Candles
I love the flicker of flame,
the yellow light dancing
shadows on face and plate.
Let’s clear away the dishes
and bring the table back
to its pristine state: grained
wood. Now let’s talk of old
times back home when coal
fires roared and drafts ran
from dark corners, raising
hair on necks and sending
shivers down spines. It’s so
easy to believe in ghosts
when night winds howl
through windows, dogs bark
at nothing, houses are older
than families, and the land
snuggles down to sleep
in its winter blankets.
Beware of the sudden draft
on the oil lamp’s frail chimney:
cold will crack the glass, sending
us to bed by candlelight while high
on corridor walls old folk come
alive and frown down from
their sepia photographs. Cold
and frightened by their restless
afterlives, we shiver in the grave
cloths of our damp beds.
Great. This kind of reminds me of Julio Cortazar story House Taken Over. Eerie
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Thanks, Mr. Cake. I always liked Cortázar, but life’s too short to read everything you want to read. I think I missed that one. That’s why I like your blog: so much I missed, skipped, or skimmed over. Going back over it really helps. It also helps to realize that someone else likes things that were sometimes frowned on when I was younger. Best wishes and thanks for being here.
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My pleasure.
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I always love candles. This is a haunting take on them, Roger. Nicely done! I could feel the draft.
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Haunting is the right word, Tanya. Old houses with their creaks and groans and sudden chills contrasting with the coal fire’s warmth and the chill of the outside weather … little warm noses pressed to cold window panes … and to bed by candlelight with all those shadows flickering and threatening … makes my hair stand on end …
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I think they are kinda romantic…like you want your significant other close by kinda romantic…Lol
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Oh chilling! The house I grew up in was built in the 1870’s and it creaked and groan and the floors were all uneven… An old house has a life of its own. Love this one, Roger!
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So glad you like it, Meg. Another Golden Oldie, as is the cartoon: Midnight came in on the wings of candles and song. I cleaned the poem up a bit, as I did the other love poems. They will become the third section of my next poetry book, I think. That’s what I’m planning anyway. Then one more poetry book and it’s on to short stories and the novels.
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Oh, that sounds wonderful! I’ve been thinking about compiling my short stories into a volume. I don’t how to order them, however.
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That’s always a problem. Thematic is one way, chronological is a second, contrasting is a third. I tend to use alphabetical, by first word of title, especially with the flash fiction (Bistro). With alphabetical, linked stories re-appear at intervals and this gives and interesting addition for readers to work on.
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That’s a good idea… The alphabetical ordering. Thank you for the advice!
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It makes the book ‘interactive’ in that the reader can make choices: to follow a character or a story by going back and re-checking. Anything that involves the reader more.
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That makes sense!
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