Doubling Down

1

When those
              who with cultish innocence hitch
their wagons   to what unknown to them
is the pull of madmen or grifters
       and their wagons wind up in the ditch

they tend to lose sense of what's sensible
in their attempts to defend  the indefensible
conduct of those  they've chosen to follow
as they trade their collective moral compass
for one as broken as an empty shell's hollow.


Unable to swallow their pride
and doped up sky-high  on uncut cope
and the often more-potent-still drug of denial
— like so many fools  hoping 'gainst hope —
       they tend to break the first rule of holes

soon after their wagons  hit the ol' ditch
— as all such ill-hitched wagons must —
when the grifters and loons who tow their rigs
       no longer elicit  the once-implicit trust
       of so many suddenly ex-fellow-travellers.


2

Like the barb   whose humble invention
was doubtless inspired by a modest desire
to simply prevent  simple fishhook ejection
the insurance policy of the long con is this:

that even when they sense  something amiss
well-played marks — having heavily invested
       in expertly peddled  con-job fantasies —
are usually doomed to extend their losses
by falling for the lure of the sunk cost fallacy.