Category Archives: history

January 18, 2020 · 4:00 pm

Beautiful Advocate – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

5 Lines – Beautiful

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Photo: Getty Images. Princess Dianna sitting with amputees, victims of landmines, Angola, 1997. Dianna as many will remember ignited opposition to the use of landmines which resulted in the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty and drew attention to the work of the Halo Trust whose work is clearing mines and advocacy against mines and weapons of war. She had that inner beauty, photos of her shaking hands with lepers, sitting with HIV sufferers, visiting homeless shelters and os on. I’m not a monarchist, but her work was of a different order.

“I’d read the statistics that Angola has the highest percentage of amputees anywhere in the world … that one person in every 333 had lost a limb, most of them through land mine explosions. But that hadn’t prepared me for the reality.”  Dianna Spencer

 

Beautiful  Advocate

So beautiful, those legs, her …
And such a mind, but O her heart,
her beauty drew the cameras,
merely a stage for the inner beauty
of her compassion for the world.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

 

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January 5, 2020 · 4:16 pm

No Solution – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

RDP Sunday – Realm

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Photo: cnn.com

 

“A shocking crime was committed on the unscrupulous initiative of few individuals, with the blessing of more, and amid the passive acquiescence of all.”  Tacitus

No Solution

The husk of man,
for it is a man rather than a woman,
is forever drained and dry,
burnt in the blinking of an eye
across the fields of loss and grief,
where the butcher’s hand is never stayed,
and the slice is always close to the bone
with the relentless search for
the cure of fear, which, as always
readily falls to cycles of war,
now favoured by the killing of a man
who was food as friend,
and sent to to the heavenly realm
of the great cloud of witnesses
who pray over our esteemed
and utter madness for blood to be
wasted on the unforgiving rocks of dogma.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

 

 

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October 11, 2019 · 3:26 pm

The One Hidden – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

dVerse Poets – Poetic Pop Art

At dVerse Poets Victoria has invited us to take Pop Art as inspiration for a poem.

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Image: ‘In Search Of History’ Alexander Kosolapov, 1982 – Sotsart

Note: SOTS-ART Soviet political art, a journey friend of Pop Art which, due to Soviet censorship of the 1970s – 80s, was mostly underground work.

 

“I’m afraid that if you look at a thing long enough, it loses all of its meaning.”  Andy Warhol

The One Hidden

The conspiracy of words and time
melds colour to a constancy of grey
like ever present winter clouds
brooding over truth
whatever that might be,
and indeed,
that is the question Pilate asked
non the wiser for a reply,
that certainty as a non-event is,
in truth, a certainty,
where facts like curbs
eventually erode and fritter
revealing the naked and bold-faced
lies of our fathers,
a constructed history by numbers,
O how we walked those grey blocks
seeking lucent hope,
just a glimmer of colour,
a taste of the real,
no, not that capitalist lie, freedom,
it is the one hidden in my breast.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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September 2, 2019 · 1:38 pm

All Gone Now – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly Challenge – Recovery

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Photo: Niagara Dam near Kookynie, an oasis in a dry land. Kookynie once boasted a permanent population of 3,500 people at the height of the gold rush, and double that with transients coming and going. From 1895 to 1910 it was a bustling town, when the first world war began (1914), and then later when the gold price dropped (1923), the population declined, and from the 1960s it completely diminished, and today it is listed as a ghost town with ten people.

 

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts …”  Rachel Carson ‘Silent Spring’

 

All Gone Now

Swarms covered this fragile land
as gold fevered a crowd,
and in the middle of nowhere
somewhere sprang up
from zero to thousands,
a mayor with parades,
schools and shops,
all gone now ‘cept the dust,
the train now a ghost,
the crowd has thinned,
just a couple remain
and of course, as always,
the pub with a tourist or two,
those halcyon days
will never return
though the land recovers itself.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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July 4, 2019 · 1:53 pm

For The First Time – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Discovery – RDP Thursday

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Image: http://www.investigations.net

“As one looks across the barren stretches of the pack, it is sometimes difficult to realise what teeming life exists immediately beneath its surface.”  Robert Falcon Scott (Scott of the Antarctic)

 

For The First Time

What must be observed?
What can be questioned?
in stillness the heart cannot lie,
that which is held prisoner
to the mind,
once released between the
inward and outward breath,
bubbles to the conscious,
and can be seen and felt
if we but wait and look,
removing the mask of self-deception
seeing ourselves for the first time
as Scott did with Terra Nova,
that unsullied plateau
ready to be inferred
not yet contained.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

 

Paul, pvcann.com

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June 7, 2019 · 12:30 pm

The Man From Locksley – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Green – VJs Weekly Challenge

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Photo: contracts.com

 

The Man From Locksley

Marians made to work inside
while sheriffs roam in Armani
through forests of towers
shards and spires,
but where is the one from Locksley?
Perchance his quiver is full,
distracted, he sates elsewhere,
while the city in torpor despairs
unrequited the Lincoln green.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

 

Paul, pvcann.com

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June 5, 2019 · 2:05 pm

Sorrows Me Still – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

dVerse Poets – Poetics – Cry Me A river 

Amaya Engleking has invited a poem on a piece of music that brought tears. So many choices!

Video: found on YouTube – Gordon Lightfoot singing “The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald.”

 

Sorrows Me Still

The crew never knew as they bid farewell
for their regular gig on the lake,
that treachery would strike
by the weight and the wind,
not by jury or flag,
twenty-nine had plotted their time,
played their regular goodbyes
unbeknown, for the very last trip.
I read it in 75 in the time
but I lost it when I heard Gordon sing,
his chords played my heart
with a harrowing wrench
and eased a tear along my cheek,
mournful and thoughtful
the church bell ringing the toll
made me weep,
and the futility
sorrows me still.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

 

Paul, pvcann.com

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March 25, 2019 · 2:57 pm

Cocky Young Meno – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Teachable – Word of the Day

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Image: lounge.obviousmag.org   A bust of Plato

Cocky Young Meno

Meno strutting in Athens with entourage
sycophant of Gorgias
that overblown sophist and Socratic doubter,
Plato counter-posed you
in a double counter play
of the virtue of virtue
how innate, how not,
and you were confused
a mere child caught in
a permanent aporia,
but Socrates,
dear, tragic Socrates
showed you the way,
to search for that which
we do not know.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Note: Plato wrote ‘Meno’ as a Socratic piece, a dialogue between Meno and Socrates. Meno is young and believes he is accomplished and clever, but Socrates proves him to be confused and lacking. Meno was also a mercenary who became involved with Cyrus the 2nd’s attempt to take the Persian throne from Artaxerxes, Cyrus was killed and Meno and other generals captured, all but Meno were beheaded. And I quip, at least he kept his head that time. The poem is really an elegy for Socrates who taught Meno a lesson.

 

Paul, pvcann.com

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March 12, 2019 · 11:30 am

Invitation – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Spike – dVerse Poets Quadrille 75

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Photo: healthwealthhappiness.com.au  Himalayan Spikenard

 

 

Invitation

Solomon
threw wisdom out the window
just for a moment
as he lay with the woman from Shulem
who came to him in the night
naked, spiced,
sweet to taste,
whose garden,
that holy of holies,
was pure spikenard
fragrance of invitation
to explore.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

 

Note: This poem references Song of Songs variously known as The Canticle, Canticle of Solomon, Song of Solomon, etc. which is part of the Jewish canon (from the scrolls of the Tanakh). The Song of Songs (holy of holies) is a poetic tribute to erotic love focussing on Solomon and an unnamed woman from Shulem. Solomon names her physical parts and she reciprocates, poetically, spikenard being the penultimate aroma of the vagina, or as Solomon says, her channel, or, her garden.

 

Paul, pvcann.com

 

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March 9, 2019 · 1:47 pm

The Longest Walk – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Walk – RDP Saturday

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Photo: The Hull River, NT, usually a dry river, but a raging torrent if heavy rains come, behind me is Lasseter’s Cave.

 

The Longest Walk

Days of dehydrated confusion
heat boiling my blood
the camels had bolted
their pegs loosed and broken
and only the Pitjantjatjara people
knew what to do,
they led me along the Hull River
to the Tjunti soak
and put me in a cave
shaded, watered, and fed,
Old Wart watched over me
while the old women brought me food.
But that reef is calling
and I’m so fevered for gold,
barely able to stand
I set off yet again
driven, determined,
maddened,
but little did I know, though,
in my bones I sensed it,
this next short walk
would be my longest.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

 

Note: Lasseter, who alleged that at 17 yrs he’d found a 16 km gold reef in the outback, came to grief on his expedition in 1931 to reestablish its whereabouts. His companions were away and he was alone when his camels spooked and bolted, taking the water and food with them. The local indigenous found him nearly dead, and cared for him, laying him up in a small cave on the Hull river. Weakened, he set off on foot again, walking 55 kms eastwards and collapsed and died. He was 51 yrs old.

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