In Pursuit of Good Fiction - Robert Zwilling
poem read by Timothy Arliss OBrien
In Pursuit of Good Fiction
Robert Zwilling
Fiction is more persistent than truth, it grows forever stronger by leaps and bounds
Filling in blank spaces, powered by imagination, answering unanswered questions
Stranger it seems, as fiction is replaced by facts, more fiction slips in to replace it
Fiction outsells non-fiction in the real world, repeating a story is the same as selling it
Only one kind of truth, has only true facts, not surprisingly mostly contradictory
Fiction’s made of everything, including truths, giving it an infinite number of forms
Grand tales of fabulous misadventures start the world's youth flying on their ways
Corporate speak based on rules of good grammar demands thoughts perfectly framed
Stories reflecting interests, wishes, beliefs, wants and desires, naturally resonate
Picking out true courses of action carried by flights of fancy has become an art form
Stories have gaps, like magic we fill in the missing pieces with wishes, wants, desires
Mold it, shape it, love it, hate it, just remember fiction's the stuff dreams are made of
Good, bad, or indifferent, news has to be entertaining, the ratings are more important
Living in a first-person fictional world, feeling the world through the eyes of others
Imagine what it's like to be who you dream to be, free of constraints of ordinary living
Being the best you can be in the worst situations with absolutely no risk to limb or life
Our virtual world we made in our own image, it has no past, present, or future
First impressions, years go by and nothing ages, it's all like it's fondly remembered
Half the truth intentional or not is the same as a lie, all we ever know is half the story
We live lives of fiction, half of our own making, the world supplies the other half
