Category Archives: politics

May 31, 2020 · 4:31 pm

Desperation – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: goodyfeed.com This was a peaceful protest in Minneapolis.


"Violence only begets violence."  Ilhan Omar 

Desperation

Of course,
Anger must out,
an expression of grief,
so black and blue and
the smell of death is electric,
if you open the wound you
expose the bones of desperation
sick with the cancer of misery,
you can feel the divisions,
and like cornered strays,
retaliation is the last vestige
of self-respect, survival, 
how far have we really come?
What is the point of celebrating 
progress if we can't love our neighbour?

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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May 30, 2020 · 2:14 pm

No One Could Hear Me – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: bbc.com
"A Riot is the language of the unheard." 

No One Could Hear Me

I dreamt a torrid dream,
that I was in a grand hall
and no one could hear me speak,
but everyone laughed at me,
pushed and shoved me,
took my coat,
punched and kicked,
spat at me, 
robbed me of everything
even my dignity,
I called for help,
no one came, 
they jeered it was my place,
to accept their fate for me,
so, I set fire to a chair and
burned the hall to the ground,
perhaps you can hear me now?

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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May 16, 2020 · 5:25 pm

We Forgot – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

 

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Photo: http://www.newsclick.in

 

“We abuse the land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong we may begin to use it with love and respect.”  Aldo Leopold

We Forgot

The words dissembled before me,
tumbling down,
my mouth moving,
searching for meaning,
glory in failure,
we forgot beauty,
running after fantasy
coated in soft-tongued speeches,
fetid, like an open sewer
wrapped in a bloody tricolour,
the bunting of martyrs,
fugitives of ourselves
on the parapets of love.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

 

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May 3, 2020 · 3:01 pm

Goons – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

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Photo: thesun.co.uk   Some of the protesters in Michigan last week, these militia members claimed to be present and armed to keep the peace. Beggars belief. Freud said something about this behaviour.

 

“I don’t believe gun owners have rights.”  Sarah Brady

Goons

A man with a gun is
not necessarily a man
when he hides behind
coercive death,
dressed in god drag,
dangled with shibboleths,
like talismans,
voicing sulfur,
selling slogans of
repressed doubt,
choking on rancid,
illiterate apocalyptic,
Caterwauling goons
with no resemblance to
a crown of thorns.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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April 21, 2020 · 2:03 pm

Politician Bust – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

dVerse Poets – Quadrille

Mish at dVerse has invited us to write a quadrille (44 words) on the word flush.

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Photo: pixabay.com

 

“I mean maybe I was holding all the aces, but what was the game?”   Joan Didion

Politician Bust

His mood high as
he strode the hall
ready to ace the gaggle,
playing his cards close,
the microphones invaded
and he read his hand,
a frown creasing his face,
nothing was straight,
nothing was flush,
his game was a bust,
police sirens wailing.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

The toilet paper square for Mish at dVerse

 

Paul, pvcann.com

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March 31, 2020 · 4:14 pm

Mythos -a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

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Image: dreamstime.com

 

“In order to stay relevant, you have to stay open to new trends and keep educating yourself. You have to keep evolving.”  Natalie Massenet

Mythos

We speak out of one world
the mythos of our dramatized lives,
all and one speaking differently,
exhausting ourselves to be
refashioned as relevant,
we feel so free, but are we in a
sense just falling through the
habitual lines of our self-limitations,
failing to be curious about each other,
entering the skeletal ruins of our
beliefs, knowing that the thing
is not a thing until it is known
by love.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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March 30, 2020 · 3:24 pm

I Sang My Exile – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

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Image: lifehacker.com.au

 

“Let us put it generally: if a regime is immoral, its subjects are free from all Obligations to it.”  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I Sang My Exile

I didn’t understand the beginning
let alone the disappointing ending
that never came past my mind,
an exit wound of bridges collapsed
in rivers of impenetrable ink
coursing primitive territories
where I walked my concerns
and talked my shortcomings,
feeding off subcultures,
those cults of dark rebellion
that slither in alleys
to light the way,
it was there that I
sang my exile.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com.

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March 11, 2020 · 12:54 pm

Of Every Bastard Politician – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

dVerse Poets – Poetics – Taboo

Amaya at dVerse has invited us to write a poem considering the topic taboo!

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Photo: deptfordcinema.org

 

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”  Thomas Jefferson

Of Every Bastard Politician

How I desire compassion
O how I talk of love,
I would rend the heavens for
orphans and widows,
downtrodden people turned
into beasts of no consequence,
O, but lust!
My jaw slackens,
saliva glistens my jaw,
heart racing,
as I waking dream
the mollusks and shells of
keelhauling, the ropes of death,
the bullets of ebbing breath,
blood coursing my hands,
of every bastard politician.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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February 24, 2020 · 3:02 pm

Making Waffle – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Word of the Day – Waffle

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Photo: pm.gov.au

 

“Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature made them.”  Bertrand Russell 

 

Making Waffle

The hubris riddled party hack
wandered the vaulted halls as
if he owned them,
sniffing at intrusions,
throwing disdain at the press,
ignoring widows and orphans,
hating on foreigners,
making excuses for the inexcusable,
and feathering his nested future,
waffling to a groaning sundry
of his pointless achievements,
to the point that he was anaesthetic,
and ended in a jam.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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February 12, 2020 · 4:23 pm

Truth – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

dVerse Poetics – Black History Month

Anmol at dVerse has invited us to write a poem focussing on Black History Month.

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Photo: shutterstock.com

“I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.”  James Baldwin

Truth

I saw the branches of yesterdays tree
where hemp fibres once held the
beauty of humanity as if it were
merely wrapping paper
to be discarded rather than loved,
strange how truth is pigmented
in the mind, yet colonises the heart,
so easily betraying the lies
we facade for the sake of niceties
while denying a generation.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

25 Comments

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