Magicians do not reveal how the trick is done
Not to protect their secrets, which are cheap.
But to preserve your wonder, which is invaluable
Every magician is an artist and the reverse is just as true.
Never reveal the magic, do not explain it away.
Despite the insistence of the curly-haired rats,
The waste is what works.
You are pulled by the mystery, not the reveal.
Yeah, sunlight is the best disinfectant,
Sure, your podcast “tells it like it is,”
But not everything is solved with a Vox explainer.
Neither your Craft, nor this universe.
“Where do you get your ideas?”
“Is your last song about me?”
“What’s going to happen to the world?”
These questions are not unexpected.
But don’t waste a second trying to answer
You’re better off explaining the shape of a sneeze.
The mortals want to know “Why am I so moved by Chaos?”
When that, of course, was the intended effect.
Besides, you have neither the ability nor the right to explain.
You are not you; you are a conduit.
The artist weaves from Collective Dream
On everyone’s behalf.
You can know your eternal questions.
That’s all a storyteller gets to know.
The listener must know her questions too,
Two shards of curiosity meeting in the prism of Craft.
Ask not about the magic.
Read a book more than once if you want answers
But you’ll mostly learn about yourself.
Which is the “point” were there such a thing.
To craft is to insistently rush into the unknown.
An endless collision of Chaos and knowledge
Producing as byproduct both failure and artifact
And the gorgeous illusion:
That the universe needs to make a lick of sense.