Category Archives: life

October 29, 2020 · 2:51 pm

She Went Deep – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly Challenge – Frost

Photo: activenorth.se

“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.” John Steinbeck

She Went Deep

She went deep, 
so deep that she opened the door 
of summer's heat to winter's cool
in a flash of such interior calm that
time slowed down a pulse of almost
nil and a half where the externals 
were clear for the first time and
she slipped away inside, distilling
everything to an unsurpassable 
peace of body held as she withdrew
the world from her heart under a 
canopy of frost so cool, the heat of 
life could not seduce and melt her.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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October 27, 2020 · 2:31 am

The Keening – Haibun by Paul Vincent Cannon

Frank at dVerse is hosting Haibun Monday and the theme is Happy Halloween. dVerse Poets – Haibun – Happy Halloween

Photo: favim.com

“I can see lights in the distance trembling in the dark cloak of night. Candles and lanterns are dancing, dancing a waltz on All Souls Night.” Lorena Mckennitt

The Keening

Moving, yet completely still within herself as night pressed in gently around her, she stopped in a felt moment and stood in what seemed a right place of heart. Her bare feet connecting the hallowed ground, she raised her arms to the stars and danced in saintly solace, this way and that. She keened for love departed, for all her loves departed. She keened for the unknown. As the stars passed her voice softened to a love song, for all the faces now present as she had re-membered them. Her eyes opened with morning warmth and a garland of dew.

Hidden beyond stars
love remembered in thinness
as lotus shines.


 ©Paul Vincent Cannon


Note: the ancient Celts always believed that the spirit world interacted in special moments in "thin" places, the place between the secular and the spirit world was thin, touchable, knowable. Most often these thin places were in groves. Celtic Christians carried this into their own theological world view.

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October 25, 2020 · 2:32 pm

That Time Again – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: wallhere.com

“The night walked down the sky with the moon in her hand.” Frederic Lawrence Knowles

That Time Again

Tilt for tat,
the ground shifted so,
it was that time again when
moon put on her evening wear
and danced a little anticipation
of solstice in advent of summer's
welcome return to evenings of 
wine and stars on cicada wings,
and thermal balm as love floated
so gauche with seasoned knowing.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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October 23, 2020 · 2:41 pm

Rumbling – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Peter at dVerse is hosting Meeting The Bar and his invitation is to write a poem based around sounds.

dVerse Poets- Meeting The Bar – Let your words ring out

Photo: shutterstock.com

“I’ll have what she’s having” (cafe patron played by Estelle Reiner) ‘When Harry Met Sally’

Rumbling 

Stiletto staccato on platform five
invites leather soul antiphon, an
echo of his quiet love quickening
her pulsing temple oblivious to 
the bustle of the milling crowd
passing in the shadows, 
oblivious to the hum in this nest
of hulking, clanking metallic beasts
whose breath shouts for presence,
aware only of reaching into each 
other with shivering groans,
the whole place rumbling as they
filled its emptiness, she smiled,
he was confused, he hadn't 
expected that train to come in.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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October 22, 2020 · 4:00 pm

Look Closely – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly Challenge – Except

Photo: found on pinterest.com

“We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and mystery.” H.G. Wells

Look Closely

What of those ghosts of the past,
glory days as melancholy cast as
shadows passing as unbalanced
moments in which I have no need
to know if the future is real,
we are already here even as  time
is running backwards in parcels
of discovery towards what matters,
compelling images of the paradox 
of love unbalanced in swirls of
colour, except you really do have
to look closely in order to feel 
through the door to it all.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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October 21, 2020 · 3:30 pm

The Ordinary Real – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: unsplash.com

“Happiness is a matter of one’s most ordinary and everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self.” Iris Murdoch

The Ordinary Real 

While grey is indifferently good,
pedestrian is plain brown ordinary
plodding through the periphery of my 
corpus, looking to be just a little red,
that hip colour of the lower order
of excitement that fools fall over by
instalments of promises that always
renege, until that vulnerable moment
of recognition that life is in the 
ordinary real.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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October 19, 2020 · 3:43 pm

The Whole Circus – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Image: http://www.ivyexec.com

“Do you pay regular visits to yourself? Start now.” Rumi

The Whole Circus

I like that my dystopian corners are quieter,
and calm still weaves through the convoluted
clutter of the greek tragedies  of my life
that disturb the meadows of my mind,
as wind excoriates dry grass in late summer
of the distended days of fiction on fire with
lacerated confusion, so I simply shut the 
door and sat without expectation, letting 
the whole circus pass me by.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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October 18, 2020 · 2:44 pm

Philosopher’s Lament – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly Challenge – Reason

Photo: Daphne Richard, unsplash.com

“No creature is fully itself till it is, like the dandelion, opened in the bloom of pure relationship to the sun, the entire living cosmos.” D.H. Lawrence

Philosopher's Lament

Perhaps,
but the path is not 
conquered by having a why,
certainty is so easily undone
and knowing is not in the mind,
to touch another in soul moments
is to unfetter the universe and 
recast the lights of heaven as
dandelion seeds on the breath
of desire, a love thermal to 
carry the world to heights yet
unknown beyond the very
smallness of reason,
perhaps, yes,
life is far more organic.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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October 16, 2020 · 3:24 pm

Sands Of Time – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Grace is hosting Open Link Night, the night we choose a poem to post. dVerse Poets – Open Link Night

Photo: pixabay.com

“In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is the story of the earth.” Rachel Carson

Sands Of Time

What force is this
runnel of scarred beauty,
where earth meets water,
transformed by the intimate violence
of a caress which moves mountains
of life beyond all tomorrows of
recollection to eternities of an
indescribable elsewhere that
leaves me feeling uncertain of
where to place my feet in a 
shifting world.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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October 15, 2020 · 3:44 pm

Darkness – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: pixabay.com

“You can’t study the darkness by flooding it with light.” Edward Abbey

Darkness

Have you known those deep ecstasies having
ventured into that impenetrable darkness
which shines its light for a path beyond
the stolid middle towards the wild, beckoning, 
fringes of everything where the rays of darkness
illumine mystery's sweet reversal,
vesting you in raiment of understanding
that has no possible words only sighs?

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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