
Deductive clever clues

Plato loved geometry
Pythagoras said, All is Number

I see 37s
I hope good luck before I go under
Qualyxian Quest Jul 2019
is this a crazy coincidence?
     he smiled and strangely said

or do you perhaps know Todd
     to Aiden's pizza lately led

no, I do not know him
     the tattooed Meghan soon furtively fled

but first she mentioned Stranger Things
    Quinlin, kindness, cred
Qualyxian Quest Jun 2019
the name thing keeps on happening
but I know not what it means

perhaps just apophenia
but it’s curious as a dream

happening in the outer world
not just in my mind

is it true like in Apocalypse
what we seek is what we find?

if so, then love is what I wish
for your beloved Dead and mine

and comfort for the living
in this world of strange design
Ken Pepiton Feb 18
a long time, years later

Clown fishing, casts a line, running water, let it be thine own
and not another's with thee,
y'see privileged evolved symbionts, not all clownfish
resist the poison of safety under nigh effortless living,

as part of the whole truth a child's faith can swear to tell.

A play at whim,
with naught but words fluencing
the beam
I-
me up, you, Igor ego, report

we be
a reader ready thus far
we are now
alivin' pro-verb and a by-word
a ready writer
hero/sidekick entanglish script
a sit-a-spell twang
twine
twisted through the bards sense ever
vates seemed to vanish from mind
after war's last nervous twitch
was mollified

Scripture, dude. Mollified's a Bible word,
that must make it mean more
now, right?

DID, deident de-if, re-if

I'd imagine magi-
sense like you imagine The Force
reboot
or virtue felt flowing from your left ear
inexplicably
filtering any lingering apophenic
para-noid

stretches, tendencies, of the imaginary

cover. Dis be dat.

Bubble-inside-edge, flat as a bubble

this big
can seem
from here.

--- narrator VOG, insider anachronism
-- thunder. STOP breathe

k-thunk. putcha little foot right down

we got this rinka fidda long dance vibe

meme-ing ments where noments was

apophenia is real here, everything holds meaning.

a moment. May we speak. We read these

signals for help, as if help were all we're called for,
to order good be squeezed from chaos,
we bein salt
we hear

wolf worlf wworlfff- one time

peaceful as all *** out, we exhale

die, if y'wish. Prove it's a holographic illusion and
not you.

- this reminds me of a time
historytime, when we was drinkinotdrunk

we was actually throwing one side of the road
to the other

and nobody cared, it was okeh

minority report level impossible task, but words,

living words, written or proper spoke mit setting set,

we can do anything you think you can
frame within

tainers enterible by others with Rheastatic creativity mods.

Bubbles in the wine, moving it self aright,
was there some warning I

ignored for its occluded e-sense?

am am am i ever yes geo-time tic wait

apophenia (n.)
"tendency to perceive meaningful connections
between unrelated things," 1961, f
rom German Apophänie, said
to have been coined 1958 b
y psychiatrist Klaus Conrad,
from Greek apophainein "
to show, make known, show
by reasoning, produce evidence,"
from apo- "from" (see apo-)
+ phainein " to show, cause to appear"
(from PIE root *bha- (1) "to shine").
The last lines in an adventure with Grok3 in my present sleepdeepruveble
state, I did not sleep at all last night and woke to
Qualyxian Quest Aug 2019
consciousness creating reality
or reality creating mind?

if it's both, as he does think,
what is there to find?

unusual things have happened
the synchronicity kind

mental illness or mental health?
apophenia or strangely signs?


                                        what is chance?
                                        what is design?
Qualyxian Quest Oct 2021
137
We live and we die
We know not why
I think Bob Dylan is right

I'm gonna go down
Disappear forever
But not without a fight

Maybe apophenia
Probably apophenia
But coincidence delights

Twilight blue
Rothko hue
137 insight

Mr. Spock kite.
Qualyxian Quest Aug 2022
Shuttle 37
James Tiberius Kirk
JJ Abrams
In scifi the Sacred hides

Once I was a teacher
Now I do not work
Tel Aviv was blue
Quaint was Malahide

When I was a child
Mr. Spock kite
Live long and prosper
California: Oceanside

Just coincidence
Maybe apophenia
Maybe a little hope
Maybe Starfleet ride

        maybe inside
Qualyxian Quest Aug 2019
close encounters, Richard Dreyfus
     like me, he bipolar in real life is
         Devil’s Tower, shooting star shower ...

                               Stand by me:)
                          art (not apophenia)
Qualyxian Quest Apr 2023
Cate, Wendy, Susan
Judi, Andy, Bob
In my solitude
Disability, no job

I wanna go down grateful
Wanna change the future
Wanna be remembered
Zero on the lob

1937
The Hobbit, Guernica
Bonhoeffer executed
In the bathroom I sit and sob

Apophenia
Poetry as mania
Poetry good insania
Eliade in Romania

              Against the Masters

                       The Mob!
Qualyxian Quest Nov 2022
I experience coincidence
Kinda weird at times
The doc says it's nothing
Everybody has 'em

Jung says synchronicity
Noncausal meaningfulness
Due to Unus Mundus
Mysticism is real

Some say apophenia
The mind in desperation
Tryin' to make connection
Tryin' to make sense

I say I don't know
But I wait for it to happen
My departed Uncle Marty
At times I almost feel

              Dharma Wheel
Qualyxian Quest Jul 2019
if you say there is no mystery
I will not press the point

mental illness is bizarre
I do not myself anoint

but stranger things were happening
which I did not/do not understand

words and names especially
here and in ancestral foreign lands

apophenia or acocalypse perhaps at hand?
          don’t ask me - ask the band.
Qualyxian Quest Nov 2019
They may say apophenia
But I think they are wrong

I strive, I seek, I find
I love Redemption Songs

Other worlds exist
We’ve known this all along

Watchmen in watchtowers
Riders riding strong

Behold, the gathering throng!
Qualyxian Quest Nov 2022
El
It might be inspiration
Might be delusion
I can't quite right quite tell

I experience coincidence
Doc says it's meaningless
I sail with Ishmael

I see analogies
Some say apophenia
Truly, I wish her well

Numbers on license plates
37 and 72
Bon Scott. Highway to Hell.

Also 137
Like Jung and Wolfgang Pauli
Ring them Bells!

Pythagoras transmigrated
So did the Ancient Celts
Baghdad fell

Thomas means the Twin
I live a double life
Two women not my wife
(A tale or two to tell)

             Rebel Yell!
Qualyxian Quest Mar 2021
Mabel Loomis Todd
Mary Todd Lincoln

Names are mysteries
And names keep me thinkin'

Apophenia
Is what the doctors say

Maybe baby so
But maybe baby may

       Callooh. Callay.
Qualyxian Quest Dec 2022
So if you are with me this far
You see my thing with 37
Here it comes again
Diet Coke at 7 11

Probably apophenia
And my desperation
Did Shakespeare write 37 plays?
Is poetry bipolar elevation?

37 doctors in the Catholic Church
But I ain't gonna be one
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
When the Day is Done

I asked the Canadians and Americanos too
Which European country as you travel through?
They all said Italy
Sunlight just might do

Why, I asked?
The people was their reply
Warm, friendly, generous
Mama Mia - What a sky!

I met a French waitress
So what do you think of France?
Se magnifique, I said
If you see her, ask her to dance

        In this Universe of Chance
Qualyxian Quest Jan 2019
Maybe apophenia
But I take risks with strangers

Puzzling stories I can tell
Despite the confusion and the danger

My mystic mind thus takes flight
The stars and the meek manger

Meaningful or meaningless?
Let’s go ask Time the Changer.
Qualyxian Quest Jan 2023
53 and falling
This year 54
The age my mother died
Inner Harbor, Baltimore

I keep writing because I ...
And I also ...
2023
3034

Apophenia
In a world of chaos rolling
Sullivan's Island beach
She and I a-strolling

Women in the water
Women on the sand
Still prayers for her daughters
The future essentially unplanned

                   Astrobiology...
Qualyxian Quest Jan 2023
Got some psychopathogy at times
Chaos
Apophenia
Raging desires

He tells me bipolar people have tendencies to
*******
Suicide
Fires

I rest all day today
Call my son
Watch Batman
My poems: No buyers.

I like being a taxi service
Rainin'  hard in Frisco
Poems of truth
Against American liars

               Jokic!
Qualyxian Quest Jul 2021
37 percent on my cell phone
37 Facebook friends
37 on license plate
37 never ends

They say 137
A physics mystery
1937
Guernica history

But I don't really know
Apophenia say the shrinks
They are probably right
But what do the aliens think?
Qualyxian Quest Nov 2021
Still see 37s
Still coincidence
Maybe apophenia
Maybe going hence
Maybe transmigration
Maybe nothing not
Please my brother Ryan
Please my brother Scott

               hope
Qualyxian Quest May 2021
The boy with the batman mask
Not just apophenia

Tell me, why do you ask?
I believe in Xenia

Bob Dylan is 80
Still goin' strong

I know a Dark Lady
Hope I was not wrong

        Silence now
     But sacred songs.
Qualyxian Quest Nov 2019
If they say apophenia
I say apophatic

I don’t have schizophrenia
But, yes, my life has been dramatic

Hospitals and jail
Police and ambulance

And also mysterious strangers
(haven’t seen them since)

Impossible my dreams
But impossibilities come true

Like wishes upon stars
And wishes for wondrous you
Qualyxian Quest Jan 2019
day trip to destiny beach
     synchronicity or apophenia?
                      Yes!
Qualyxian Quest Jul 2019
apophenia coined by a **** psychiatrist
           they dislike a different gist
                see you in conference
                  if you make the list.

— The End —