My gaze was blank, as was the page

On which I meant to write my new creation.

My writer’s block gave way to rage

And I threw my notepad in frustration.

What was the reason that I’d hurled

The little tablet from my hand?

‘Twas that my book, Start of the Majestic World

Was part of a series I had planned–

I thought the book was not too bad,

And the next one should at least be equal–

But alas! The unforgiving real world had

Disrupted my intended sequel.

My novella is deliberately weird,

With strange conspiracy theories,

Intrigue, and things that have appeared

In late-night AM radio series.

My genre needs to be bizarre,

Just as romance novels must be sexy–

But nowadays, my writings are

A little less than Deus Ex-y

For today the President’s a TV star

Voted for by less than half the nation–

And all the cable newsmen are

Discussing this or that investigation–

And every wild, far-out theory

That I can think to use,

Has already been a story

That’s aired on TV evening news–

When members of the government

Are accused of being pawns of Russia’s–

When the Old Order growing decadent

Is all that anyone discusses–

The world, in short, seems to be taunting

My efforts to distort in my depiction.

Under such conditions, it is daunting

To define what can be called “weird fiction”.

The solution, I suppose, is to change

To writing tales of nothing but banality.

The modern reader will find it strange

To read about the thing we called “normality”.