Category Archives: environment

February 2, 2023 · 3:26 pm

Unsettled – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Image by Anja from Pixabay 

“The wind shows us how close to the edge we are.” Joan Didion

Unsettled

There are many things that unsettle me,
a gnawing sense of missing a commitment,
the arrival of those letters with a window,
running low on fuel out in the bush,
a visit to the dentist,
but nothing compares to the southerlies
that assault our house
rattling the eaves and raking the roof,
pushing on the glass,
sneaking through door frames,
bending trees,
interrupting sleep,
stealing summer,
surely a wind has other places to visit?


Copyright 2023 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All rights Reserved ®️

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January 28, 2023 · 2:10 pm

Now To Sing A New Song – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: Maruf_Rahman at pixabay.com Flood in Bangladesh

“With considerable justice, Bangladesh’s leading climate scientist says that ‘These migrants should have the right to move to the countries from which all these greenhouses are coming.'” Noam Chomsky 

Now To Sing A New Song

Walking ever so softly across life
listening to the voices of trees
asking us to live for all things,
these are important questions
interwoven,
predicate, 
subject,
object,
action,
follows a pattern,
ends with dilated hesitations,
why should I inhabit more than necessary,
consuming my neighbours?
I weep for the anthropic scene,
time to change our view of 
recalcitrant history,
never to repeat,
now to sing a new song.


Copyright 2023 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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November 30, 2022 · 1:48 pm

And Then There Were None – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

#2022 November PAD Chapbook Challenge

Day 30 30.11.22 The final day.

Prompt: And [blank]

And Then There Were None

Yesterday was the tomorrow I delayed,
I confided this to our friend the frog
who had inhabited our pond these past months,
I spoke of grand gestures,
of lights turned off,
cloth and paper bags,
rain water,
solar power,
all for the good of the land,
but bought that item we needed,
so much plastic and foam,
and when I returned to the pond,
the frog had gone,
and then there were none.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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November 9, 2022 · 3:14 pm

Sign Of The Times – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

#2022 November PAD Chapbook Challenge

Day 9 9.11.22

Prompt: create a title by filling in the blank – [blank] … of the … [blank] then write a poem for it.

Sign Of The Times

I want to hurl epitaphs at the world
broken by your intentional ignorance,
asphyxiating life,
stealing hope as,
misty eyed,
you rescue the very last dollar
from extinction.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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November 7, 2022 · 3:19 pm

I’m Not Kicking Back -a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

#2022 November PAD Chapbook Challenge

Day 7 7.11.22

Prompt: Adaptation 

I'm Not Kicking Back

The future can no longer be held in the past,
no room for denial now
this drama is nonfiction,
times have changed,
my lawnmower has less employ
but I'm not kicking back,
not until my garden is water wised,
or my soap ceases to kill fish,
the templar in me crusades
against the plastic scourge 
that has evangelised my life.
Who would have thought
I'd be conserving water,
checking labels,
sorting bins,
reducing travel,
whatever it takes to reduce
my impact,
my footprint,
my legacy,
protecting sentient life
on this rare earth.
I can't undo the past,
but I can do the future,
I'm taking a darwinian line,
adapt or perish,
demise is not my game.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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August 6, 2022 · 3:08 pm

What Hand Will You Play? – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Image: wallpaperflare.com

“Men Argue. Nature acts.” Voltaire

What Hand Will You Play?

One should always designate the joker early,
you never know when a crisis will arise,
often at the eleventh hour but also the first,
what hand will you play as the earth burns?

You never know when a crisis will arise,
the deck is smouldering but no one notices,
what hand will you play as the earth burns?
Show the wild card that we might turn the game.

The deck is smouldering but no one notices,
we're all holding close and sweating it out,
show the wild card that we might turn the game,
the hour is early, the hour is late, play it sweet.

We're all holding close and sweating it out,
often at the eleventh hour but also the first,
the hour is early, the hour is late, play it sweet,
one should always designate the joker early.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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July 30, 2022 · 3:09 pm

The Moment -a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: plasticsoupfoundation.org

“A very faustian choice is upon us: whether to accept our corrosive and risky behaviour as the unavoidable price of population and economic growth, or to take stock of ourselves and search for a new environmental ethic.” E.O. Wilson

The Moment

The moment between asking and answering a question
is the moment of significant weight waiting to shift,
one way or another to fall or to rise, to the left or the right,
and in the moment identifying our own game of denial.

Is the moment of significant weight waiting to shift 
merely a trope of the human imaginative longing,
one way or another to fall or to rise, to the left or the right,
or is it perhaps a significant axial irruption in our midst?

Merely a trope of the human imaginative longing,
suggesting that there is no salvific moment beyond dreams,
or is it perhaps a significant axial irruption in our midst,
at best our childish myths deserted our desperate need.

Suggesting that there is no salvific moment beyond dreams,
one way or another to fall or to rise, to the left or the right,
at best our childish myths deserted our desperate need,
the moment between asking and answering a question.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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July 18, 2022 · 1:09 pm

Change That Diet – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: wandiprogress.com.au Wandi Landcare Group in action.

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” Arthur Ashe


Change That Diet

Yelling red hoarse at the news,
wrenching gut papers shredded,
blog rolling, twitter clicking,
opinions strewn and spewed,
ambulance delays, police inaction,
political corruptions a constant,
wars, safety, guns, policies,
hanging expectations on solutions
while lakes and rivers dry before
our eyes.

Crime waves roll over cities as
heat waves arise uncommonly,
race, place, identity, all ignored,
only money, that old time religion
killing everything in its wake,
step back, just a little, change 
that diet, leave the negative 
behind, harness the good and
build a future quietly, softly,
a little at a time.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️



Note: there's nothing wrong with being informed and keeping up with the news, but if it is brining you down and it is all you do, you need to get out more.

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July 4, 2022 · 1:02 pm

Turning Over A Leaf – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: from brisbaneinsects.com – a leaf rolling spider.

“We take to the breeze, we go as we please.” E.B. White ‘Charlotte’s Web’

Turning Over A Leaf

Woe is they whose gutters are filled
with the ubiquity of fallen leaves,
who come to mock them in their 
satisfied armchairs of achievements,
while I can find no two leaves alike,
some smooth, some rough, faded,
crinkled, cankered, curled and halved,
there was one desiccated specimen,
a veritable mobile home for, tucked in
the curl was a shy little spider riding
the winds of fortune to new horizons.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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July 3, 2022 · 1:44 pm

No One Mourns A Crassus – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Image: from en.wikipedia.org Marcus Lincinius Crassus, the wealthiest man of Rome who met his death in Syria trying to gain a small conquest over land and capital, but which cost him his life. The opposing Parthian king had Crassus’ mouth filled with molten gold to show his lust for gold and power. Not much has changed since 1 B.C.E.

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” James Baldwin

No One Mourns A Crassus

To wear the widow's black
or put on sackcloth and cast ashes,
to grieve for the loss of species as
the philistines pursue their plundering,
as every Crassus lusts for their gold
of death and destruction in a wastrel's
desire for everything over life itself,
in temporary experiences of hollow 
lives devoid of meaning beyond greed,
O, to have that funeral now, that we 
might see them gone and live again.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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