Category Archives: philosophy

February 9, 2023 · 2:13 pm

My Niggle – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Image by holdendrils from Pixabay 

“The political masquerade of Scientism is killing science.” Thomas P. Seager 

My Niggle

I'm confident that the golden rule is universal,
that's meta, a lingua franca so to speak,
and there are other values and principles 
common across the world like
good manners and non-harming.
It would be true to say that, thankfully,
religion continues to be positively deconstructed,
and folklores have been successfully mined
for nuggets of valuable experience,
while science has blossomed,
bearing much fruit for its labour.
But there's a niggle,
I detect a small dark shadow of ism at its edge,
a fundamentalism lurks in the labs,
wanting to preach like some temperance preacher
about the evils of the seven deadly sins
which prevent us from peak health, 
longer living, and productivity,
salvation by economics.
All doubters (who are true scientists, and theologians)
will be put to shame,
guilty sinners no less,
but I don't need your sermons,
just give me the science.


Copyright 2023 ©Paul Vincent Cannon 
All Rights Reserved ®️

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February 4, 2023 · 2:38 pm

Ideas – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

“People need to stop accepting the evidence of reality, and start questioning it.” Lionel Suggs

Ideas

Ideas,
we all have them,
but are they true?
More importantly,
Do they need to be true or, 
do they need to be real?
I prefer them to be real
because, if they're true,
well, are they true or are 
they your truth against mine?
But if they're real,
well, then they're true,
true for me,
not empirically true,
or philosophically narrow,
just understood,
that's the beauty,
the mystery of it all,
and that's how I like it.


Copyright 2023 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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January 23, 2023 · 3:10 pm

The Eyes Have It – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: found on pinterest.com

“I’m convinced we all are voyeurs.” David Lynch 


The Eyes Have It 

The eyes see
but the heart and mind battle interpretations,
setting agendas
making perceptions;
on any one day something, anything
might repeat never to be received the same,
always a turmoil of filters and contexts,
what once might be sublime
at a turn in time might just be ordinary,
after all, objectified life is still subjective
like when a glimpse of intimate longing occurs -
is it so simple and mundane, innocent,
a nothing
an invitation to memory,
perhaps a reminder (to buy some roses)?
The eye sees,
the mind remembers,
the heart plays its hand as it will.


Copyright 2023 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All rights Reserved ®️

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December 20, 2022 · 1:48 pm

To Unfold – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

“Change and growth is so painful. But it’s so necessary for us to evolve.” Sarah McLachlan

To Unfold

People talk about revolution all the time
as if they mean change,
but revolution only means to be constantly
turning, constantly folding back to a past,
some golden age, good times, all those
flawed memories of an edenic paradise
as paradigm. 

Revolving is about going 
round and round and round. 
Some think that that is the change,
but it is ever the same,
whereas to evolve is to unfold,
a mighty leap forward from past
beginnings, moving into  a
relative unknown,
towards transformation.




Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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December 18, 2022 · 3:33 pm

Life Is Paradox – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

“Every experience is a paradox in that it means to be absolute , and yet is relative ….” T.S. Eliot

Life Is Paradox

The Greeks were all 'so let's deduce'
always they were thinking,
taking positions,
offering steps,
savouring ideas,
talking concretely,
and then going around again
and again, until they came to the how,
yet always dead ending
in a reductio ad absurdum,
racing straight past the house of feeling,
jilting Sophia,
never understanding paradox,
constructing lives without bends,
erasing corners and holes,
sweating thoughts,
resisting feeling,
forgetting that life is in the margins.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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December 12, 2022 · 3:17 pm

There, In The Corner – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

“If we are able to see our own shadow and can bear knowing about it, then a small part of the problem has been solved.” Carl Jung

There, In The Corner

In the most darkest silence,
when all is perfectly still
and nothing cares to stir,
I set my mind to free-range
for a wander of my hidden self,
a revealing place of tropes and troves
beyond the dreams of famous writers,
treasures of carefully filed vignettes,
confessions of denial,
secret gardens,
Crimes and sorrows,
it has the lot,
and there in the corner in the
haloed light of night's demise,
I see a shade of shadow
playing at my edges.


Copyright 22 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
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December 11, 2022 · 3:11 pm

There Are Attempts – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

“Energy and motion made visible memories arrested in space.” Jackson Pollock

There Are Attempts

I want to say that there's no neutral ground,
there are attempts to describe possibilities,
are thoughts remotely possible in feelings,
are feelings even possible in thoughts?

There are attempts to describe possibilities,
but who can be sure of that kind of dream,
are feelings even possible within thoughts,
who is even aware of the ghost of such things?

But who can be sure of that kind of dream
where ideas just roll into each other blindly,
who is even aware of the ghost of such things,
abstractions that remain affectively open?

Where ideas just roll into each other blindly,
are thoughts remotely possible in feelings,
abstractions that remain affectively open?
I want to say that there's no neutral ground.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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May 30, 2022 · 2:39 pm

Armchair Complacency – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: Paris, May 1968, independent.co.uk

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” Martin Luther King Jr.

Armchair Complacency

Why do I feel so alone in the world,
have all the revolutionaries retired,
how is it that armchairs are all the rage
and ideas have fallen to banal repetition?

Have all the revolutionaries retired,
it seems that all have surrendered
and ideas have fallen to banal repetition,
where exists the praxis of upheaval?

It seems that all have surrendered
to the algorithm of complacency,
where exists the praxis of upheaval,
how did we become chained to lies?

To the algorithm of complacency,
how is that armchairs are all the rage,
how did we become chained to lies,
why do I feel so alone in the world?


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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May 10, 2022 · 3:20 pm

Only Love Passes This Way Twice – Prosery by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Merril is hosting Prosery (144 words) with an invitation to use a line from the poem ‘May Day” by Sara Teasdale: the line is – “For how can I be sure I shall see again The world on the first of May.”

dVerse Poets – Prosery – Sara Teasdale and May

Photo: the Hardy Inlet, Augusta.

“The thing about roads is that you happen upon them again.” Jill Santopolo

Only Love Passes This Way Twice

They say that a river doesn't pass twice, cannot be touched twice, only flows by once in its purest self, which is not its purest self, except for the sake of that moment in which it is truly one, never to be one in the same way again. Everything is emerging while yet everything is passing. This is, perhaps, well beyond our capacity to know, but yet it is in our capacity to feel.

And yet, this is always so difficult. For how can I be sure I shall see again the world on the first of May, when surely, like water, it shall not pass this way again? It will not be. In its purity it cannot be, as I cannot be but once. Unlike love, which is eternally, perpetually, proposing new ways to us, courting our attention as it continually passes by.



Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
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April 23, 2022 · 3:41 pm

The Cost Of Leaving – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: found on pinterest.com

“If you don’t control your mind, someone else will.” John Allston 

The Cost Of Leaving

The cost of leaving the defined mundane reality,
that entrapment of manufactured truth comfort,
taking time to see how anaesthetised we are,
noticing how we are so easily formed in a bubble.

That entrapment of manufactured truth comfort
with out willing surrender to the thought police,
noticing how we are so easily formed in a bubble,
the discovery that there is life beyond the machine.

With our willing surrender to the thought police,
we join the herd of sameness, lowing compliance,
the discovery that there is life beyond the machine
is an emancipation, a spark of hope in the darkness.

We join the herd of sameness, lowing compliance,
taking time to see how anaesthetised we are,
is an emancipation, a spark of hope in the darkness,
the cost of leaving the defined mundane reality.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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