Category Archives: mindfulness

June 26, 2020 · 2:33 pm

Other Voices – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Bjorn at dVerse is hosting Open Link Night with an invitation to post a poem of our choice. dVerse Poets

Photo: unsplash.com

“How silently the heart pivots on its hinge.” Jane Hirshfield

Other Voices

The house was not just any house,
it was of me and I of it,
intimacy was every sunken board,
chip and crack of age, and
today for the umpteenth time
the back door squeaked in
greeting at days end,
perhaps that my mind was weary,
and the torture too hard to bear,
that I took the cannister and oiled
that squeak to a silence bare,
peace reigned in all but heart,
I missed that voice,
disturber of life,
provocative spirit,
it made me think.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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June 19, 2020 · 2:09 pm

This Moment – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Frank at dVerse is hosting Meet The Bar and has invited us to write a poem in the vogue of ‘imagism’ (e.g. Pound, Williams and etc.). dVerse Poets

Photo: pixabay.com

“Our world is at the crossroads.” LL COOL J

This Moment

This moment is the moment,
and nothing of surprise,
to be in this space,
this place we dread,
its tensioned uncertainty,
this moment of burdens
unreleased and pressing
on conscience everywhere,
this moment of crossroads
an eon chancing change
after many trials,
this moment in my eye is
a twinkling of goodness,
the moment of all moments,
is this moment now.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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June 18, 2020 · 1:52 pm

I Might Not Have – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly Challenge – Pause

Video: A creek in Mundaring.

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” Lao Tze

I Might Not Have

I might not have,
urgency possessed me,
my veins electric,
the hands of time at my throat,
unconscious of everything,
until the running water
captured my heart's ears,
I touched the red gum
and felt its skin,
a soft roughness
feathered me,
I took a draft of musk air,
right down to my beginning,
and paused for life,
I might not have.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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June 17, 2020 · 1:08 pm

The Sheer Exhaustion – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Anmol at dVerse has invited us to write a poem about Pride – LGBQTI. dVerse Poets

Photo: http://www.noircity.com Still from the series Babylon Berlin set during the heady days of the Weimar Republic, showing Severija Janusauskaite playing the cabaret artist Svetlana Sorokina. The series acknowledges the tension of the hedonism bewteen the wars, but also that the Republic acknowledged equality between men and women and sought to diminish traditional gendered roles.

“I feel like my body is in a waiting room.” Aimee Herman

The Sheer Exhaustion

The sheer exhaustion of externalities
enshrined in binary kitsch,
a black and white vaudeville,
pastiche of indoctrination,
a schema for knowing precisely 
where to park your genitals
and how to deport them,
cover them, name them
as if they were you,
betraying the fluid heart
and a free mind,
erasing true self,
denying the verb to be
in favour of determination
and benchmarked judgements
of approval.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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June 16, 2020 · 2:16 pm

The Many One – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Mish at dVerse has invited us to write a quadrille (44 words) using the word drum. dVerse Poets

Photo: reviewjournal.com

“You can’t make a mistake when you improvise.” Patti Smith

The Many One

The steady predictable rhythm,
rat, tat, tat, tat,
of that single snare drum
unleashed our 
arhythmical froward,
we went into the street,
with pans, tins and bins
and we beat a revolution,
ba-dum, dum, tat, boom,
one tune, many beats
the difference of one.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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June 15, 2020 · 2:43 pm

Unlocking – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: street-trip.com

“It’s very important to know the neighbour next door and the person down the street and the people in another race.” Maya Angelou

Unlocking

How to navigate this hermetic cul-de-sac,
unitary cells of teflon,
the loneliness of locked doors,
alienated minus-community
hungry for real connection,
desiring wholeness, mutuality, 
to be understood,
having purpose without bond,
giving and receiving,
a storied adventure,
taking patient time,
unlocking our fears,
opening the elements of our lives,
living the commons,
connecting,
changing,
whole.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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June 2, 2020 · 3:23 pm

Into The Heart – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: http://www.thealliancetx.org

Linda at dVerse has invited us to write a quadrille (44 words) using the word slip.

dVerse Poets – Quadrille – Slip

"Pit race against race, religion against religion, 
prejudice against prejudice. Divide and conquer! 
We must no let that happen here."  Eleanor Roosevelt

Into The Heart

All the world's an ideology
a race of humans never won,
we wear a mask of society,
eschew our common-unity,
too much in our ego self,
too little for the common good,
let's slip into something
more comfortable,
let's slip into the heart.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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May 27, 2020 · 4:15 pm

There Was A Room – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

dVerse Poets – Poetics – Make Me Some Room

Laura at dVerse has invited us to write about a room or rooms in whatever manner.

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Image: wakeup-world.com

 

“I am not absent-minded.  It is the presence of mind that makes me unaware of everything else.”  G.K. Chesterton

There Was A Room

Once,
I had memories of an outside world
that I never left, but never lived
since the solace of solitude
there was another place,
my room within a room,
I vaguely remember,
was it large or small,
attic or other?
To know is never important
whether the room was in me
or I in the room,
there was a room.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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May 26, 2020 · 4:02 pm

Pretending – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Fake-People-Real-Fraud

Photo: thegoodmenproject.com

 

“There is a price to pay for speaking the truth. There is a bigger price for living a lie.”   Cornel West

Pretending

There are some,
but few lines are straight,
we are two uneven halves,
and the wind whips nature
into new maps as rivers
carve bends that even turn
in on themselves while
the relentless ocean
ever wastes itself on
shoreline rocks,
but we become illusion
to satisfy demands,
we straighten lines and bends
offering opinions
that want to be heard,
presenting faces that
want to be seen,
living a deception of ourselves,
pretending to believe in the
straightness of lines.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Note: The Japanese have a word that describes those who pretend to believe something to suit society – Tatemae

Paul, pvcann.com.

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May 21, 2020 · 4:29 pm

What If – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly Challenge – Circling

Image-Rut

Photo: lifeoffbalance.com

 

“The only difference between a rut and a grave are the dimensions.”  Ellen Glasgow

What If

Drifting
along this narrow deja vu,
once again I pass you,
in familiar places
of textured prescription,
ever circling the interment
of this rutted trench,
the padre’s whisper
haunting the way,
as we skate this
tired path,
what if
we stepped out,
out of this grave
and into the brave
unprescribed geometry.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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