Category Archives: politics

January 17, 2021 · 1:38 pm

Suddenly The Kitchen Was A Zoo – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: still from the original Jumanji movie – monkeys in the kitchen scene – found at hookedonhouses.net

“In cooking you’ve got to have a what-the-hell attitude.” Julia Child

Suddenly The Kitchen Was A Zoo

Suddenly the kitchen was a zoo,
salamanders and elephants everywhere,
rolling and roiling in a raucous ruckus
scrambling to lick the laden spoon.

Salamanders and elephants everywhere,
the centre island no longer a refuge,
scrambling to lick the laden spoon,
too many cooks spoiling the moment.

The centre island no longer a refuge,
flour in the air, the oven on fire,
too many cooks spoiling the moment,
just trying to feed the monkeys.

Flour in the air, the oven on fire,
rolling and roiling in a raucous ruckus
just trying to feed the monkeys,
suddenly the kitchen was a zoo.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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October 13, 2020 · 3:16 pm

So Tricky (Really) – prose by Paul Vincent Cannon

Kim at dVerse is hosting Prosery, and she has given us a D.H. Lawrence line – “We look at him through the wrong end of the long telescope of time.” from his poem ‘Hummingbird.’ dVerse Poets – Prosery – Telescope of Time

Photo: ya-native.com Wounded Knee protest 1973

“I think we ought to move tanks, the whole goddamned thing. Put a division in there, if necessary ….” Richard Nixon

So Tricky (Really)

Even though we look at him through the wrong end of the telescope of time doesn’t change the simple fact that he is still the same. Making him smaller doesn’t make him any less. And time is not elastic enough to change the facts, you can’t wallpaper over the truth, no matter how hard you try. No amount of forgiveness will enable forgetting. I know that those who’ve come after him have certainly made him look better, but really he’s not. To say one thing and do another, to promise what you know you will never do, never want to do, in spite of the innocent lives you trammelled, never even cared about. And for what, the vainglory of just maybe being a hero? The plumbers let you down? That wasn’t the real issue. Your smallness was your need to have power.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

The litany of Wounded Knee, Kent State, Vietnam, Cambodia, Watergate ….

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September 30, 2020 · 3:44 pm

The Hollow Fruit – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: strangesounds.com

“Power is actualised only when word and deed have not parted company.” Hannah Arendt 

The Hollow Fruit

I fertilised my mind and
pruned my soul with 
eager waiting as the fruit
of life began to ripen with 
anticipation, and soon I 
placed the melon, all glossy
and firm, on my table for 
sacrifice, and I took my 
knife and sliced it open,
only to find that it was 
devoid of seed and lacking
in good fruit, a false promise
and a sterile facade of all that
I'd hoped, perhaps imagined,
that would be mine, and I 
felt empty inside.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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September 25, 2020 · 3:20 pm

Dear Leaders – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Grace at dVerse is hosting Meeting the Bar, and the theme we are invited to write about is Protest. dVerse Poets – Meeting the Bar – Protest Poetry

Photo: ocjndaily.com Ocean City, New Jersey, a protest in response to the murder of George Floyd.

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” Elie Wiesel 

Dear Leaders

There is no life in you,
you who are nothing more
than a husk blowing in the 
winds of rebellion,
I see your guns and gas
uniformed in fear of decency as
you sneer at the sensitivities of
ordinary people concerned for
some semblance of democracy
midst the pious, honeyed corruption
you pedal to steal the dreams of
our children as you piss in our waters
and foul our fields with your 
poisonous rhetoric so religiously
flavoured as to make God vomit,
while you continue to kill your 
own as if blood stains down your
highways is some note of triumph
for the totems you bend to in your 
spineless dereliction of humanity.
You can kill my body but you will
never kill my enduring spirit that
is me, we, together naming your
legacy of fetid lies and murder,
and we will make a road of integrity
to pass right over you without 
memorial or reward save for some
flowers to mark the hollow graves
that you are.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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Filed under community, Economics, Free Verse, injustice, justice, life, philosophy, poem, politics, poverty, protest, quote, Racism

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September 18, 2020 · 3:13 pm

Mind The Gap – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: borgenmagazine.com. A scene from India, but could be from many countries.

“An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.” Plutarch

Mind The Gap

Herald of bad tidings,
grimy sloth, slippery 
grease slime money bag
of hypocrisy and venality
belonging to that 
self-impregnating
cabalistic horde who sold
their souls while like dogs
in heat for the lusted
promise of one more 
crooked dollar to feverishly 
snatch from the hope of
lives devalued, being left
to deconstruct their love
in abject, lonely missery
as if they were deserving
of a punishment so severe
for the crime of being born.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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September 13, 2020 · 3:50 pm

Anonymous Bull Recipe – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Image: istockphoto.com Just how stupid are we?

The trouble with conspiracies is that they rot internally.” Robert A. Heinlein

Anonymous Bull Recipe

Imagine
taking the faeces of a bull,
two wings of a fairy,
the hoof of a unicorn,
one ancient rams horn,
a dash of paranoia,
lashings of white lies to taste,
a garnish of manson and jones,
top with the letter Q and, 
with hammer, spoon and 
crackpot, forge a technicolour 
nightmare, a vile syrup,
as vaccination against
imagination for a better world.
Inject a host and watch it spew
the most indredulous
unhinged tripe.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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September 7, 2020 · 2:54 pm

Shining – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: found on Pinterest – street protest.

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” Banksy

Shining 

The wind pushes down
making waves with little white peaks
shining in the midst of the grey deep,
beacons of a stirring, rolling freely,
carrying life in their awake
where fish care to fly,
just like young prophets
who call down every street with
words of freedom pressing down,
making waves, shining in their 
deep awake, calling us to fly.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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August 21, 2020 · 3:08 pm

Shouting Underwater – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Linda at dVerse is hosting Open Link Night where ewe are invited to post a poem of choice. dVerse Poets – Open Link Night

Photo: http://www.stockunlimited.com

“Any government that places profit before people is pure evil.” Suzy Kassem 

Shouting Underwater

Those babble mouths,
always a crooked apologia for
crack cocaine capitalism's
endemic asset stripping
dealers who're always
powdering their own noses,
yet always the stench of decay
seeps through everywhere,
gaslighting the streets,
curbing panaceas
left, right and centre,
and I feel as if I'm
on fire and shouting
underwater.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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August 17, 2020 · 2:25 pm

Necromania – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: yesofcorsa.com

“You’re not to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.” Malcom X

Necromania

The dark birds circle 
in this inevitable 
scape of dryness where
parched promises rasp
through the heavy air,
they look so inviting these
mirages of ice-cream hope
in this land of burning lies
and benzine egos cradled
with tinder and matches
in a time of necropolitics
where we all become 
martyrs on a pyre of
their vainglory.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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August 16, 2020 · 3:02 pm

Something’s Off – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: publicdomainpictures.net

“Instead of politicians, let the monkeys govern the countries; at least they will steal only the bananas!” Mehmet Murat Ildan

Something's Off

It's about the money but the money's 
just a symptom of what lies rotting at 
the core of the apple and no amount of 
spin will sweeten that fruit or make 
fresh that which is fermented and still
we force ourselves to believe it and 
consume it as if it is ambrosia out of 
this world and soon the rot will mould
and consume itself making it even 
harder to swallow but until we stop
believing in the emperor's decaying 
core we will never taste the promised
land.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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