Category Archives: beach

December 7, 2022 · 2:03 pm

The Long Dry – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Lillian is hosting Poetics with an invitation to choose two or more provided song titles to use in a poem.

dVerse Poets – Poetics – Come Sing With Me

I have chosen two titles:

A Long December (Counting Crows)

Let It Go (Idina Menzel)

Photo: Ocean Beach near Denmark, Western Australia.

“Summer passes and one remembers one’s exuberance.” Yoko Ono

The Long Dry

There's no steeling oneself for a long December,
the time when the long dry commences
and only a brave cloud would dare to mar the sky,
while gum leaves are leathered and turned
to the cicada chorale coursing the thermals,
with faint stirrings of Matilda dancing,
infused with a waft of sea and a splash of sun
which crusts the earth and fills me along with a
tease of rosemary, lavender,  or jasmine,
there's no need to steel oneself,
no time for winter's sorrow,
only time to let it go for summer's halcyon days.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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November 4, 2022 · 9:33 am

Wrong Way – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

#2022 November PAD Chapbook Challenge

Day 3 3.11.22

Prompt: Misdirected

Wrong Way

The ocean languid turquoise
lapping the shore,
glinting of sun,
inviting us in.
Above us clear sky,
except for the gulls
piercing the air,
sand so soft as we
dig out the four by four,
swapping recriminations 
and directional guilt.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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October 24, 2022 · 4:04 pm

I Ran Too – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: Nowaja at pixabay.com

“I watched the seagulls, I thought, that’s the road to take.” Nikos Kazantzakis

I Ran Too

I was lost in this day,
it all moved so beautifully,
to breathe,
to see,
taste,
feel it all,
first the tree then
the waters edge
where the joggers ran past,
running and running,
until they took feather,
soaring over the glistening water,
and I ran too.

Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent  Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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October 14, 2022 · 1:26 pm

The Question – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: DariuszSankowski at pixabay.com

“No human being, however great or powerful, was ever so free as a fish.” John Ruskin

The Question

The question formed in my mind,
do fish ever swim backwards,
but I guessed it to be true enough,
for what can go forwards
can surely go backwards,
humans do it so well,
and a new question formed,
do the scales of a fish prise open
as they swim backwards?
And I wondered, naturally,
how this might feel.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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October 10, 2022 · 2:38 pm

Does It? – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: Rain along the Blackwood River.

“The sound of rain needs no translation.” Alan Watts

Does It?

Does it rain in the city
like it rains in the countryside,
where the organic myth has taken hold,
and rain is more rain than anywhere?

But that is merely a parochial opinion,
though the man at the bus stop has
a bag over his head and no coat,
and he is slowly being drenched
in his obvious denial.

Rain is rain on any plain,
or so it is widely held,
even so, it is felt differently and
without a lie, it rains in the city,
but is it real like the rain in the 
country where the sky is open?


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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October 8, 2022 · 2:56 pm

Days Come As They Are – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: The beach at Skippy Rocks, Cape Leeuwin.

“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realise they were the big things.” Robert Brault

Days Come As They Are

I make no demands on my days
although some may disagree,
days come to me as they are,
and I respond to them as I am,
which seems to me the best way,
to conduct time through a lens of 
moments holds a richness not
ordinarily found in planned time,
which is just a straight-jacket
found in diaries which I liken
to cattle corralled, held captive
to the agendas of others,
there is an indescribable 
feeling in risking the freedom
to be, risking spontaneity, love,
not because it delivers anything,
but because it may not deliver
anything at all, and that mystery 
is the very best.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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October 1, 2022 · 3:17 pm

Those Coral Crowns – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: the Southern Ocean of Augusta.

“We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end.” Blaise Paschal

Those Coral Crowns

If you drift,
do you roll with it,
hold the gunwale,
laughing into the wind
that slights your face
with the spit of seas,
wrapping your ache
in strands of sea-grass
too slippery to bind,
or do you cast your fate
to the crystal depths
and plunge life with
every stroke forward,
tooth and scale,
seeking coral crowns?


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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August 17, 2022 · 2:46 pm

When Water Dies – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Sarah is hosting Poetics with an invitation to write about one of the four elements: Earth, Fire, Water, Wind. I chose water.

dVerse Poets – Poetics – The Four Elements

Photo: Taken the day after a winter storm at Cape Leeuwin.

“They both listened silently to the water, which to them was no just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, the voice of perpetual becoming.” Hermann Hesse 

When Water Dies

The swash and slap of the limpid roll
for languid lolling in a temperate zone,
as flounder flap and take the bait
now unaccustomed to the oaken creak,
a gift from the depths suppered for two,
I recall the taste of salted lips that
burned even as I licked them so,
the smells are joy though my nostrils flare,
and I catch your weeds of no compare,
and my line is tangled, but without you 
I cannot bear the grief of dryness
that your death will bring,
and so I cup my hands that I may
drink one more draught of your 
wet love.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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July 12, 2022 · 11:13 am

Have You? – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

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

dVerse Poets – Quadrille – Let’s Celebrate

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

“Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one’s actions.” Abraham Joshua Heschel

Have You?

Have you smelled the sun or felt the stars,
touched the moon in the early hours,
stuck your tender toes in salted sand,
watched egrets dance the lake,
listened to waves kissing the beach,
taken a lover with whom to celebrate
these easy joys.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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June 11, 2022 · 4:23 pm

The Sea Shell – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: sciencekids.co.nz

“The mystical is not how the world is, but that it is.” Ludwig Wittgenstein 

The Sea Shell

The spiral,
always the movement,
beautiful premonition,
the sum of before itself,
the string that is this long,
a labyrinth of mystical rhythm
better than a minotaur's maze,
a way through the demise of certainty,
healing for disconnection,
the disavowal of accumulation,
a slowing down,
contemplating the beauty
in the sounds of nature,
the smell of soil,
ash of my ancestors,
the sounds of love's tympani
on my heart of hearts,
O fragile sea shell,
speak more.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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