Doggerel spawned by Margaret Seltzer's fictitious "gang memoir"

Fractious Fiction
(somehow overlooked by N.Y. Times March 2008)

Imagination cuts both ways,
it now is plain to see,
without it, well, that's how we got
reality TV.

But with it there come other woes,
whose impacts can't be hid,
like intern sex I never had
unless, of course, I did.

And no new taxes, read my lips,
and hanging-chad confusion,
and wars begun by searching for
those weapons of delusion.

But when it creeps into our books
we find it most unnerving.
We don't want Frey to tell us lies
or Hughes exhumed by Irving.

And now it's happened once again,
another pot of troubles:
a story of the streets is just
a splash of Seltzer bubbles.


J. Mudcat Miller