Category Archives: challenge

November 2, 2019 · 3:28 pm

We Stole The Place – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly Challenge – Alien

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Photo: remit.com.au

 

“Recognise yourself in he and she who are not like you and me.”  Carlos Fuentes

We Stole The Place

Like Moses to the promised land
the pitiful migrants come,
aliens with new found purpose
we dash their hopes
and steal the fun,
we’ve pissed on all the posts
so, the soils ours
we don’t want your herbs
or scarves, or prayers,
go back
you don’t belong,
but then, nor do we,
we stole the place
only just a while ago,

©Paul Vincent Cannon

The title, to borrow a line, could well be “Good, good, good, God migration!

Paul, pvcann.com

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October 25, 2019 · 3:38 pm

It Is In Loving – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

dVerse Poets – Polyptoton

At dVerse Poets Frank has invited us to use a Polyptoton in a poem. One example that comes to mind is from the well known ‘Prayer of St. Francis’ and the line “To be understood as to understand.” Or where the word form doesn’t change as in the Beatle’s “Please, please me ….”

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Photo: buzzle.com

 

“This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love; the more they give, the more they possess.”  Rainer Maria Rilke

It Is In Loving

There is no price
where love is known,
a value beyond all values,
you cannot capture
and make prisoner your desire,
love is not in subjugation,
purchase or control,
that is not love at all,
rather, it is in loving
that we are loved.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

29 Comments

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October 23, 2019 · 1:48 pm

Readied – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

dVerse – Poetics

Laura at dVerse has challenged us to take a line of Pablo Neruda and create a riposte or rejoinder.

I have chosen “Why did the grove undress itself only to wait for the snow.” Pablo Neruda

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Photo: pixabay.com

 

“What is to give light must endure burning.”  Victor Frankl

Readied

The confessional moment is pending,
an absurdist response,
to excoriate and purify
the hidden
by a letting go
a shedding of pretence,
no room for Janus
though Sisyphus is close,
tearing at the inane
letting the core settle
in a visceral landscape
where the cold burns,
let it be so!
For cauterised we are yet
emboldened,
strengthened,
readied,
for the new.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

32 Comments

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October 21, 2019 · 2:33 pm

Greta Speaks – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly Challenge – Kindle

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Photo: gettyimages.com  – Greta Thunberg at the the U.S. Senate Climate Change Task Force.

 

“Those who have publicly spoken out against Greta have largely been men, something the psychologist said points to ‘very obvious misogyny.’      Zoe Drewett of metro.co.uk quoting environmental psychologist Dr. Renee Lertzman

Greta Speaks

Sixteen years ago an
embryo of the sun began to rise,
a benevolence of youth,
the juice and passion of life
unsophisticated yet focussed,
kindling the hearts of many,
terrifying aged men
who throw sand and call names,
casting aspersions,
running scared,
lashing out,
crying,
snivelling,
lying,
silencing life.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

44 Comments

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October 17, 2019 · 12:40 pm

The Favourite Thing – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

5 Lines – Favourite things

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Photo: herintalk.com

 

“Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee and just as hard to sleep after.”  Anne Morrow Lindbergh

 

The Favourite Thing

Wines that palate tease and music stirs
books unpredictable deserve a place
alongside great food and tangled sheets,
but nothing can top those moments when we are
pleasured by our shared meaning in reflections.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

23 Comments

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October 14, 2019 · 2:18 pm

Let Your Mind Be At Play – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

“VJs Weekly Challenge – Play

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The original illustrations by E.H. Shepherd for A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin. (now owned by Disney)

 

“Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of the imagination is incalculable.”  Carl Jung

Let Your Mind Be At Play

The secret code to real life
is not the atrophy of an
over-laundered mind that
out-serious’ seriousness,
fully starched and brittle
an age-last retention challenged,
totally puckered,
no, unzipper your mind
imagine two headed dragons
and the purple gnome,
pirates and amazons,
magical places,
moonwalks and sea leagues,
zephyrs and orphic worlds,
go, scale that wall of maturity,
and run,
be free,
of even you
and let your mind be at play.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

35 Comments

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October 13, 2019 · 1:21 pm

The Process – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

5 Lines – Discovery

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Image: ‘Vox Angelica’ by Max Ernst – artnet.com

“Painting is not for me either decorative amusement, or the plastic invention of felt reality; it must be every time: invention, discovery, revelation.”  Max Ernst

 

The Process

The giant bird and I became friends
though sometimes she left me alone far
from home and, no matter my peregrinations,
I was always only ever myself, discovery
was never the end it was the process.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

20 Comments

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October 5, 2019 · 2:53 pm

The Meal – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

5 Lines – Delicious

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Photo: shutterstock.com

 

“I’ll come and make love to you at five o’clock. If I’m late, start without me.”  Tallulah Bankhead

The Meal

She came round at twelve for lunch,
the moment was perfect
so many flavours and textures and
we thoroughly indulged, noting later
that the meal was delicious too.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

33 Comments

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October 1, 2019 · 5:06 pm

The Trail – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly Challenge – Savour

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Photo: shutterstock.com

“The idea of waiting for something makes it more exciting.”  Andy Warhol

 

The Trail

The house is quite still though the door,
familiar evening smells permeate, and
soft jazz, a quiet horizon, fills my arrival
while the long hours have hungered me
and my stomach cries out,
but nothing could satisfy more than to
follow the breadcrumb trail you’ve left
for me to discover,
this unfamiliar familiarity,
and to savour its delicious steps
ever so slowly.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

18 Comments

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September 29, 2019 · 4:21 pm

That familiar Smell – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

5 Lines -Peanut Butter

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Photo: cauldronsandcupcakes.com

 

“Without peanut butter, I might starve.”  Judy Blume

That Familiar Smell

Oil sizzles and you knock back the heat,
the heart races as you pile in garlic, onion, chilli,
along with coconut milk, sugar and soy,
but it wouldn’t be satay, it wouldn’t be right
without two tablespoons of peanut butter.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

27 Comments

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