Category Archives: challenge

March 12, 2020 · 11:53 pm

Captive To A Dream – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly Challenge – Morning

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Photo: Looking out from the lake to South Bunbury and the morning rise.

 

“This is a wonderful day, I have never seen this one before.”  Maya Angelou

Captive To A Dream

Morning arrived,
I’m not sure how,
it evolved as an interruption
of which I was ambivalent,
I was captive to a dream,
yet I wanted to rise to the day,
but, I wanted to sleep
and I wanted this dream
through which I could see myself,
could see the world where I
understood that I did not understand.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

32 Comments

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February 27, 2020 · 3:55 pm

If We Paint It – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly challenge – Mission

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Photo: diy.com

“They’re full of soaring superlatives like “perfect” and “seamless” and “exceptional.” They attempt to sum up in one buzz-word laden sentence, the whole point of life, the universe and everything …. and they’re completely and  utterly worthless, like every mission statement ….”  Pete Hitzeman

 

If We Paint It

Let’s paint it mission brown,
it covers everything
and it means nothing
like every mission statement,
that may have begun
with some meaning
have become hollow gestures
to an alien experience we
claim to be our very own,
still,
if we paint it
who would know that
this husk has no heart.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

27 Comments

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February 17, 2020 · 3:04 pm

Until – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly Challenge – Sun

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Photo: unsplash.com

 

“Even the sun directs our gaze away from itself and to the life illumined by it.”  Eberhard Arnold

Until

The sun is just the sun
so far as the eyes are concerned
until the sun meets
horizon or cloud,
and every hue erupts,
bathing hearts with flutter,
even more so when the
sun meets your hair
offering highlights and
directing my gaze
to you.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

31 Comments

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February 15, 2020 · 2:46 pm

Samaritans – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

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Photo: kiisfm.iheart.com

“We need people in our lives with whom we can be as open as possible. To have real conversations with people may seem like such a simple, obvious suggestion, but it involves courage and risk.”  Thomas Moore

 

Samaritans

They washed my fetid journey sores with
words of love and such intimate and warm
soothing smiles on their hands, that
to be held in that space without judgement was
so powerful, even the word friends is inadequate.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

25 Comments

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February 13, 2020 · 11:12 pm

Therefore I Am – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly Challenge – Product Placement

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Photo: brandchannel.com

 

“Now, product placement, whichever way you look at it …. it’s what it is.”  Daniel Craig

 

Therefore I Am

So carefully placed as to catch your ego,
normalising, vindicating, validating,
for the lost and lonely
who need a sign
from the prophets of
inspired mammon
in red and white,
or sleek carbon black,
it makes a difference to
those starving for identity
who, in the end, become
the product placed.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

25 Comments

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January 31, 2020 · 2:06 pm

Shadowland – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

5 Lines – Destiny

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Photo: flickr.com Robert Couse-Baker

“That which we do not bring to consciousness appears in our lives as fate.”  Carl Jung

Shadowland

His inner demons held him in fear and mistrust,
but he dressed them as acceptable monsters
all hidden in the light, but they made their own
spectacular way to the surface of his unaware life
becoming his cruel and real destiny.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

41 Comments

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January 20, 2020 · 3:26 pm

When Rivers Change – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly Challenge – Habit

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Photo: found at wikimedia.com – Nowitna River

 

“Life is like a river, sometimes it sweeps you gently along and sometimes the rapids come out of nowhere.”  Emma Smith

When Rivers Change

When rivers change
as rivers do
unstraightened into bends,
sweeping earth from
side to side and back again,
they subvert and challenge
every shibboleth and quasi-truth
embedded in the byzantine routines
of our quotidian humanness,
which until that moment
remained unnoticed, hidden,
in the accepted drudge of
our self-created lives as
if this were the only way to live,
and for evermore.
Not so, shout the rivers,
today your habit is interrupted,
you’ll need to go by another route.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com.

24 Comments

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January 13, 2020 · 3:53 pm

To That Place Again – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly Challenge – Subtraction

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Photo: beliefnet.com

 

“God is not found in the soul by adding anything but by a process of subtraction.”  Meister Eckhart

 

To That Place Again

How many valleys and ravines have been
that perfect sense of standing on the edge
seeking subtraction by addition,
rather than simply surrendering
the me of me for the real me,
unravelling the complexity
of my false true self,
offering substitutes two sizes down,
placating the demons of acceptance,
rummaging the garbage of life
for hollow platitudes,
a reductio ad absurdum
that returns me unfulfilled
to that place again
of self emptying towards
onement.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com.

26 Comments

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January 11, 2020 · 3:47 pm

Of Vulnerability – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

5 Lines – Afraid

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Photo: independent.ie

 

“Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us.”  Neil Postman

 

Of Vulnerability

Not crawling or slithers, lead or blade,
neither fist nor foe really matter
in the grandest of schemes,
it is more the inner, the self, the real,
of vulnerability we are afraid.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

34 Comments

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January 7, 2020 · 2:46 pm

Contemplative Action – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly Challenge – Action

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Photo: pixabay.com

“A person sees in the world what they carry in their heart.”  (adapted) Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Contemplative Action

The thought before the step,
seeing with the heart
while resting the mind,
standing, walking, sitting
with feelings that arise,
resisting pathologies,
those old avenues so familiar
that flow like winter rivers,
to burst that bubble and
dispel that echo,
to know the tender deep
intangible organic love
that awaits a birthing
as gift to the world,
in step.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com.

16 Comments

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