Here's a poem I put out onto YouTube last year. It has amassed sixty-eight views in that time.
It's one of my own favourite poems that I've written. I was just trying to evoke atmosphere. I think a candle's flame is one of the most beautiful sights in existence. I also used some of my own favourite phrases, such as "softly-falling snow" and "sepia-steeped". And some of my favourite atmospheres, like a cinema before the film.
I believe that reading this poem softly and meditatively, perhaps several times in a row, will induce a trippy effect. It's much safer than magic mushrooms.
I sent this poem (among others) to The Irish Times, but no luck. They told me they have three thousand submissions a year for fifty-two slots.
Incidentally, I have since learned that the recurring refrain of this poem is an example of a rhetorical device called symploce, where the beginning and end of a repeated phrase remains the same but the middle varies.
Is "away from hurt and fear and shame" too namby-pamby? Maybe. I don't know. I've always been very moved by the line from a Mormon hymn, "Where none shall come to hurt or make afraid".
Here is the text.
A Candle's Flame
Your mother's voice, so soft and low,Calling from distant days your name.
The kind light of a candle's flame.
That winter dawn's so-gentle glow
The morning after Santa came.
The shy light of a candle's flame.
The cinema before the show
Dreaming of stories old in fame.
The bright light of a candle's flame.
The sight of softly falling snow
Making the same street not the same.
The soft light of a candle's flame.
A moment captured long ago,
Sepia-steeped in a silver frame.
The dim light of a candle's flame.
A place that only you can go
Away from hurt and fear and shame.
The still light of a candle's flame,
Oh, the gentle light of a candle's flame.
Good
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