Category Archives: awareness

January 26, 2022 · 10:12 pm

Whose Time Has Come – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: From acmstravel.com a view of the Whanganui River, NZ which in 2012 was recognised in NZ law as a natural entity with legal rights equivalent to humans. This followed on from the first landmark case in 2008 in Ecuador when the Vilcabama River was protected by granting it rights at law.

“Nature cannot be seen solely as a resource to be owned, exploited and profited from.” Suzanne Benally

Whose Time Has Come

Global never thinks local,
only to its own lusted desires,
but among the suited ties of
the mean sx landing barges
comes the conscienced 
resistance of the locals, 
whose time has come to speak
of cousins as rivers and trees,
whose rights are sacred and
who now wait to sue the suits
off miners who would euthanase 
every breath of life in an irony
of futures doomed.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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January 25, 2022 · 10:56 pm

To Live – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Linda is hosting Poetics with an invitation to use a line (choice of eight lines) from a James Harrison poem as an epigraph.

dVerse Poets – Poetics – Songs of Unreason

Image: Tumisu at pixabay.com

“I don’t know what happens after death but I’ll have to chance it.” from ‘Desert Snow” by Jim Harrison

To Live

So many the schemes of fall,
whose tentacles sliver and snare
the unwitting, hapless traveller 
looking for meaning, while 
insuring, forestalling, the one
dark door of mystery beyond 
all knowing, even of a simple 
kind, and whose edge dominates
even the philosopher's mind;
seeds fall and seasons process
down the hall of time, but I'll
not invest in any scheme,
the reveal can only be lived.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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January 24, 2022 · 12:44 am

To Listen – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: found at ascentleader.og

“Sound is incredibly important.” Gordon Hempton

To Listen

Can you hear what you see,
are you hearing what is before you,
are your eyes catching sounds
in this ever visual world where
vision becomes statement,
dangled enticingly as empty 
promise, an aspirated nonsense
in a world of fools desiring gloss
over substance, when all we 
need to do is listen.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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January 22, 2022 · 10:28 pm

The Question – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: found at cuinsight.com

“Curious things, habits.” Agatha Christie

The Question

Does it bring life,
this thing that you do,
the habit of a lifetime,
week in, week out, 
which has quietly 
formed so much of
who you are and your
understanding of the 
world and the meaning
of your being, without
even thinking about its
sum and parts, does it
bring life?


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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January 21, 2022 · 12:30 am

Wrapping – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: The bark of a Jarrah tree along the Railway Heritage Trail, Mundaring.

“Your personal boundaries protect the inner core of your identity and your right to Choices.” Gerard Manley Hopkins

Wrapping

From my earliest moments of cogito,
the eye of my I, O aye,
I learned to wrap myself against the
cold of an encroaching world and 
the desires of others, while yet 
offering little gaps and holes through
which the mew of you, O true
can slip through.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
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January 19, 2022 · 11:38 pm

Writ Large – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: from gcg.net.au asbestos fibres.

“We can’t go on as we have been.” Sir David Attenborough 

Writ Large

Of thalidomide and asbestos,
those roman pipes of lead,
benzine to carbon making
nearly everything so dead,
atomic wet-dreams,
what a gas, or just a 
fracking nuisance and the last,
with plastic sands and bubble
wrapped whales carrying tales
of wasted trees on which the lies
we subscribed are writ large.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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January 19, 2022 · 1:16 am

All I Heard Was Buzzing Drone – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Laura is hosting Poetics and looking at the use of a thesaurus and has invited us to write a poem using words from a set of lists she has prepared.

My choice of words from the list – bellow, drone, clamour, jingle, honeyed, dribble, blabber, cackle.

dVerse Poets – Poetics – The Poet’s Store House

Photo: from virtualspeech.com

“Now I know what a statesman is; he’s a dead politician. We need more statesmen.” Bob Edwards

All I heard Was Buzzing Drone

A crowd would gather to hear him bellow,
though mostly all I heard was buzzing drone
above the clamour of the over excited crowd,
who were all aquiver at his feeble gob-shite.

Though mostly all I heard was buzzing drone,
they were agog at his jingle ridden offering,
who were all aquiver at his feeble gob-shite,
all honeyed to capture the mindless swarm.

They were agog at his jingle ridden offering,
a trojan horse, bereft, all blabber and cackle,
all honeyed to capture the mindless swarm
who were eager to swallow his sugary dribble.

A trojan horse, bereft, all blabber and cackle
above the clamour of the over excited crowd,
who were eager to swallow his sugary dribble,
a crowd would gather to hear him bellow.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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January 15, 2022 · 11:00 pm

In Rows We Laughed – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” Karl Marx

In Rows We Laughed

In rows we laughed about cromagnon man,
we mocked conquistador's self-righteous,
salvific crusade, we deplored the blindness
of modernity scratched in white across two
wars, we were sickened by greedy monarchs
crushing cultures, aghast at nationalism and
every moral injury belonging to leader and flag,
in rows we laughed taking each other for granted, 
bullying, stealing each other's things, lying, 
misogynising, fighting, shrinking, hiding,
in rows we laughed, without reflecting.



Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
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January 15, 2022 · 1:54 am

How, Not What – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: by geralt at pixabay.com

“No wonder it comes as a relief to be reminded of your insignificance. It’s the feeling of realising that you’d been holding yourself all this time to standards you couldn’t reasonably be expected to meet.” Oliver Burkeman

How, Not What

Once, long ago, I asked about time,
what was it I wondered, and this was 
solved by a second hand, everything
a chronology, boxed and streamlined,
leaving me dis-eased, feeling disordered,
out of place, yearning for a sacred 
loitering, a soaking of space, awaiting
an unfolding, and I realised my question 
had changed, how was time?


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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January 12, 2022 · 11:35 pm

To Put Away My Eyes – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: one of the many nature reserves around Augusta and the Blackwood River this one has the grand title of No. 8437.

“The earth has music for those who listen.” William Shakespeare

To Put Away My Eyes

To put away my eyes for a moment
and take in the sounds underneath,
to let go the synthesis of shoe and fabric
my internal words so loud and allow the 
trees to soften the noise, making way for 
sounds of life, tinkling water, creaking bows, 
leaves pattering to the ground, birds warbling,
insects buzzing to and fro, all singing into
this moment where meaning is irrelevant but
everything is understood.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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