Category Archives: Free Verse

May 7, 2021 · 2:53 pm

Trees Know – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: a ‘Red Gum’ which give off a dark red resin (which hopefully you can see down the middle of the tree) as if it were bleeding and pooling at its base.

“Friendship is a sheltering tree.” Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Trees Know

Resin bleeds slowly from the
wound in the heart, staining
its body and pooling at its feet
as life cast down and yet still
standing, full of life, resilient
in the face of threat, even 
death, showing that wounds 
carry their own healing. 
The tree spoke such wisdom 
to my gentle enquire, that I 
was left in silent awe for some
time, and on reflection 
understood that the tree 
knew my heart.

Copyright © 2021 Paul Vincent Cannon 
All Rights reserved®

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May 6, 2021 · 2:02 pm

The One Road – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly Challenge – Roads

Photo: the Great Central Road looking north -east to Warakurna.

“He who knows others is clever, he who knows himself has discernment.” Lao Tzu

The One Road

I've often wondered as life goes on,
if there are as many journeys as there 
are roads to take and, how does one
discern a road when the road runs out 
and the map is somewhat confused?
To love and be loved, to let go and to 
go, to know and not know, and to be
less judging of the self, trusting the 
one road, the interior road that knows.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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May 5, 2021 · 8:16 am

The Old Boat – a narrative poem – by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Ingrid is hosting Poetics with an invitation to write using the narrative voice.

dVerse Poets – Poetics – Exploring the Narrative Voice

Photo: pxhere.com

“…. it is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.” Edgar Lee Masters

The Old Boat

I creak and groan like an arthritic bone,
my timbers are brittle and fey,
and I'm uncertain of my future
but they are taking me once again
across the adventure of waters
that thrill my boards and fill my sheets
with risk and the trample of my deck,
and I wait for the sea to wash me clean
of all that human debris,
now this might be my last as my time
is well past, but I'd rather sink than
be scuttled on clay.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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May 5, 2021 · 7:12 am

In These Moments – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Ingrid is hosting Poetics with an invitation to write a poem using narrative voice.

dVerse Poets – Poetics – Exploring the Narrative Voice

Photo: Shoalwater Bay, looking out west to Penguin Island a protected breeding ground for Little Penguins (the largest colony of Little Penguins in Western Australia).

“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.” Michel de Montaigne

In These Moments 

My heart is weighted and I must move 
into an unknown without my crutches 
which are leaning against the balustrade 
of friendships that are a kindness to me;
however, this moment is mine alone if I
choose to embrace its ambiguous intrusion,
begging persistently for a decision that
can only arise through painstaking discernment
which will point me somewhere, just not here,
and hopefully not to the shore of illusions;
it is in these moments that I know I am
an island, yet not alone.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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May 2, 2021 · 1:51 pm

Her Net Is Cast – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: Orb Weaver out front of the house on a full moon.

“Once you begin watching spiders, you haven’t time for much else.” E.B. White

Her Net Is Cast

Watch out moon, you're much too close,
nothing an orb likes more than collecting
golden orbs, and though the night is darker
now, you shine the clearest path, and she
may suddenly dart across her gossamer road
and snare you unawares, her net is cast and 
you are near, beware her hidden smile.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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May 1, 2021 · 2:10 pm

Does It Always Have To Be? – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly Challenge – Peripheral

Photo: found at dollarsandsense.sg

“In any marginalised community, whether people identify themselves or not affects us all.” Ani DiFranco

Does It Always Have To Be?

Does it always have to be,
that there is an inner and
then a fringe dissociated,
yet desiring to be included,
unable to make the cut,
discounted, excluded, kept
in view to taunt with visions
of what they could have and
be, a group that is worth the
jealousy it presumes and the 
power it assumes that people
are but pawns to exploit and
money is the breath of life
exclusive to the few, an
ephemeral intimacy to 
worship and adore while 
standing on the sorrows of
so many.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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April 30, 2021 · 2:42 pm

If I Had A Light – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Mish is hosting Open Link Night, the night we make our own choice of poem to post.

dVerse Poets – Open Link Night

Photo: Reserve trail walk adjacent to the Hardy Inlet.

“Anything we experience, no matter how challenging, can become an open pathway to awakening.” Pema Chodron

If I Had A Light

If I had a light I could see my way,
or perhaps a map where I could chart a
path, but it remains indecipherable,
though neither dark nor fogged in my
mind's eye, it is simply a discernment
of journey, a surprise awakening, a not
this, instead, perhaps this or that in a 
lived experience, all the richer for its
misdirections, its hidden meanings,
even its lack of clarity is a decided
gift of discovery, which, in the end
seems quite natural, a hindsight
twenty-twenty, a reverse of 
understanding of how we go,
not where or when we go, but, 
as we go we discover so much of
our beginnings with self and the
strive to transcend it.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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April 28, 2021 · 3:00 pm

Small Ways – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Merril is hosting Poetics with an invitation to write a Puente – a poem with a bridge.

dVerse Poets – Poetics – Build a Bridge

Photo: Tree growing from rock at Leda Reserve

“A river cuts through rock, not because of its power, but because of its persistence.” James N. Watkins

Small Ways

I think it's in the very small ways,
the infinitesimal, inconsequential actions
of fidelity to simplicity in all things

∽ that enables me to change ∼

the greater injustices around me,
slowly, incrementally, as I change myself
to an infidelity to complexity in all things.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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April 26, 2021 · 2:28 pm

The Trees Need Pruning – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: found at northescambia.com showing citrus canker.

“The trees which are pruned, watered and nurtured by caring hands bear the greatest fruits; it is the same with people.” Bryant McGill

The Trees Need Pruning

Who sets the rules,
how do we renegotiate the public space,
will trust ever re-emerge past the deep
suspicion that has been birthed in us,
formed by the canker of the rotting fruit
of moral crises, whose pith is obscene 
resistance to justice and the disturbing 
mnemonic of the slaughterhouses of
power, we have been here before, 
but now, more than ever, the trees 
need pruning.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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April 25, 2021 · 3:10 pm

Finally – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: Jarrah Loops Trail, autumn.

“Delicious Autumn! My very soul is wedded to it.” George Eliot

Finally

Autumn finally arrived,
although it was already quietly
lurking in the corner of my eyes,
having slept in, ignoring summer's
alarm well past the expected,
slowly disrobing to bare limbs
and those austere, rosy tones,
precursors to winter's grey wilds,
and cosy, snug hibernation.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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