Category Archives: Free Verse

December 2, 2022 · 1:20 pm

How Light I Am – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Laura is hosting Meeting the Bar with an invitation to construct a poem by using the last lines from the last twelve poems written or, use a last lines index from a book to construct from the poems of others.

dVerse Poets – MTB – In My End Is My Beginning

Photo: stocksnap at pixabay.com

“What do you want a meaning for? Life is a desire, not a meaning.” Charlie Chaplin 

How Light I Am

Called Aphrodite
while mulling over the juice of my thoughts,
and then there were none,
is life always having to reduce to mere frippery,
and neither am I  or the things I hold close,
once you notice them
I never want to let go,
is love impotent,
navigated wreckage,
the next fully alive,
O how I wish I could see it,
how light I am.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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December 1, 2022 · 3:19 pm

From The Let Go – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: found at futurity.org credited to Arno/flickr

“Shame is the most powerful, master emotion. it’s the fear that we’re not good enough.” Brene Brown

From The Let Go

Do you speak with your voice 
or merely wave at meaning
in a symmetry of apathy 
founded in your dark denials,
a shrug offered as dialogue
that simply fades away
towards your inability to feel,
to touch the mess, 
the untidy parts that inhabit
your tight self-creation,
long hidden from your memory,
holding shame hostage,
always fearful that someone will
pull that trigger and expose your 
irrational thoughts, but 
you loaded those bullets yourself
and they're waiting for you to
defuse them and you will
once you notice them.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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November 30, 2022 · 4:52 pm

A Mere Sequence – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Merril is hosting poetics with an invitation to write an ekphrastic poem offering a choice of four artworks. For more detail follow the link below.

dVerse Poets – Poetics – The Landscape Sleeps, Ekphrastic Prompt

I have chosen to work with John Atkinson Grimshaw’s ‘A November Morning’

“There is harmony in autumn, and a lustre in the sky ….” Percy Bysshe Shelley

A Mere Sequence

Autumn strips me bare,
my body crisp and cool,
like my footfall on a cinder lane
as I jar along the road of bones,
a calendar of seasons,
now arrested in dapple
for the briefest fleet,
a mere sequence in the scheme
unknown to mortals,
evidenced only by the falling leaves
who whisper until I notice that
nothing is permanent and,
how light I am.


Copyright 2022 ©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 29, 2022 · 10:42 pm

Is Love Impotent? – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

#2022 November PAD Chapbook Challenge

Day 29 29.11.22

Prompt: Write a poem about truth.

Is Love Impotent? 

That beautiful Jew down in Palestine
said to that dullard Pilate,
who had never taken flight in his life,
truth is how you live by the measure of love,
an iteration for sure, yes,
and how hard could that be,
to simply love as you love ,
can this never be done,
is love impotent?


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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November 29, 2022 · 1:43 pm

I Never Want to Let Go – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Lisa is hosting the Quadrille (44 words) with an invitation to write about warmth.

dVerse Poets – Quadrille – Warmly

Photo: instagramFotografin at pixabay.com

“How we need a another soul to cling to, another body to keep us warm.” Sylvia Plath

I Never Want to Let Go

Once,
in my teens,
an accidental encounter,
a broken power cable touching 
the metal I was holding,
filling me,
so warm and tingling,
I didn't want to let go,
Now when I hold you
it is so electric,
I never want to let go.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon 
All Rights Reserved ®️

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November 28, 2022 · 1:54 pm

Undone – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

#2022 November PAD Chapbook Challenge

Day 28 28.11.22

Prompt: Remix an earlier poem

Undone

That my fingers would betray you,
or that your wisps of cloth would betray me,
that I would seek refuge in those ghastly
tents of yesteryear as bromide
for the fire in my molten heart,
my consuming glow evident across the sky,
leaving nothing to the imagination
as I feverishly wrestle my feelings,
at moment near death,
the next, fully alive.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️ 


The original poem remixed here is Release Button

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November 26, 2022 · 3:06 pm

Nothing Stays The Same – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

#2022 November PAD Chapbook Challenge

Day 26 26.11.22

Prompt: Write a rethink poem (rethink an earlier poem, a conversation, a belief etc.)

Nothing Stays The Same

As the morning light warms the bay
I ponder the movement of the sun as I have
remembered its habits of days and seasons,
though such thoughts I know to be imprecise,
even a little jumbled, tangled, in my mind and
as I pondered it dawned on me that I too
change over days and seasons,
moving as habit, though never precisely,
a little jumbled and tangled, 
changing just as light changes especially 
when life is clouded or when the sun is intense,
nothing stays the same,
the bay is not the same as it was a few years ago
and neither am I or the things I hold close.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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November 25, 2022 · 2:26 pm

Is Life Always Having To Reduce To Mere Frippery? – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

One for two:

#2022 November PAD Chapbook Challenge

Day 25 25.11.22

Prompt: Write a serious poem

Also submitted to dVerse Poets – OLN hosted by Grace – the night we choose a poem to submit.

Is Life Always Having To Reduce To Mere Frippery?

Is life always having to reduce to mere frippery,
those ice cream feel good moments invoked
to ward off anything approaching a taxing frown,
or wrestling an unresolved disquieted question?

Those ice cream feel good moments invoked
as stave for anything that would reduce laughter,
or wrestling an unresolved disquieted question
that awakens in the recesses of my mind.

As stave for anything that would reduce laughter,
whatever comes to hand will do for combat
that awakens in the recesses of my mind,
rather than face the seriousness that perches there.

Whatever comes to hand will do for combat
to ward off anything approaching a taxing frown,
rather than face the seriousness that perches there,
is life always having to reduce to mere frippery?



Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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November 24, 2022 · 3:09 pm

For The Life Of Me – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

#2022 November PAD Chapbook Challenge

Day 24 24.11.22

prompt: Write a for [blank] poem. e.g. For the sake of the children or, forgive and forget.

For The Life Of Me

For the life of me I don't understand how
it remains unseen,
squashed down,
hidden in plain sight,
covered over in the sensibilities of a 
small-minded, bygone era,
like a tight, ill-fitting tuxedo,
it looks out of place on you,
O how I wish you could see it.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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