My Poem “Houdini”

Everybody loves magic…
everybody lives to be bedazzled…
everybody who sees a magician
or an illusionist perform
an illusion or a magic trick
often cannot believe what
they have just witnessed…
everybody lives to see
something that they have
never seen before –
even those who have been
around the world and have experienced
things that are indescribable find
themselves, at one time or another
during their lives, captivated
by the gift of someone able to show
an audience of one, or one of a thousand,
something unbelievable,
something borderline supernatural,
something that looks so simple
but is in reality complicated
on so many levels, and something
that is a part of a tradition
that is not just exclusive
to humanity, that has also been
observed in the animal kingdom:
the art and the act of surprise,
of wonder, and of defying expectations.

Stories and mythologies
from all around the world
are filled with tales of characters
that have certain unexplainable skills…
legends have for centuries been written
about wizards and magicians who became
synonymous and memorable
because of who they were
and what they were believed to have done…
characters like “Merlin”, who is always
closely associated with the legendary
King Arthur have become mythical
in their own right because of the mystery
of who they were that still follows them
and cloaks them like a veil.

In this day and age,
just as back the medieval days
of kings, knights, swords in stones,
and ladies in lakes, people
are still drawn to experiences
that cannot be explained
without some sense of loss as a result…
even those people who ask how a magic trick
is done do not really want to know
because it is the not knowing of an audience
that is one of the most essential parts
that makes a magician want to keep doing
the same trick and the same routine
over and over again.

We need magic in the world
now more than ever,
because it is by being ensorcelled
by a gifted magician that we can
let our imagination run free…
thank god for magic and thank god
for magicians – who are wizards
in their own right – who some of us
know of, or may have grown up with,
like Derren Brown, Paul Daniels,
David Blaine, Penn and Teller,
David Copperfield, who learned from,
and who followed in the footsteps of,
one of the greatest and one of
the most spellbinding magicians
of all time: the one, the only,
Harry Houdini.

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