Category Archives: identity

May 14, 2022 · 2:33 pm

Better To Question – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: MabelAmber at pixabay.com

“Consider what story you want to tell.” Marie Brennan

Better To Question

My nature is to question,
to give an answer can, on the
occasion of your being somewhat lost,
be very helpful when I direct you to the
very place you want to get to, but only
geographically, no one really wants or
even needs solutions to what they 
intuitively know they must experience 
along life's road, our story is simply that,
our story, we cannot be anyone else's story.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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May 6, 2022 · 1:31 pm

Better The Full Flavoured Precarity – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Art by Igor Morski found at the10most.com

“Always be a first rate-version of yourself and not a second-rate version of someone else.” Judy Garland

Better The Full Flavoured Precarity

Life is essentially
taking off other people's faces
and learning to live what is behind
our own, accepting that which arises
from within, rather than seeking 
external stimulus as validation like a
mantle one puts on when seeking
affirmation, or projecting convenient
lies of success for a kiss, complete
fakery in exchange for smooth living
that tastes like chalk, better the full
flavoured life even when a little precarity
lurks at its edges.



Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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April 3, 2022 · 2:09 am

What Now? – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: agamaszota at pixabay.com

“The future … seems to me no unified dream but a mince pie …” Edward Young

What Now?

Repetitive Days,
clamping to the bench,
the clang of metal,
choosing actions,
being filtered,
tectonic turning plates,
left and right,
spindle and handle,
sinew cranking hard,
the heft of life,
an endless vista of 
grind and broken 
dreams as mince,
what now the plate?


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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March 31, 2022 · 4:12 pm

Mean Street – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: Sammy-Sander at pixabay.com

“You are the hero of your own story.” Joseph Campbell

Mean Street

The hero's journey is very bleak,
everyone tells you as if you never knew,
they hold you as a child in your place
knowing that you are nothing of the sort,
fearful of your confident advance,
they neutralise your every step,
hoping against your success and
waiting for your tumble with pregnant
glee, rather than see you, know you,
as real.



Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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March 15, 2022 · 2:32 pm

I Broke Away – Prosery by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Lillian is hosting Prosery (144 words) with an invitation to use the line “I wandered lonely as a cloud.” from the William Wordsworth poem ‘I wander lonely as a cloud.”

dVerse Poets – Prosery – Winter Be Gone

Photo: from our 2017 road trip through central Australia and down through South Australia, back to Western Australia along the coast. This photo taken along the Nullarbor, the ocean not visible, but further beyond the van is the Great Australian Bight.

“How sweet to be a cloud, floating in the blue.” A.A. Milne

I Broke Away

I wandered lonely as a cloud, not that that is a bad thing in and of itself. I finally broke away from all that encompassing bank of cloud that consumed me, owned me, clouded me. Just one big cloud of everything the same. Sometimes we were white and summery, sometimes grey and uncertain, sometimes black and laden with water. I wanted something else, something more.

I wanted reds, purples, pinks and oranges, colours of excitement, adventure. Colours of day and night, autumn and spring, storm and still. I wanted big and I wanted small. I wanted essence. So I broke away and floated along, determined to discover my cloudness. I wandered lonely as a cloud, and for the first time, entirely happy. Space was mine and I could come and go, and sometimes I need just that, to be far from the madding cloud.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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February 2, 2022 · 11:42 pm

Defining Moment – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Image: from therugbygroup.sandler.com

“The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.” Dante Alighieri 

Defining Moment

We are never so defined as by our crises,
the irruptions of pressure force change,
suddenly malaise transforms to purpose,
individualism rediscovers its malignancy.

The irruptions of pressure force change,
denial is the most useless safety helmet,
individualism rediscovers its malignancy,
slowly but surely we leave our cocoons.

Denial is the most useless safety helmet
while ignorance is the tightest kevlar,
slowly but surely we leave our cocoons,
the dividing line of transition now drawn.

While ignorance is the tightest kevlar,
suddenly malaise transforms to purpose,
the dividing line of transition now drawn,
we are never so defined as by our crises.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

Note: in this I am deeply influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre’s dictum that the French were never so free as when Germany occupied France – meaning that it suddenly gave purpose, called forth identity and action.

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January 31, 2022 · 1:57 am

If A Day Can Be – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: found at perfectposture.co.uk

“Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.” John Lennon

If A Day Can Be 

If a day can be, then just let it be,
let it evolve without synthetic control,
without saccharine precision or that
timetabled conscience ingrained,
the day is just a day, why force yourself
upon it for the sake of producing
something meaningful, that cold press
of identity that withers at sunset,
let the day just be.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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December 4, 2021 · 3:31 pm

Once Upon A Time – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Image: found on pinterest.com

“One of the greatest regrets in life is being what others would want you to be …” Shannon L Alder

Once Upon A time

Once we lived until we died,
spanning our decades in inevitable delay,
now, more capitulated to the speed 
of minutes in anxious accountings of
manufactured joy, life plastered over 
without marzipan, with thin accretions of
dull, meaningless regulation of the mind,
surrendering to the puppet master who
voices life for us to a carefully useless
script, two shows a night and a matinee,
all for the price of your conscience.


Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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October 20, 2021 · 3:00 pm

The Wound Is Old – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: a fallen trunk of a Jarrah tree, taken at Jarrah Loop Walks, between Bridgetown and Nannup.

“Masculine and feminine roles are not biologically fixed but socially constructed.” Judith Butler

The Wound Is Old

The wound is old, though not 
completely grown over,
showing its dark promise
through the soft, feathered edge,
trying to rejuvenate its center,
the turn from shame and the 
imposition of guilt, which down
the long grain of time has
squandered the meeting of 
masculine and feminine, a 
denial of possibility, the loss of
a trust barely formed in myths of 
carefully constructed obscurantism,
those fictions of favour cemented
in the decline of life.


Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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September 23, 2021 · 3:39 pm

Like Winter Gulls – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: pixabay.com

“When emptiness is still, that is eternity. When it moves that is love.” Adyashanti

Like Winter Gulls

If love is possible how 
will it survive when all my 
self-beliefs, like winter gulls, 
have migrated south, leaving
me with the immutable
feeling that meaning has
abandoned me in a place 
where I don't have myself,
just a vacuum of abstractions,
like the absurd question, if 
love is possible, how will it 
describe me.


Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All rights Reserved ®

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