Category Archives: environment

January 14, 2021 · 3:12 pm

Below The Culture Line – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: Black Cockatoo Reserve, Mundaring

“Without stories, the land turns to real estate.” Mark Abley 

Below The Culture Line

When time was local the land had a story
rich in the beautiful greys of paradox,
carefully nurtured in mutual surrender,
we touched under the pulsing canopy.

Rich in the beautiful greys of paradox
we slipped below the culture line,
we touched under the pulsing canopy,
a language unspoken so openly felt.

We slipped below the culture line,
searching ourselves for beginnings,
a language unspoken so openly felt
as to be present in each other.

Searching ourselves for beginnings,
carefully nurtured in mutual surrender
as to be present in each other,
when time was local the land had a story.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Note: The concept of time shifted in the mid 1800s to a broader sense of time as universal, prior to that time was local.

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August 23, 2020 · 2:59 pm

Off The Rails – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly Challenge – What A sight

Photo: Old rail line near Bonnie Rock

“Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.” Lin Yutang 

Off The Rails

What a sight this happenchance,
no more the corporate sea of
smoke and steam or voices echoing 
through this once vale of life in
this distant place of hardships
now erased as nature grips the
demons of steel by the throat,
all the while laughing at the thought
of progress in a place so fragile
where life so quickly goes
off the rails.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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August 21, 2020 · 3:08 pm

Shouting Underwater – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Linda at dVerse is hosting Open Link Night where ewe are invited to post a poem of choice. dVerse Poets – Open Link Night

Photo: http://www.stockunlimited.com

“Any government that places profit before people is pure evil.” Suzy Kassem 

Shouting Underwater

Those babble mouths,
always a crooked apologia for
crack cocaine capitalism's
endemic asset stripping
dealers who're always
powdering their own noses,
yet always the stench of decay
seeps through everywhere,
gaslighting the streets,
curbing panaceas
left, right and centre,
and I feel as if I'm
on fire and shouting
underwater.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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July 1, 2020 · 2:34 pm

It’s Time To Light A Fire – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: bbc.com

“A desperate disease requires a dangerous remedy.” Guy Fawkes

It's Time To Light A fire

Up on the hill the light recedes
as the western candle dims,
wick ravaged to ill effect,
too frayed to rise again with 
wax beyond plenish once more,
there's a chill wind blowing
and the age is dark,
it's time to light a fire.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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May 18, 2020 · 3:42 pm

Another Way – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Homemade-Biodiesel jpg

Photo: motherearthnews.com  “Mr. Welty producing homemade biodiesel”

 

“The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.”  Socrates

Another Way

Are you not in the least curious
even a tiny bit?
That there is another way instead
of this long fall into deep forgetfulness
to a prison not made of stone,
imprisoned, within our selves
where the memory of other lives
is eclipsed by the drama
of shame, of wanting, of striving,
over the simplicity of
bread, shirt, and roof,
wherein lies the escape.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

 

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May 16, 2020 · 5:25 pm

We Forgot – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

 

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Photo: http://www.newsclick.in

 

“We abuse the land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong we may begin to use it with love and respect.”  Aldo Leopold

We Forgot

The words dissembled before me,
tumbling down,
my mouth moving,
searching for meaning,
glory in failure,
we forgot beauty,
running after fantasy
coated in soft-tongued speeches,
fetid, like an open sewer
wrapped in a bloody tricolour,
the bunting of martyrs,
fugitives of ourselves
on the parapets of love.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

 

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April 24, 2020 · 3:37 pm

The New – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

RDP Friday – Normal

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Photo: pixabay.com

 

“We sense that ‘normal’ isn’t coming back, that we are being born into a new normal; a new kind of society, a new relationship to the earth, a new experience of being human.”  Charles Eisenstein

The New

I woke to the strangeness of a patient silence
that filled an obsolete vision of worlds,
I climbed off that clanking thrusting beast
as it lay wasted in my stead
and entered the vast field of joy,
where I saw the end of privilege,
that once would have devoured all the
tomorrows, wasting them on the altar of want,
but now I am challenged,
times are many and the distance is near,
this is the new normal
and the choice is mine,
to accept responsibility
for futures now seen.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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February 19, 2020 · 4:20 pm

Shred Of Life – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

dVerse Poets – Poetics – To Be A Flower

Linda at dVerse has invited us to write a poem about ourselves as a flower, what flower we do we most identify with? I have chosen a Spider Orchid.

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Photo: One of the several types of Spider Orchid found in Western Australia, Leda Reserve, 2018.

 

“The orchids grow in the woods and they let out their fragrance even if there is no one around to appreciate it.”  Confucius

 

Shred Of Life

Parched,
waiting for the sky to cry
and relieve my desiccated bones,
my rice paper skin,
a tenuous life in
an abundance of aridity,
the land of implausible possibility
where nature threatens its own
fragile existence so that
it won’t be disappointed
should its seed never smile
and celebrate a dawn,
yet here I am,
today, perhaps tomorrow,
a glorious struggle,
full of my colour
in a shred of life.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

 

 

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February 14, 2020 · 4:13 pm

The Border Collie of the Apocalypse – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

dVerse Poets – Meet the Bar

Amaya at dVerse has invited us to write a poem as one sentence about using three rules: (1) The poem must tell a story in one sentence; (2) the poem must explore the theme of the end of civilisation, and (3) the poem must be improvised; all around the theme of the end of civilisation, while including an embarrassing moment.

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Photo: newshub.co.nz

 

“This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper.”  T.S. Eliot

The Border Collie of the Apocalypse

I walked the lake
as the four horsemen gathered,
portent of distance conflated,
the future was here
but we’re handing it back,
too bleak for our eyes to adopt,
but the dog cared not for an ending,
and treated himself to this walk,
the water was lower than ever before,
fewer birds than last year,
and just as I’m contemplating a
parousian finale
the dog found a friend,
and with his lunge
I’m suddenly airborne
split seconds pass me by
and I land with a thud
pride spewed over the path,
I rise with aplomb and
dust off my ending
as the young one
enquires of my health.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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February 2, 2020 · 2:53 pm

Every Time – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

RDP Sunday – Masterpiece

Tree13.jpg

Photo: from hyperactivz.com and the story “Forty Years Ago This Man Planted A
Tree That Created Amazing Opportunities For His Island” by Lauren Fazackarly –  The Story of Jadav Payeng who began planting trees at sixteen and is still going.

Please note: this is only one story, there are several stories from all over the world of people doing similar feats to greater or lesser extent.

 

“Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they will never sit in.”  Greek Proverb

Every Time

He settled in the dust of his soul,
the sun beating down and
mocking his every effort
drawing his moisture to his brow,
and yet every day he rose and
without fail, made his way
to his field of dreams
that barren canvas of life’s struggles,
of course, without knowing,
passers-by smiled their condescension,
to them he was an eccentric farmer,
while in his own mind he was an
investment banker, and adventurer, a rebel,
and every time he planted a tree he knew
he was painting a masterpiece
whose abstract nature only he could explain.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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