You are like a magician

your hands working in stealth-like fashion

revealing little about who you are

finger prints of time have passed you by

as you honed your talents and skills

to manipulate people’s minds

so that they believe they are in control

all the while you hold the strings like

on a puppet or character named Pinocchio

obscuring or twisting the truth as you meld

our hearts and dreams into nightmares

providing dark thrills to your repertoire

while making victims of the audience

who attend these spectacles you readily compose

to entrap those weak of soul

and so it starts like someone under hypnosis

pliant to your every command

unaware of your intentions

until it is too late

Andreas Simic©