Category Archives: meditation

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 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 4, 2020 · 4:36 pm

Present – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: Ormiston Gorge, NT

“From out of all the many particulars comes oneness, and out of oneness comes all the many particulars.” Heraclitus

Present

I sat in paradox and
watched my consolations
wash through me as water
runs through fingers in a 
nothingness of interiority,
a mystical, infused experience
that left me lighter and present
to myself in the lee of my desire
that once dark cloud now
dispersed.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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September 17, 2020 · 2:30 pm

Of Threads – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Image: tomorrowstarted.com

“Breathe and let be.” Jon Cabat-Zinn

Of Threads

The point at which the
moment disappeared
is lost to me,
all that lingers is the feeling
of threads slipping, loosing, 
releasing me into a floating
drift in a space between
where I stretched out across
the sky so lightly that the stars
passed through me as
intangible procession,
and as the last thread unwound
I found myself beyond myself, 
I found myself true.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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May 11, 2020 · 2:18 pm

Nothing – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

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Photo: unsplash.com

 

“Such silence has an actual sound, the sound of disappearance.”  Suzanne Finnamore

Nothing

The mist kissed the water tenderly
and held me prisoner in the moment
that must never be squandered,
my breathing as fragile as the air,
waiting for an ending that will not come,
pulled into the juncture of realms,
lost in worlds where no thief resides
save that of my own inattention,
but I turn from that page,
even from the tempting words,
here I want for nothing.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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May 6, 2020 · 3:03 pm

There Are Moments – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

dVerse Poets – Poetics – Solitude

Bjorn at dVerse is hosting poetics and has invited us to write about solitude while trying to avoid using the word itself.6AE55DF0-5D2C-420E-A901-F4DF5F165703.jpeg

Photo: Somewhere between Merredin and Menzies. The bush is my best solitude.

 

“The more ways we have to connect, the more many of us seem desperate to unplug.” 
Pico Iyer

There Are Moments

I gather myself in this place
where the quiet examines me,
knowing that I yearn for it
as a lover yearns for completion,
even so, I avert myself at times
from the uncomfortable rawness of
the self intimacy of such knowing,
preferring to skirt the edges
below the mask so worn,
and yet, there are moments,
fleeting, like the pause of a breath,
within which an elusive thought
awakens my soul.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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January 13, 2020 · 3:53 pm

To That Place Again – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly Challenge – Subtraction

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Photo: beliefnet.com

 

“God is not found in the soul by adding anything but by a process of subtraction.”  Meister Eckhart

 

To That Place Again

How many valleys and ravines have been
that perfect sense of standing on the edge
seeking subtraction by addition,
rather than simply surrendering
the me of me for the real me,
unravelling the complexity
of my false true self,
offering substitutes two sizes down,
placating the demons of acceptance,
rummaging the garbage of life
for hollow platitudes,
a reductio ad absurdum
that returns me unfulfilled
to that place again
of self emptying towards
onement.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com.

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December 26, 2019 · 2:54 pm

The One Called Love – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

RDP – Spiritual

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Photo: looking south-west from Kata Tjuta NT

 

“Religion is for people who’re afraid of going to hell. Spirituality is for those who’ve already been there.”  Vine Deloria Jnr.

 

The One Called Love

Where the shadows shift slowly
and the wind whispers a language
of its own unknown to human ears,
and dust takes on a life of meaning
as it stirs and lifts,
the residue of centuries
residing in all the corners,
while in the quiet
a still small voice,
the one called love,
waiting to be heard.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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November 24, 2019 · 2:34 pm

The Unknowing – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

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Photo: videoblocks.com

 

“Until we accept the fact that life itself is founded in mystery, we shall learn nothing.”  Henry Miller

The Unknowing

Knowing
that one doesn’t know
is the most profound moment,
like seeing through a window,
not to the other side
so much as to see
what was not seen before,
a complete unknowing of
everything and a turning
to the inner compass
awaiting stillness.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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October 2, 2019 · 4:32 pm

The Real Food – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

dVerse Poets – Poetics – Food

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Photo: truthinsideofyou.com

 

“I’ve begun to realise that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all of its own.”  Chaim Potok

 

The Real Food

Such a sumptuous feast
with food to die for,
true nurture for the body
is gift too for the soul,
inseparable elements,
but, even so
the real food that nurtures
is quite something else,
the presence of absence,
a stillness of silence
an inactive being
that enables me whole.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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