Category Archives: mindfulness

July 21, 2021 · 2:54 pm

You Cannot – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Art work: found at notbuyinganything.blogspot.com

“The new slavery is consumerism.” Bryant McGill

You Cannot

You cannot make a silk purse from the isms of life
though many have tried and succeeded for a time,
wrapping them in beautiful magnetic attraction,
only to reveal an emptiness of meaning as crisis.

Though many have tried and succeeded for a time,
too soon the facade faded to its skeletal menace
only to reveal an emptiness of meaning as crisis,
the very dust we are returning to laughs at our surmise.

Too soon the facade faded to its skeletal menace,
a harbour of jaundiced, unrepentant misery,
the very dust we are returning to laughs at our surmise,
thinking we could trust the gratuitous laminate-life.

A harbour of jaundiced, unrepentant misery,
wrapping them in beautiful magnetic attraction,
thinking we could trust the gratuitous laminate-life,
you cannot make a silk purse from the isms of life.


Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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July 14, 2021 · 1:29 pm

Garden Song – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse guest host Claudia has invited us to write about a garden.

dVerse Poets – Poetics – Garden(ing)

Photo: segment of our garden at Augusta.

“When the world wearies and society fails to satisfy, there is always the garden.” Minnie Aumonier

Garden Song

There's a cosmos in reach of my aching
touch of skin and veins, beneath my feet
emotion runs and wriggles, and it dwells 
within as I inhale its many spices in unison
with the palette that captures my eyes, 
feeding my senses with songs of colour 
and rhythmic joy, opening me to each
movement of this wondrous melody of
all that flies and calls, great or small, 
calling me to stop, slow down, and sip 
the wine of its simple complexity.


Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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July 8, 2021 · 2:05 pm

Only Ever – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: sujuphoto pixabay.com

“All real living is meeting.” Martin Buber

Only Ever

What did you notice around you today,
and what stirred within you as you noticed?
Perhaps a deficit occurred, knowing what
was missed between the noticing not 
noticing, but isn't that just part of it all, 
part of the awareness of the whole, of self,
the knowingness of the way we are, the 
way life is, just so, knowing that the 
knowing is incomplete is surely the good
part, we can never know until we know
through other, another, and not just 
ourselves, we are only ever ourselves
in the presence of other, but then, I'm 
sure you noticed that long ago.


Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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June 30, 2021 · 3:26 pm

Joy Lined – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: Lesmurdie Brook, Mundy Regional Park

“The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.” Rachel Carson

Joy Lined

Ten thousand leaves of joy 
lined the avenues of my mind 
as I invented trails off-topic, 
fissures filled with raptures
of stillness in sideways journeys,
along grassy lanes that were far
away from straightened routines
common to days of unseen
wonder; here, now, the simplest
encounters are life-giving pathways.


Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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June 25, 2021 · 1:43 pm

Close By – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: Cape to Cape trail just south of Ellensbrook

“Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary.” Rachel Carson

Close By

I saw you once,
in that far off place of my youth,
where I felt I knew you in my 
mother's shadow by the basilica,
but soon you faded like yellowing
wallpaper in a dark back room,
and then you were gone and I was
unanchored in the storms as I 
searched museums and breviaries,
only to find you close by, hidden
in dragonflies and thistles down
uneven tracks, alongside 
decomposing logs where
wattles breathe gladness.


Copyright 2021 © Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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June 23, 2021 · 2:17 pm

Healing – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: a section of jarrah forest post controlled burn in the Beelu National, Park Mundaring.

Since the 2019/2020 national fire disaster debate has focussed on a number of positive possibilities for better fire control, especially Indigenous Cultural Fire methods which are cool fires. One of the beliefs around Cultural Fire is its capacity to be a healing process, much like the North American Indigenous belief that fire is healing.

“Cultural fire means everything. It means healing Country and when you heal Country you heal people.” Wurundjeri Elder – Dave Wandin

Healing

Blackened trunks of last year's controlled burn,
the ravages of heat intense to the sensitive eye,
some have fallen while others are resisting change,

∼ some have survived to show the tale of life ∽

Of fragile, selfless community transforming together,
how green vibrantly shines and wouldn't be the same
without the healing narrative of blackened trunks.


Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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June 8, 2021 · 2:01 pm

Leaving Regret – prose by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Merril is hosting Prosery (up tp 144 words) using a line from the poem ‘A Map to The Next World.’ by Jo Harjo

dVerse Poets – Prosery

The line is: “Crucial to finding the way is this: there is no beginning or end.”

Photo: found at huffpost.com

“If you aren’t in the moment, you are either looking forward to uncertainty, or back to pain and regret.” Jim Carrey

Leaving Regret 

Regret, that yearning to grasp at something that slipped away, some long buried treasure 
like a skill or passion, a friendship, an opportunity, the "only if I'd" .... the voice 
that says you could have done that, you would have been set for life, if only you had or 
hadn't, whatever that may mean.

So strange that we live in anxious competition for the perfect life and yet, ironically, 
risk missing life altogether. The past is a mixture of joy and sorrow, but either way it 
can hold us prisoner, while the future is always possible, yet for some, full of worry. 
Life for me is circular, and in a circular world crucial to finding the way is this: there 
is no beginning or end, life is not a race along linear lines of achievement or loss, there
is no pennant only life itself.

Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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June 7, 2021 · 2:38 pm

Some Say – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: found on conferencecall.co.uk

“The difference between technology and slavery is that the salves are fully aware that hey are not free.” Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Some Say

Some say it occurs in countless forms unimaginable,
the extension of the mind to an attention of everything,
an exponential blossoming deficit of all as nothing,
s/he grandstanding on every rotunda platform of like.

The extension of the mind to an attention of everything,
ephemeral pathologies for the terminally oriented world,
s/he grandstanding on every rotunda platform of like,
an absurd macabre darkly portending trite delights.

Ephemeral pathologies for the terminally oriented world,
distractions of division to appease the mindlessness,
an absurd macabre darkly portending trite delights,
offerings of cheap apologetics dumbing downwards.

Distractions of division to appease the mindlessness,
and exponential blossoming deficit of all as nothing,
offerings of cheap apologetics dumbing downwards,
some say it occurs in countless forms unimaginable. 

Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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June 5, 2021 · 1:29 pm

The Choice – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo by Jan Tinneberg on Unsplash

“The still point of the turning world. Neither from nor towards, neither arrest nor movement ….” T.S. Eliot

The Choice

If I stand here,
where do I stand when this
place is between one thing and another,
if the choice is between two sources of
happiness can I be happy between or,
must I choose the not between and,
having chosen, will I be filled with regret,
being accused by that not chosen or,
will I take refuge in the moment?

Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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May 24, 2021 · 3:19 pm

Listen To The Bush – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: Beelu National Park: a winding trail through quiet bushland.

“I can enjoy society in a room; but out of doors, Nature is company enough for me.” William Hazlitt

Listen To The Bush

It winds,
unlike a clock,
an earthly tidal in and around 
in a contemplative weave of
quietude, where we un-know 
the past and release the future 
of fear and anxiety, embracing 
an apocalyptic of warning with
understanding that comes only
from deep listening with reciprocal 
hearing that leads to action in the
most simple ways as only friends
are wont to do.

Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

27 Comments

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