The Magician

A secret magic, I have seen
In a moment of heartfelt strife.
Now I can live out my dreams;
Or just dream out my life.

Yesterday I could only save face.
Tomorrow, I may save a heart.
Today I will save the human race,
But still my soul falls apart.

My conjuror's tricks once saved
This fragile heart from tragedy.
Unwittingly, I have paved
A path to endless fantasy.

For my world is not real to me.
My magics have bent reality
Such that the realms of the mind
And the land of human kind
Are joined in ungainly fusion.
And so my soul awaits retribution.

Written 2006

It is so easy to lose ourselves these days. In fact, when you take a look at people, they spend as much of their time as possible trying to escape their own lives. With books, newspapers, films, TV, games, iPods, spots, blogs, alcohol, drugs..... so many ways to distract ourselves, so many ways to get out of our own heads. It's sometimes a little worrying that people rarely take time to just stop, and sit, and listen to the silence. In this crazy world, there is always some background noise to pull us out of ourselves; there is always something better to do than what really needs to be done.

And so, the magic. The ability to teleport myself from my troubles to my dreams simply by opening a book. The knack of fooling myself that I'm really one of the good guys by blasting through a computer game. The knowledge that I don't have to live in the real world; I can live in my own world.

Mostly, this poem came to life because of a game called World of Warcraft. It's a sort of virtual world of warriors and monsters and heroes an villians. Literally millions of people worldwide hide from their own lives by playing this game. I did it myself for a long time, and I know people who still do it now. Hell, I know a guy who has played for two years non-stop and still can't pull himself away from the screen. Not even long enough to take his girlfriend out somewhere nice.

I don't know whether this magic is good or bad. But maybe you can tell from the poem - I think that too much escapism can leave you too hollow to the real world, and can develop some serious repercussions. And, no matter how hard you try to hide, you can never completely escape your own problems. At least, I couldn't. They have this knack of bubbling up when you aren't expecting them, chilling you to the bone. They exact their retribution slowly, deep inside.

Recently (I'm writing this at least six months after writing the poem), I think I've learned to get a better balance. I think I can see the pitfalls of too much fantasy. Too often I see people unwilling to just sit and relax - everyone has to be chatting on the phone, or have music playing constantly. And while such things can certainly be nice, sometimes I come to worry that too many people are losing touch with the world. The real world, the natural world. When I wrote the poem, I don't really think I had any of this in mind. It was all about playing Warcraft to escape the real world. I think I was coming out of the game at the time of wrting, and was beginning to see how much it dampened my soul. Because of that - the magic is mostly painted as a good thing, and yet there are strong negative feelings and hints there. Looking back now, I can see the bad of the poem and of the magic really jump out. I see it as a warning, and it brings into mind more forms of magic than Warcraft. At the time, I think it was more Warcraft-orientated, it was about me coming to terms with an addiction, essentially.

It's funny how I wrote one poem six months ago, and read a very different one now. The words haven't changed at all; but maybe I have.