Category Archives: Free Verse

January 26, 2022 · 10:12 pm

Whose Time Has Come – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: From acmstravel.com a view of the Whanganui River, NZ which in 2012 was recognised in NZ law as a natural entity with legal rights equivalent to humans. This followed on from the first landmark case in 2008 in Ecuador when the Vilcabama River was protected by granting it rights at law.

“Nature cannot be seen solely as a resource to be owned, exploited and profited from.” Suzanne Benally

Whose Time Has Come

Global never thinks local,
only to its own lusted desires,
but among the suited ties of
the mean sx landing barges
comes the conscienced 
resistance of the locals, 
whose time has come to speak
of cousins as rivers and trees,
whose rights are sacred and
who now wait to sue the suits
off miners who would euthanase 
every breath of life in an irony
of futures doomed.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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January 25, 2022 · 10:56 pm

To Live – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Linda is hosting Poetics with an invitation to use a line (choice of eight lines) from a James Harrison poem as an epigraph.

dVerse Poets – Poetics – Songs of Unreason

Image: Tumisu at pixabay.com

“I don’t know what happens after death but I’ll have to chance it.” from ‘Desert Snow” by Jim Harrison

To Live

So many the schemes of fall,
whose tentacles sliver and snare
the unwitting, hapless traveller 
looking for meaning, while 
insuring, forestalling, the one
dark door of mystery beyond 
all knowing, even of a simple 
kind, and whose edge dominates
even the philosopher's mind;
seeds fall and seasons process
down the hall of time, but I'll
not invest in any scheme,
the reveal can only be lived.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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January 24, 2022 · 10:38 pm

Trace Me – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Merril is hosting the Quadrille with an invitation to write using the word or any of its forms – Shiver.

dVerse Poets – Quadrille – Shiver

Photo: peakpx.com

“Give me excess of it; that surfeiting. That appetite may sicken and die.” William Shakespeare

Trace Me

Are you cold?
why?
You shivered so.
Ah, yes, it's that thing that you do.
What?
That thing you do.
O, that.
Yes, when your finger traces so
deliciously, tantalisingly across
that carnal vale, it shivers me so,
go on, trace me a shiver.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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January 24, 2022 · 12:44 am

To Listen – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: found at ascentleader.og

“Sound is incredibly important.” Gordon Hempton

To Listen

Can you hear what you see,
are you hearing what is before you,
are your eyes catching sounds
in this ever visual world where
vision becomes statement,
dangled enticingly as empty 
promise, an aspirated nonsense
in a world of fools desiring gloss
over substance, when all we 
need to do is listen.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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January 22, 2022 · 10:28 pm

The Question – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: found at cuinsight.com

“Curious things, habits.” Agatha Christie

The Question

Does it bring life,
this thing that you do,
the habit of a lifetime,
week in, week out, 
which has quietly 
formed so much of
who you are and your
understanding of the 
world and the meaning
of your being, without
even thinking about its
sum and parts, does it
bring life?


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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January 21, 2022 · 10:49 pm

Someone, Something, Somewhere – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: by skitterphoto at pixabay.com

“All choices are fraught with peril, but inaction is the most perilous of all.” Frewin Jones

Someone, Something, Somewhere

Sitting with our eyes closed in a dark mediation,
we're not painting slogans,
not marching or gathering,
we haven't written much at all,
no rallying call lingers on our lips,
just sitting, waiting, hoping
that someone or something,
somewhere, will cause a spark,
meanwhile we're
sitting with our eyes closed in a dark meditation.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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January 21, 2022 · 12:30 am

Wrapping – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: The bark of a Jarrah tree along the Railway Heritage Trail, Mundaring.

“Your personal boundaries protect the inner core of your identity and your right to Choices.” Gerard Manley Hopkins

Wrapping

From my earliest moments of cogito,
the eye of my I, O aye,
I learned to wrap myself against the
cold of an encroaching world and 
the desires of others, while yet 
offering little gaps and holes through
which the mew of you, O true
can slip through.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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January 19, 2022 · 11:38 pm

Writ Large – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: from gcg.net.au asbestos fibres.

“We can’t go on as we have been.” Sir David Attenborough 

Writ Large

Of thalidomide and asbestos,
those roman pipes of lead,
benzine to carbon making
nearly everything so dead,
atomic wet-dreams,
what a gas, or just a 
fracking nuisance and the last,
with plastic sands and bubble
wrapped whales carrying tales
of wasted trees on which the lies
we subscribed are writ large.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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January 17, 2022 · 7:40 am

In Paticular – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo by Vitaliy Izonin from Pexels

“If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun.” Katherine Hepburn

In Particular

Sometimes the menu is gentle,
and sometimes it is hot and spicy,
a revolution for the palette,
some menus offer slow food,
tender, dripping with flavours,
the food just melting in your mouth
others offer crisp, crunchy bites,
so tangy and juicy, while others
offer a taste tease with aged,
preserved foods which fill the senses,
one menu in particular is lush and
fulsome and makes me ache for more.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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January 15, 2022 · 11:00 pm

In Rows We Laughed – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” Karl Marx

In Rows We Laughed

In rows we laughed about cromagnon man,
we mocked conquistador's self-righteous,
salvific crusade, we deplored the blindness
of modernity scratched in white across two
wars, we were sickened by greedy monarchs
crushing cultures, aghast at nationalism and
every moral injury belonging to leader and flag,
in rows we laughed taking each other for granted, 
bullying, stealing each other's things, lying, 
misogynising, fighting, shrinking, hiding,
in rows we laughed, without reflecting.



Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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