Not-Quite Thoughts on Scented Candles

As leader of the writing group I set a homework task

Designed to stretch creative minds, not really much to ask

Of intellects the size of yours, the Worcester Literati.

The rivals of such eggheads as Stan Laurel and O. Hardy

I try to set a subject that will offer lots of scope

For dramatic flights of fancy, or nostalgia, or a joke

That may be funny, may be not, depending on the mood

Of those who sit in judgement on your work’s ineptitude.

But sometimes, in capricious mood, with motives quite impure,

I ask that you will bend your minds to something quite obscure.

So I guessed that scented candles would quite likely give you grief

And give you hours of torture as you struggled with the brief.

Now, the problem for a smart-arse, is that one can be too clever,

And ask for gems of literature, when he himself could never,

Not in a thousand million years, well not by Friday’s deadline,

Come up with something readable and quite brilliantly sublime.

I have toyed with scented candles, now, and tossed them round my mind

 I’ve lit their wicks and sniffed their pongs but nothing can I find

To raise a laugh or squeeze a tear, so I’ve had to give it best

And confess that being over clever has caused great mental stress.

Not even curried candles, though they briefly flickered brightly,

Could inspire me to the heights to which my aspirations rightly

Soar, the Booker prize the lauded lion, these gems I’ve had to pass.

And I’ve stuffed my scented candles up the proverbial Khyber Pass.