Category Archives: awareness

December 2, 2022 · 1:20 pm

How Light I Am – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Laura is hosting Meeting the Bar with an invitation to construct a poem by using the last lines from the last twelve poems written or, use a last lines index from a book to construct from the poems of others.

dVerse Poets – MTB – In My End Is My Beginning

Photo: stocksnap at pixabay.com

“What do you want a meaning for? Life is a desire, not a meaning.” Charlie Chaplin 

How Light I Am

Called Aphrodite
while mulling over the juice of my thoughts,
and then there were none,
is life always having to reduce to mere frippery,
and neither am I  or the things I hold close,
once you notice them
I never want to let go,
is love impotent,
navigated wreckage,
the next fully alive,
O how I wish I could see it,
how light I am.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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December 1, 2022 · 3:19 pm

From The Let Go – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: found at futurity.org credited to Arno/flickr

“Shame is the most powerful, master emotion. it’s the fear that we’re not good enough.” Brene Brown

From The Let Go

Do you speak with your voice 
or merely wave at meaning
in a symmetry of apathy 
founded in your dark denials,
a shrug offered as dialogue
that simply fades away
towards your inability to feel,
to touch the mess, 
the untidy parts that inhabit
your tight self-creation,
long hidden from your memory,
holding shame hostage,
always fearful that someone will
pull that trigger and expose your 
irrational thoughts, but 
you loaded those bullets yourself
and they're waiting for you to
defuse them and you will
once you notice them.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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November 30, 2022 · 4:52 pm

A Mere Sequence – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Merril is hosting poetics with an invitation to write an ekphrastic poem offering a choice of four artworks. For more detail follow the link below.

dVerse Poets – Poetics – The Landscape Sleeps, Ekphrastic Prompt

I have chosen to work with John Atkinson Grimshaw’s ‘A November Morning’

“There is harmony in autumn, and a lustre in the sky ….” Percy Bysshe Shelley

A Mere Sequence

Autumn strips me bare,
my body crisp and cool,
like my footfall on a cinder lane
as I jar along the road of bones,
a calendar of seasons,
now arrested in dapple
for the briefest fleet,
a mere sequence in the scheme
unknown to mortals,
evidenced only by the falling leaves
who whisper until I notice that
nothing is permanent and,
how light I am.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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November 27, 2022 · 3:35 pm

Existential Wine – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

#2022 November PAD Chapbook Challenge

Day 27 27.11.22

Prompt: Write a resolution poem

Existential Wine

Sometimes the decision as to which wine
is predicated on the conscience,
which seems to float into territory complicating
my emotions about so many things that
have distilled over the years or only hours,
thoughts of childhood, the homeless, 
a recession, war, famine, comfort, and
how did I come to this very point, why now?
The wine is more existential than I initially thought,
my resolve is to press on regardless,
while mulling over the juice of my thoughts.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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November 26, 2022 · 3:06 pm

Nothing Stays The Same – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

#2022 November PAD Chapbook Challenge

Day 26 26.11.22

Prompt: Write a rethink poem (rethink an earlier poem, a conversation, a belief etc.)

Nothing Stays The Same

As the morning light warms the bay
I ponder the movement of the sun as I have
remembered its habits of days and seasons,
though such thoughts I know to be imprecise,
even a little jumbled, tangled, in my mind and
as I pondered it dawned on me that I too
change over days and seasons,
moving as habit, though never precisely,
a little jumbled and tangled, 
changing just as light changes especially 
when life is clouded or when the sun is intense,
nothing stays the same,
the bay is not the same as it was a few years ago
and neither am I or the things I hold close.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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November 25, 2022 · 2:26 pm

Is Life Always Having To Reduce To Mere Frippery? – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

One for two:

#2022 November PAD Chapbook Challenge

Day 25 25.11.22

Prompt: Write a serious poem

Also submitted to dVerse Poets – OLN hosted by Grace – the night we choose a poem to submit.

Is Life Always Having To Reduce To Mere Frippery?

Is life always having to reduce to mere frippery,
those ice cream feel good moments invoked
to ward off anything approaching a taxing frown,
or wrestling an unresolved disquieted question?

Those ice cream feel good moments invoked
as stave for anything that would reduce laughter,
or wrestling an unresolved disquieted question
that awakens in the recesses of my mind.

As stave for anything that would reduce laughter,
whatever comes to hand will do for combat
that awakens in the recesses of my mind,
rather than face the seriousness that perches there.

Whatever comes to hand will do for combat
to ward off anything approaching a taxing frown,
rather than face the seriousness that perches there,
is life always having to reduce to mere frippery?



Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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November 24, 2022 · 3:09 pm

For The Life Of Me – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

#2022 November PAD Chapbook Challenge

Day 24 24.11.22

prompt: Write a for [blank] poem. e.g. For the sake of the children or, forgive and forget.

For The Life Of Me

For the life of me I don't understand how
it remains unseen,
squashed down,
hidden in plain sight,
covered over in the sensibilities of a 
small-minded, bygone era,
like a tight, ill-fitting tuxedo,
it looks out of place on you,
O how I wish you could see it.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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November 22, 2022 · 3:13 pm

Love Is – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

#2022 November PAD Chapbook Challenge

Day 22 22.11.22

Prompt: write a love poem

Love Is

Love is in the mundane,
it inhabits the ordinary that passes between two people,
it is more that the sum of physics,
surpasses metaphysics,
shines brighter than any halo of the special,
dines out on lunal turns,
spins with the excitement of the what ifs,
dwells in continents of unity,
is only found in understandings rare,
communicates only through the eyes,
knows madness, sorrow and joy,
wraps limbs,
savours lips,
remains uncaptured yet forever tied,
love is the truest fiction made real,
even just for a second.



Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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November 22, 2022 · 2:44 pm

Rattling Wind – Haibun by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Linda is hosting the Haibun with an invitation to write about Autumn’s Voice (aki noe koe). For details of Haibun follow the link below:

dVerse Poets – Haibun – aki noe koe

Photo: lanur at pixabay.com

“There is nothing so stable as change.” Bob Dylan

Rattling Wind

What rattles you? As for me, so few things. But one of the true things that rattles me is an unexpected breeze. Now it’s not that breezes are unwelcome, especially on a hot day, a stagnant day or after a bush-fire, they can be so cleansing. And yet. And yet a sudden breeze can rattle my soul, leave me feeling uneasy, even pining for change or some new moment, a moving on, a horizon yet unseen.

Unexpected breezes are the siren of the freeways, the moment of grief intruding on a pleasant day, the uneasy sense of a phone ringing when least anticipated, news of a death near to one’s soul. Just like someone jumping out in the quiet dark, or appearing out of context. The unexpected grief can be the bearer of such wonders, and yet evoke such shock.

What rattles me? As for you, perhaps, so few things, but as for me the unexpected breeze blowing beyond my control, beyond my understanding of the next moment. What is in the breeze? Its freedom, unrestrained, random, beyond who I am. It is time to make friends with the breeze, how else shall I make sense of it?

The wind blows so free
releasing my soul to me
O how change rattles



Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
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November 17, 2022 · 12:40 pm

What If? – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

#2022 November PAD Chapbook Challenge

Day 17 17.11.22

Prompt: Write a risk poem

What If?

The likelihood, 
the possibility of the consequence of an outcome,
beyond the insurance sales person's caramel voice,
or the indulgent sentinel parent's selfish shrill lie,
maybe the well meaning cheer squad of a loved one,
that one should hang the worry,
cast fate to the wind,
have a go,
take a leap,
besides, what could possibly happen,
and if it did go wrong, would it matter,
but what of the ignominy,
the bare exposure of the fail,
or the grief of the miss,
it wouldn't be the public gaze,
simply my interior knowing
that the risk might,
could, result in my own sense of failure.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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