Category Archives: politics

May 20, 2021 · 3:18 pm

Think About It – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Image: found at the liberaldictionary.com

“We like to be deceived.” Blaise Paschal

Think About It

Stop and think about this moment,
it was a moment until we spoke it,
and then it became something else,
something the mind distorts by way
of acceptance of a perception as real,
the beginning of a pathway to a
meaning that is tenuously held along
narrow horizons awaiting a truth which 
will comfort us towards a blithe lie,
entangled in an iteration of deception
that seeks to seduce us with its
quasi-mythical values which
disempower, just as they seem to 
empower us, O what fools we are
to consume the myopia of dystopic 
shadows.

Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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May 1, 2021 · 2:10 pm

Does It Always Have To Be? – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly Challenge – Peripheral

Photo: found at dollarsandsense.sg

“In any marginalised community, whether people identify themselves or not affects us all.” Ani DiFranco

Does It Always Have To Be?

Does it always have to be,
that there is an inner and
then a fringe dissociated,
yet desiring to be included,
unable to make the cut,
discounted, excluded, kept
in view to taunt with visions
of what they could have and
be, a group that is worth the
jealousy it presumes and the 
power it assumes that people
are but pawns to exploit and
money is the breath of life
exclusive to the few, an
ephemeral intimacy to 
worship and adore while 
standing on the sorrows of
so many.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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April 26, 2021 · 2:28 pm

The Trees Need Pruning – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: found at northescambia.com showing citrus canker.

“The trees which are pruned, watered and nurtured by caring hands bear the greatest fruits; it is the same with people.” Bryant McGill

The Trees Need Pruning

Who sets the rules,
how do we renegotiate the public space,
will trust ever re-emerge past the deep
suspicion that has been birthed in us,
formed by the canker of the rotting fruit
of moral crises, whose pith is obscene 
resistance to justice and the disturbing 
mnemonic of the slaughterhouses of
power, we have been here before, 
but now, more than ever, the trees 
need pruning.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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April 18, 2021 · 3:25 pm

A Time Is Coming – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: Sarah Richter Art, pixabay.com

“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” George Orwell

A Time Is Coming

The goose of innocence was raped by the proper gander
of importunate lies hidden openly in limpid eyes like
dark lakes of evil on which deceit so carefully floats
like lilies of affirmation with scent of something
foreboding, a sickly sweetness like rotting figs, the
triumph of tyranny over humanity in every generation,
until the heat of tyranny raises resistance and a time 
when the goose is no longer victim.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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January 28, 2021 · 1:38 pm

Professional Liars – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly Challenge – Threes

Vj has invited us to succinctly write in threes, so either three words, or three lines of three words.

Photo: thenewdaily.com.au

“Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.” Nikita Khrushchev

Professional Liars

Politicians,
disingenuous
liars.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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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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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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