Fantasmagorification!

by Alan

Pull up some chairs, ladies and gents,
And I’ll tell you my thoughts on current events,

I don’t like to include them in my books,
I write fiction—not exposés of real-life crooks,

Or heroic tales of surviving earthquakes,
Reality doesn’t a good story make,

An actual thing can be a nice seed,
To grow a story people might read,

I do get ideas from what may happen in life,
But I steer clear of true war-torn strife,

I make it up! I create!
I spin tales! I conflate!

Fabrication! Imagination!
Fantasmagorification!

Why be tethered to what’s in the news?
Why feel constrained by what is so true?

By the time the book hits, it’s been a long time,
Since the disaster or scandal or newsworthy crime,

Most people don’t remember the when,
Or even what happened way, way, way back then,

So I don’t rip stories from the screaming headlines,
Instead, I rip things from my super-deranged mind!

 

(Dr. Suess’s birthday is next week, and I don’t post next week, so… my early birthday tribute)