July 7, 2022 · 2:25 pm

This Place – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: Another sunrise over the Blackwood River, always the hope of a new day, a beginning.

“To live without hope is to cease to live.” Fyodor Dostoevsky

This Place

I want to touch this moment
of winter's sun bleached sky
the butterflies and the life-giving 
rains of plenty collecting generously
along my awakening path,
to embrace this stasis of feeling
welling up past my words,
which are full without sound,
moving past the sweeping edge
of life that sits openly outside my
door and take off my shoes to walk 
this sacred ground, the place of 
discovery, catching my breath
between sorrow and love,  
inviting me to a wholeness of
questions where answers are
never sought.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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July 6, 2022 · 12:47 pm

Our Dreams Swallowed – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: found at in-cyprus.philenews.com

“When buying and selling are controlled by legislators, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.” P.J. O’Rourke

Our Dreams Swallowed

We were born to rove but the days are rough,
innocence was wasted along the roads of youth,
our dreams swallowed in political sloth.

I never thought we'd ever do life so tough,
scammed, spammed, and damned of truth,
we were born to rove but the days are rough.

Hear the piggies wallowing in their trough,
nothing we can say will delay the proof,
our dreams swallowed in political sloth.

I simply wish we could push through and bluff,
but that would bring us to the gutter uncouth,
we were born to rove but the days are rough.

My anger boils in ever righteous wrath
at this maddening destructive spoof,
our dreams swallowed in political sloth.

So transparent their evil cut of cloth,
how have these villains missed the noose,
we were born to rove but the days are rough,
our dreams swallowed in political sloth.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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Filed under awareness, Economics, injustice, life, poem, politics, quote, Villanelle

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July 5, 2022 · 12:42 pm

Except – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo by Studio Negarin : https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-couple-lying-on-grass-field-3650271/

“I’m oxygen and he’s dying to breathe.” Tahereh Mafi

Except

I would ask nothing of you,
except a share of the love you hold
in the place we lie down together
and labour our breathing in unison,
to look into your eyes and know 
that precipice we both seek,
precursor to a tightly wound desire,
an instalment on finding that
whole experience again.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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July 4, 2022 · 1:02 pm

Turning Over A Leaf – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: from brisbaneinsects.com – a leaf rolling spider.

“We take to the breeze, we go as we please.” E.B. White ‘Charlotte’s Web’

Turning Over A Leaf

Woe is they whose gutters are filled
with the ubiquity of fallen leaves,
who come to mock them in their 
satisfied armchairs of achievements,
while I can find no two leaves alike,
some smooth, some rough, faded,
crinkled, cankered, curled and halved,
there was one desiccated specimen,
a veritable mobile home for, tucked in
the curl was a shy little spider riding
the winds of fortune to new horizons.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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July 3, 2022 · 1:44 pm

No One Mourns A Crassus – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Image: from en.wikipedia.org Marcus Lincinius Crassus, the wealthiest man of Rome who met his death in Syria trying to gain a small conquest over land and capital, but which cost him his life. The opposing Parthian king had Crassus’ mouth filled with molten gold to show his lust for gold and power. Not much has changed since 1 B.C.E.

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” James Baldwin

No One Mourns A Crassus

To wear the widow's black
or put on sackcloth and cast ashes,
to grieve for the loss of species as
the philistines pursue their plundering,
as every Crassus lusts for their gold
of death and destruction in a wastrel's
desire for everything over life itself,
in temporary experiences of hollow 
lives devoid of meaning beyond greed,
O, to have that funeral now, that we 
might see them gone and live again.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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July 2, 2022 · 1:23 pm

Irrespective Of What Others Might Think – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo by Mikhail Nilov: https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-in-black-jacket-holding-black-water-bottle-6530604/

“Instead of worrying what you cannot control, shift your energy to what you can create.” Roy T. Bennett

Irrespective Of What Others Might Think

Is your life compartmentalised,
a series of snapshots reassembled
to look as if something is happening,
in the way that others think a life
should be happening, or have you
reordered your understanding,
embracing the long view,
encompassing a stretching,
an elasticising of time perception
so that everything is a part of a whole,
and the whole is a unity, a seamless
flow of energy, irrespective of what
others might think?


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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July 1, 2022 · 12:30 pm

Nothing Should Own Us – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Image by Genty from Pixabay

“At night, when the sky is full of stars and the sea is still you get the wonderful sensation that you are floating in space.” Natalie Wood 

Nothing Should Own Us

To feel complete detachment,
as if floating through space,
completely devoid of physical connection,
wafting along without so much as a 
minor concern about a single thing,
there's moon-cheese for the journey,
andromeda wine slaking my thirst,
stardust aplenty for when I need it,
nothing to decode, nothing to worry,
no pattern, no system, no expectations,
no shouting, no hustle necessary,
we are truly unspent and taking our
time to wander this starlit fantasia
called life.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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June 30, 2022 · 1:24 pm

Clothesline Blues – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo by Anna Shvets: https://www.pexels.com/photo/hanging-clothes-6047797/

“I make instruments from found objects and common objects, and I search for the sounds that are hidden in them and release them into the world.” Jay Kreimer

Clothesline Blues

How do your hear your washing line,
the sounds that evolve with every 
score that is hung on those staff lines,
small to medium, to large, noting
treble, bass, then picking up the pace,
as sheets sit beside jeans,
it could be four-four, or even more,
are blue clothes g or e, are orange 
clothes f, and what of grey, there's no
limit to the improv as feet tap and pegs
click, could be Gillespie, could be Coltrane, 
I love this washing jazz, I love these
clothesline blues.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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June 29, 2022 · 2:18 pm

I Didn’t Get The Memo – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: found at insight180.com – ‘Shifting Perspectives to Create New Possibilities.’

“We must reinvent a future free of blinders so that we can choose from real options.” David Suzuki

I Didn't Get The Memo

Is the future cancelled because I didn't get the memo,
although, as I look closely at events and phenomena,
I could be persuaded that it certainly looks that way,
with moribund doldrums and rapacious anachronism.

Although, as I look closely at events and phenomena,
I see the disparate looks and flourishing apathy,
with moribund doldrums and rapacious anachronism,
diluting the advance of any real social evolution.

I see the disparate looks and flourishing apathy,
the trap so easily set to hold humanity back,
diluting the advance of any real social evolution,
time to slip that mooring and live a new version.

The trap so easily set to hold humanity back,
I could be persuaded that it certainly looks that way,
time to slip that mooring and live a new version,
is the future cancelled because I didn't get that memo.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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June 28, 2022 · 3:12 pm

Freeing Gilead – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: found at inclusioncounts.com

“How fast we take our steps does not define the way.” Laura Chouette

Freeing Gilead

The answers are not behind us,
they are rarely in front of us,
even with an open door,
we must search the fringes,
seek the shadows and ledges
of our daily experiences
for the knowing of ways
that heal the deepest wounds,
when the infection isn't singular
we can work together to draw
the poison wherever it lurks
between us.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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