Monthly Archives: February 2020

February 29, 2020 · 1:25 pm

The Possibility Of Now – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

RDP Saturday – Beacon

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Image: goodmorninggratitude.com

 

“Love is not consolation. It is Light”. Friedrich Nietzsche

 

The Possibility Of Now

The room weighed heavy upon me,
ingots of emotion crowding in,
leaden lumps of raw feeling
of approaching the precipice
and seeing nothing beyond,
but riveted to myself alone
I stood still in the moment,
I had thought this space
had possessed every virtue,
it was contained in my thoughts,
my words were testimony
and heaven bound
longing for places that were
in my words so dreamed,
but nothing was so,
only resistance in the stillness
until, until the very chance
my eyes were lighted,
a sliver of glow,
hope’s beacon
in the possibility of now.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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February 28, 2020 · 1:18 pm

But Tonight – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

dVerse Poets – Almost a Triolet

Frank at dVerse has invited us to write a Triolet – eight lines, a rhyming pattern of abaaabab, similar word count to a Quadrille, so forty-four words.

 

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Photo: aliexpress.com

 

“Sometimes waiting makes the culmination that much sweeter.”  Lynne Raye Harris

 

But Tonight

She rummaged her Trousseau,
no time like the present
to be wrapped in a bow,
desperately wanting to impress her beau
who she had kept in tow
because he was so magnificent,
just too long she’d kept it slow,
but tonight impassioned and recumbent.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

 

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February 27, 2020 · 3:55 pm

If We Paint It – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly challenge – Mission

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Photo: diy.com

“They’re full of soaring superlatives like “perfect” and “seamless” and “exceptional.” They attempt to sum up in one buzz-word laden sentence, the whole point of life, the universe and everything …. and they’re completely and  utterly worthless, like every mission statement ….”  Pete Hitzeman

 

If We Paint It

Let’s paint it mission brown,
it covers everything
and it means nothing
like every mission statement,
that may have begun
with some meaning
have become hollow gestures
to an alien experience we
claim to be our very own,
still,
if we paint it
who would know that
this husk has no heart.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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February 26, 2020 · 2:42 pm

Fleeting – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

dVerse Poets – Poetics – Impermanence

Merril at dVerse has invited us to write a poem about impermanence.

 

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Photo: fractalenlightenment.com

 

“Is not impermanence the very fragrance of our days?”  Rainer Maria Rilke

Fleeting

Once
I went out
to watch the western sky collapse
into the evanescent velvet of night,
fleeting as each other,
a simple reminder
that all is death while
all is resurrection,
cycles of light and life,
a constancy of letting go,
in the knowledge that
nothing is the same tomorrow
nor can ever be.
As day folds into new night,
all is annica,
all is.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

 

Note: Annica (Pali) is the teaching in Buddhism that all is impermanent. But all religions and much philosophy since the earliest times have referenced impermanence.

Paul, pvcann.com

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February 25, 2020 · 12:44 pm

A Peel To Life – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

dVerse Poets – Quadrille – Peeling

Mish at dVerse has invited us to write a quadrille (44 words) on the subject of peel.

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Photo: dreamstime.com

 

“We are all engaged in the task of peeling off the false selves, the programmed selves, the selves created by our families, our culture, our religions.”  Anais Nin

A Peel To Life

Thin, worn metal strikes at flesh
seeking linear planes,
a redemption of flawed living,
smoothing the blemishes of
disappointment, the scratches
of indulgence so neatly scored,
circumcising the fibre of experience
for the juice of possibility,
sacrificial peeling to the
gods of new life.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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February 24, 2020 · 3:02 pm

Making Waffle – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Word of the Day – Waffle

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Photo: pm.gov.au

 

“Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature made them.”  Bertrand Russell 

 

Making Waffle

The hubris riddled party hack
wandered the vaulted halls as
if he owned them,
sniffing at intrusions,
throwing disdain at the press,
ignoring widows and orphans,
hating on foreigners,
making excuses for the inexcusable,
and feathering his nested future,
waffling to a groaning sundry
of his pointless achievements,
to the point that he was anaesthetic,
and ended in a jam.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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February 23, 2020 · 3:55 pm

The Greater Distance – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

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Art: Quint Buchholz – ‘Giacomonde – The Moon We walk’

“We are going to the moon that is not very far. Man (sic) has so much farther to go within himself.”  Anais Nin

The Greater Distance

What is a distance,
how is it measured,
in streams crossed
or in dreams?
But at least there I can
begin the journey proper
for which my body is willing,
a place where I can
take that leap of faith
into the unconscious.
I could reach the moon,
that part is so simple.
But can I reach into my
deepest self,
the hidden, denied part,
so cleverly recast
as the outer self,
a sweet deception,
a lie that must be unravelled,
the greater distance.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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February 22, 2020 · 3:08 pm

The Bento Life – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

I find Asian cultures fascinating, and not least Japanese culture. There are a number of pop culture renderings of Bento, but it more closely means convenient, so a bento box lunch is merely a convenient lunch. The furishiki is a small cloth for wrapping the bento box in (these have found other uses in the west in recent years).

 

“Let things taste the way they are.”  Alice Waters

The Bento Life

Her movements were certain,
a well practiced art,
pre-prepared love in rice and duck,
she gathered all the pieces
as she gathered her thoughts
and filed them precisely
in slot after slot,
as yesterday, today, so tomorrow,
her love note
his lacquered bento box,
and as she wrapped it in the
womb of the furoshiki
and tied it well,
she knew that it was her love
alone that would hold it together.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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February 21, 2020 · 3:11 pm

Veneer – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

dVerse Poets – Open Link Night

Lillian at dVerse is hosting Open Link Night which means an opportunity to post a poem of your choice.

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Photo: Better Homes and Gardens, January 1951

 

“You can get the man out of the stone -age, but not the stone-age out of the man.”  Abhijit Naskar

 

Veneer

The old panels were tired
and out of place,
relics of the forties and fifties,
so we settled on a transformation,
new ideas, life, and colours,
it was simple really
but so effective,
though lately I’ve noticed
that the laminates are lifting
in some places and the
bakelite’s showing through,
seems that all the transformations
were just that,
insubstantial veneers,
and the laminates are surrendering,
giving way to the old once more.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

 

 

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February 20, 2020 · 2:55 pm

Time Doesn’t Matter – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

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Photo: istockphoto.com

 

“Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause.”  Victor Hugo

 

Time Doesn’t Matter

Have you noticed how time doesn’t matter,
which is a truism in itself,
but not if you were hoping for
something better,
that a friendship might have meant more
by its investment of love and time
than a childish rebuttal,
a gainsay,
that bellwether of pettiness
given safe harbour in a corner
of the heart that
one day, it might sail forth
in a leaking untruth
and founder against integrity,
no, time doesn’t matter
when decades are dashed
and all that went before
sinks as if nothing had
ever existed.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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