The Greatest Trick in the World

Studied and steeped in legerdemain's fare
Eyes reddened maps of the rote
Tips' toughened callouses borne of the cards
And the coins and the billiards and rope

Ne'er swallowed by mystery whole and complete
Ne'er torn from the rational's shore
Good and the true and the beautiful were
Always sampled, ne'er tasted or worn

Thrown from the manifest naked and red
Suckling from suffering's breast
Bottle was proffered, unbroken and sealed
Only opened at end of the quest

Wraith within offered wishes galore
Or a single manuscript curled
Gifts of the flesh or the mind or the spirit
Or the Greatest Trick in the World

Manuscript chosen, unfurled and read
'The world transformed with these words'
Koaned satori shredded flesh from the spirit
The manifest a shimmering blur

Forty years aft one foot still in the world he
Stepped into the manuscript's folds
Untethered his heart and dissolved in the draft
Of the borderless-borderland's hold

The Trick he was promised was finally fulfilled
As he looked at effect without cause
The world transformed through the words on the script
Hadn't changed, just shimmered with what *was*