Category Archives: prose

June 9, 2020 · 3:37 pm

Two Hearts – prose by Paul Vincent Cannon

Merril at dVerse has invited us to write a piece of prose using the words “We go in different directions down the imperturbable street.” by Gwendolyn Brooks.

dVerse Poets – Prosery






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“How weird it was to drive streets I knew so well. What a different perspective”  





Two Hearts





Should we go in different directions down the imperturbable street we might discover a confusion of serenity that, in fact, all is not what it seems. In my view all is chaotic fulmination, voices ringing off concrete, the air thick and potent with energy, only to be swallowed in the humous of bordered gardens as dusk ensues, waiting for dawn. In your view, all is serene and in its place, a stillness and a quiet resolve of patient ferment pervading the air. It just happens to be that we are going the same way, though in very different directions down the same street. Somewhere in the parallel journey we find the middle line without looking. There’re no surrendering views, just two trapeze artists in a shakedown in the kingdom known as middle road. Life is richer that way. Two hearts are better than eyes.





©Paul Vincent Cannon

			

	
	

		
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		May 12, 2020 · 3:21 pm	


	
The Singer Of Love Songs – prose by Paul Vincent Cannon
	

		
dVerse Poets – Prosery


Bjorn at dVerse has invited us to write a piece of prose including the line “His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream” from Maya Angelou’s ‘Caged Bird’


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Image: yogamountainstudio.com


 


“Hope is a waking dream.”  Aristotle


The Singer Of Love Songs


O the singer of love songs, his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream in the middle of a fire, in the middle of a torrent, a tumult. And there the scattered bones of love mock his impertinent hope beyond broken idols and lost moments that speak of eternal anguish. His is no ordinary voice. His hope is never quenched by that malady of darkness. He dares to speak of tomorrow as if nothing else were sure at all, that indeed, nothing else matters. His voice is clothed in a raiment of beauty that lifts the soul like one transported by an angelic choir to a joyful ether of heart, away from the mocking shadows of doubt. O the singer of love songs, his shadow shouts into light as soft caress of l’armour, desiring the world to rise in love and sing together once more.


©Paul Vincent Cannon


Paul, pvcann.com

			

	
	

		
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		April 14, 2020 · 3:31 pm	


	
There’s No Train Today – prose by Paul Vincent Cannon
	

		
dVerse Poets – Prosery


Sarah at dVerse has invited us to write a piece of prose to a max of 144 words and incorporating the line “No one left and no one came on the bare platform.” from ‘Adelstrop’ by Edward Thomas.


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Photo: Wikimedia Commons


 


“While no one can change the outcome of dementia or Alzheimer’s, with the right support you can change the journey.”  Tara Reed


 


There’s No Train Today


Diane saw the single yellow daisy and she caught herself smiling, and she drifted, recalling significant daisy moments, like the time she and David, her late husband, had walked country lanes picking flowers, carefree it seemed, and she felt a yearning though she couldn’t quite place it. It troubled her, but she let it go. Then she remembered the train station and the daisies growing at the southern end of the platform. Was that smoke she could smell? Diane looked up but no train was coming, in fact, it was unusually quiet. After a time she noticed that no one left and no one came on the bare platform. How strange. and then suddenly, a young woman appeared and Diane asked: “Where’s the train?” The young woman smiled and said “It’s okay mum, it’s Julie, I’m your daughter. There’s no train today, you’re reminiscing.”


©Paul Vincent Cannon


Paul, pvcann.com

			

	
	

		
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		March 17, 2020 · 2:04 pm	


	
Love Is There – prose by Paul Vincent Cannon
	

		
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Photo: dreamstime.com


 


“Love is an endless mystery, for it has nothing else to explain it.”  Rabindranath Tagore


 


Love Is There


I’m not sure that I can trace beginnings or endings. Once I thought I could, but now I’m not so certain. The dualities of childhood eventually and thankfully slipped away in youth, so that sharp lines and edges, defined density of colours, even surety of perception, all faded in time. To just be in the moment seemed out of reach, until the great letting go, to surrender to ebb and flow without fear or seeking reason was, in the end, the greatest of joys. Even now I don’t know why I was surprised every time love started or ended. But looking back, the question makes no sense. Starts and endings are merely endings and starts. You see love doesn’t start or end, it just is. Somehow I knew, know, that love circles, but I must trust and embody its seamless, wondrous, passionate rhythm.


 


©Paul Vincent Cannon


Paul, pvcann.com

			

	
	

		
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		February 18, 2020 · 7:28 am	


	
Falling Into You – prose by Paul Vincent Cannon
	

		
dVerse Poets – Prosery


Kim at dVerse has invited us to write a prose piece of 144 words using the line “There are moments caught between heartbeats.” from a poem by Louis MacNiece titled ‘Coda.’


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Photo: http://www.wallpaperg.com


Falling Into You


There are moments caught between heartbeats, just as in those moments of solitude when one questions the point between the inward and outward breath. Or where the water I walked in earlier today, where will it be now? As to pinpointing any definitive moment, well, there is only a kind of knowing by doing, where there arise moments between seeing and feeling. Moments when time falls away and I fall into you and we float so lightly on the energy we so effortlessly generate, lighting our world with a felt glow. for a brief moment time speeds as yet it slows, a quantum of pleasure, like salmon forging upstream, we reach that point of no return, that precipice of tipping where we rise yet descend, and descend yet rise, bathed in an inner sunset, that warm glow between heartbeats falling into you.


©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

			

	
	

		
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		January 21, 2020 · 2:24 pm	


	
Redemption Rock -prose by Paul Vincent Cannon
	

		
dVerse Poetry – Prosery – The Rock Cries Out


Frank at dVerse has invited us to take the line “The rock cries out to us today, You may stand upon me, but do not hide your face.” and use in for a prose piece of 144 words.


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Photo: granite outcrop at Billyacatting with a Sheoak making good with a crevice.


 


“The rock cries out to us today, You may stand upon me, but do not hide your face.”  Maya Angelou


Redemption Rock


We behaved as tourists, observing, consuming, enjoying, but never once holding a sense of belonging or offering something resembling connection even though that space so clearly cried out for it. Now that the tide is turning and ancient forms are slowly taking their leave, we face a new, daunting prospect. Too late to redress the past of our blithe and callow turning away. Indeed, we are no longer at our leisure, no longer possessed of our sure identity, positing who we are and what we might do as if there were no words of opposition or external accountabilities. Gone are our hermetically sealed worlds. We stand at the threshold forced to face ourselves, and even the rock cries out to us today, You may stand upon me, but do not hide your face. Even in the face of death, nature still reconciles us.


©Paul Vincent Cannon


Paul, pvcann.com

			

	
	

		
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		December 10, 2019 · 2:31 am	


	
Advent Herald – prose by Paul Vincent Cannon
	

		
dVerse Poets – Prosery – Jim Harrison


Linda at dVerse has invited us to take a line from the work of Jim Harrison – “A cow is screaming across the arroyo.” taken from his poem ‘Cow.’


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Photo: Pixabay.com


 


“Moo may represent and idea, but only the cow knows.”  Mason Cooley


 


Advent Herald


A cow is screaming across the arroyo as the weaners are drawn aside. The cattle-hands working the herd, the weaners easily pushed across the arroyo to the feeders like children to a lolly counter. I listened to her screaming, a gut-grief heartfelt, and though I cannot speak it, a warning was implied. Burgers or breeders, the children are consumed. And as I walked reflecting, I wondered about all the herding of life, this arroyo is not the Rubicon, but a die was no less cast.


I came to the creek-line with an angel or devil, I’m not sure, but I left the gate open and the screaming cow dove through. She spoke so clearly as we passed, “Those who lie or sup from the manger will be crucified one day.” Startled, I ran through, I’ve been wandering un-herded ever since, across that arroyo.


©Paul Vincent Cannon


Paul, pvcann.com


 

			

	
	

		
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		November 26, 2019 · 2:56 pm	


	
The Game – prose by Paul Vincent Cannon
	

		
RDP Tuesday – Passage


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Photo: pexels.com


“Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh.”  Leonard Cohen


 


The Game


She reached for the old book once again as she did every Thursday afternoon. It was quieter here in the bookshop then, and she loved to pour over the pages in private, knowing that she would faintly mark a passage that he would find when, as he always did, came looking later, long after she had gone. It was a delicious game that hadn’t yet lost its charm. She found what spoke for her, placed a book mark and pencilled a dot next to “Let us go to the vineyards and see whether the vines have budded …. there I will give you my love.” Sighing heavily, she placed the book back on the shelf and then found her way out of the shop. She set off, determined to buy some grapes before she made her way home. Smiling, she left her door unlocked.


©Paul Vincent Cannon


Paul, pvcann.com

			

	
	

		
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		November 12, 2019 · 3:54 pm	


	
Let It Be Extravagant – prose by Paul Vincent Cannon
	

		
dVerse Poets – Prosery – Meet Jane Kenyon


For this month’s prosery Victoria at dVerse has invited us to write our 144 words including the line “If it’s darkness we’re having, let it be extravagant’ from  Jane Kenyon’s poem ‘Taking down the tree.”


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Photo: hdwallpapersrocks.com


 


“Night is a time of rigor, but also of mercy. There are truths which one can only see when it’s dark.”  Isaac Bashevis Singer


 


Let It Be Extravagant


As darkness dispels the day the city hums differently and thoughts turn from servitude to pleasure. The cemeteries quieten while night clubs howl, even louder on Fridays for a while. But darkness is only ever fleeting, even beyond the daylight night lights of the city centre, the edges of town are moonlit, starlit, ever so clear. Just so the inner, hidden selves of the working day come out so clearly at night. Under the cover of darkness we stop and play, and inhibitions have no hold or sway. Out of the sun or the office light, our true colours shine brightly, the real is about. Cavorting, carousing, and revelling we go, in darkness it’s safe to be us. And, if it’s darkness we’re having, let it be extravagant, for darkness is sharper than light. What is hidden in light is so clear at night.


©Paul Vincent Cannon


Paul, pvcann.com

			

	
	

		
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