Monthly Archives: February 2022

February 28, 2022 · 2:59 pm

Something – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Image: DieterRobbins at pixabay.com

“Our need to reimagine our world through the vibratory larynx, that’s what matters.” Anne Waldman

Something

Everything is in flux,
the pundits are immersed 
in tragedies longer than a 
tudor gown, and everyone
is worried for the canary in
the coal mine who sings 
warnings like a harpy, and
I'm thinking out loud that we
need a circuit breaker, a new
song of imagining, reimagining,
something to end this malaise,
something to feed our senses,
something of creative pleasure,
something beyond the heroics
of mundane, powerless survival.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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February 27, 2022 · 2:49 pm

The Flicker Of Hope – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: aytekinofficial at pixabay.com

“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.” Aristotle

The Flicker Of Hope

The candle flickered,
dancing all over the walls
of the cave of dark times,
as if frantically gasping for
air like a ravaged runner.

We huddled round it in hope,
the ill wind whipping at our backs
and flailing our fortitude, but we 
held on, the light remaining, 
growing stronger with every
word of love gifted into the circle.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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February 26, 2022 · 1:45 am

Dear Vlad (a letter from your grand papa) – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Image: from 1001freedoownloads.com

“Ukraine is the instrument for Russia to test the West’s ‘red lines.’ Lilia Shevtsova 

Dear Vlad ( a letter from your grand papa)

Dear Vlad
I am deeply saddened,
your mama has asked me to write to you,
I hear that you are up to your old ways,
teasing your cousins and claiming 
injustice in ensuing affray.

Your covetous nature compels your
jealous theft of all their sweets,
and depriving them of their toys
despite the fact that you have plenty,
your envy disrupts the household,
and you're always telling tales to mama.

If you were an infant
this might be expected, perhaps,
but now that your balls are sixty-nine
and you are greying with conceit,
it's time to put on a shirt and pull up
your pants and stop being a spoilt child.

Until I hear of your maturing
from these childish ways,
you're not welcome to lunch
or anywhere near our house,
sadly for you, this summer
we'll fish the Don without you.



Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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February 25, 2022 · 9:50 am

The Dogs – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Grace is hosting Poetry Forms with an invitation to write a ‘Sparrowlet’ which is an invented form by Kathrine Sparrow (a variation of a Swap Quatrain). For details of how to write a Sparrowlet follow the link below. In brief a Sparrowlet is written –

Stanzaic, any number of sixains.
Sylabic, iambic tetrameter.
Rhymed (BbabaA)
L1 and L6 of each stanza are written in two hemistichs or half lines.
The two halves of L1 are inverted to form L6.

dVerse Poets – Poetry Forms – Sparrowlet

Wolf wallpaper from site Wolf-Wallpapers.pro

“Something about the howling of a wolf took a man right out of his here and now and left him in a dark forest of mind ….” George RR Martin

The Dogs

The dogs adrift, outside this night
bring vivid dreams of a howl in fright,
my nerves are frayed my mood is rift,
unsettled in this dark seeking light,
my survival now just grift as
outside this night, the dogs adrift.

Visions of bite, so fill my mind
my science of old is a bind,
and yet I stand and here I fight
resisting all the fear of kind,
holding on and not taking flight,
so fill my mind, visions of bite.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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February 24, 2022 · 5:12 am

The High Horse – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Image: found at the sanctuarymagazine.org

“There is no question that climate change is happening; the only arguable point is what part humans are playing in it.” David Attenborough 

The High Horse 

That horse was high,
the drop was long,
we saddled ourselves,
a collective myopia
with the bit between
trusting our own creative
lies of soothe, fantasies 
of paradise and the reality 
too dark to contemplate,
a paralysing denial has
reined us in on ourselves,
and it is past the time to
awaken, yet the wake is 
already before us.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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February 23, 2022 · 9:32 am

Why Would I? – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Lillian is hosting Poetics with an invitation to take one of eight proverbs and adages as inspiration for a poem.

dVerse Poets – Poetics – A Penny For Your Thoughts

The adage I chose is “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Poor Richard’s Almanac, Benjamin Franklin.

Photo: found at intimacyinmarriage.com

“But she felt she had to see him or she would die.” Iris Murdoch (The Nice And The Good)

Why Would I?

Have you never been love sick?
To feel all that delicious internal,
beautiful turmoil, an inner, perpetual
tsunami washing up and rolling away
in a mixture of breathless joy and 
airless despair.

Sometimes the precipice of doubt
becomes the best question, the 
next being, how do I know this, but
then I don't, or do I? The torment is
velvet, a sigh, a hallelujah chorus.
Why would I avoid it , why would I 
seek a cure, this malady is my melody,
it is my score.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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February 22, 2022 · 3:16 pm

The Saline Solution – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse De is hosting the Quadrille (44 words) with an invitation to write about salt.

dVerse Poets – Quadrille – Let’s Get Salty

Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash Salt crystals

“At sea a fellow comes out. Salt water is like wine, in that respect.” Herman Melville 

The Saline Solution

Lesions and tears of days
bite into my tired, open self,
wounds of experience bare
and tender beneath my calm
visage, offering notes of pain
that remain as distant memory,
yet delicious in their distorted
recall, awakened in saline,
a dead sea of emotion.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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February 20, 2022 · 10:10 pm

In A Parcel – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo by freestocks.org from Pexels

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.” Antoine de Saint-Exupery

In A Parcel

I sent you my heart in a parcel,
all bubble-wrapped emotion,
my fragility of certain, uncertain
love, all swirling and pulsing,
scaling heights, transcending lows,
all fluid, nothing fixed, all held,
a writhing fount of passion at
once calm, at once stirred, all
in a beat of you.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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February 20, 2022 · 1:29 pm

What Form Do They Take – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

“Only a crisis, actual or perceived, produces real change.” Milton Friedman

What Form Do They Take?

How do crises shape themselves in your life,
what form do they take in your body,
do they possess you completely above all,
are they integral to your reactive self?

What form do they take in your body,
these geist foisted by external events,
are they integral too your reactive self,
are they kindred spirits wholly yours?

These geist foisted by external events,
what feelings do they evoke in you,
are they kindred spirits wholly yours,
or are they something to be exorcised?

What feelings do they evoke in you,
do they possess you completely above all
or are they something to be exorcised,
how do crises shape themselves in your life?


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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February 19, 2022 · 12:58 pm

Following His Lead – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: A Burrowing Frog courtesy of backyardbuddies.org.au Burrowing Frogs burrow backwards into soil, this one is common in Western Australia and like the one I encountered. There are several types of Burrowing frog across Australia.

“The most beautiful people I have known are those who have known trials, have known struggles, have known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.” Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

Taking His Lead

Frogs are fun to watch,
one particularly more so,
disturbed by my digging,
a burrowing frog, uncovered,
sitting quiet, covered in crumbs
of damp loam, looking at me
as if to say, Why? 

I stood still, so glad I had 
not harmed him, waiting to 
see if he was alright and
soon there was a slow, subtle 
movement, he began to disappear,
scraping and pushing backwards 
into the soil, as if not moving at 
all, taking his leave to a safer, 
quieter place.

Following his lead, I put
down my spade and retreated to 
my reading space.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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