Category Archives: prose

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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Filed under bush walking, Country, environment, life, mindfulness, nature, prose, quote

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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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October 29, 2019 · 1:32 pm

Gone – prose by Paul Vincent Cannon

dVerse Poets – Prosery – All Hallows

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Photo: shutterstock.com

 

“Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortal.”  Emily Dickinson

 

Gone

He smiled as I lit a candle in memory, his face briefly illumined in the flare of the match. We reminisced, he and I, as we sipped our mulled wine in the quiet of the eve. Those days of school caps, soccer, steam trains, fish and chips in the high street, so many memories. We recounted all those souls who’d gone before us, choosing to redeem their lives by letting go their shortcomings and recalling their good side, to do otherwise would lack any sense of grace or humanity. The night drew long, and talk turned to he and I and all those years and some lost opportunities, the what ifs and maybes of life. I felt the tears welling, and as I blinked my eyes blurred. Eventually, as my eyes cleared, I looked up and saw that he was gone, until next time.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

42 Comments

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October 11, 2019 · 3:26 pm

The One Hidden – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

dVerse Poets – Poetic Pop Art

At dVerse Poets Victoria has invited us to take Pop Art as inspiration for a poem.

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Image: ‘In Search Of History’ Alexander Kosolapov, 1982 – Sotsart

Note: SOTS-ART Soviet political art, a journey friend of Pop Art which, due to Soviet censorship of the 1970s – 80s, was mostly underground work.

 

“I’m afraid that if you look at a thing long enough, it loses all of its meaning.”  Andy Warhol

The One Hidden

The conspiracy of words and time
melds colour to a constancy of grey
like ever present winter clouds
brooding over truth
whatever that might be,
and indeed,
that is the question Pilate asked
non the wiser for a reply,
that certainty as a non-event is,
in truth, a certainty,
where facts like curbs
eventually erode and fritter
revealing the naked and bold-faced
lies of our fathers,
a constructed history by numbers,
O how we walked those grey blocks
seeking lucent hope,
just a glimmer of colour,
a taste of the real,
no, not that capitalist lie, freedom,
it is the one hidden in my breast.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

20 Comments

Filed under art, Free Verse, history, life, philosophy, poem, politics, prose, quote

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September 17, 2019 · 2:50 pm

I wonder – prose by Paul Vincent Cannon

dVerse Poets – Prosery

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Photo: the majestic Karri trees at Boranup.

The dVerse Prosery is hosted this week by Merril and the line to use is “These memories were left here with the trees.” from ‘How to Write a Poem in a Time of War.” by Jo Harjo. Using that line create a piece of prose of 144 words.

 

I Wonder

I wonder what happened here before I am. This one tree might speak of so much. But what might a forest speak? A grove of knowledge no cloud could carry, a living intelligence that pales Plato, or the vast paucity of philosophy. Each bole a reliquary of life’s passage, each annual ring a repository of a truth greater that the sum of what we call knowledge. O to be grounded in the strength of your heartwood and risk the sky, or to shelter in your caress and know love, to know what you know, to sup from your fount. Evanescent, history passes, held by your compassionate gaze. Of owls and wars, lovers and seasons, for each an ossuary caringly covered by your blankets and, until the one who knows as you know, that only love uncovers, these memories were left here with the trees.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com.

55 Comments

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August 20, 2019 · 1:50 pm

You Who Are – prose by Paul Vincent Cannon

dVerse Poets – Prosery

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Photo: videoblocks.com

The dVerse challenge by Kim is to take the line “You will love again the stranger who was yourself” from the poem ‘Love After Love’ by Derek Walcott and write 144 words of prose.

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”  Carl Gustav Jung

You Who Are

“You will love again the stranger who was yourself.” she said. Her eyes were moist and tender, worried I guess, as I had been somewhere other than myself for some time, fully estranged, formed, nay, torn by the desires and opinions of so many, but never my own. It is as if, as Eliot once proposed, that I could arrive at myself and know myself as if for the very first time. To strip off the hats and masks, the accretions of a life, or two, and return naked to the world as my true self, the ungarnished and bruised reality for all to see. And that is the loveable, that is the real. All else is window dressing on a grand scale of deception of the self, no one else is so deceived. So, to set aside those ancient scales for love.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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July 23, 2019 · 2:15 pm

One Side – by Paul Vincent Cannon

dVerse Poets – Prosery 2

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Photo: pixabay.com

At dVerse Poets sarahsouthwewst has challenged us to write a prose piece of 144 words using a line from a poem. Sarah has chosen a line from ‘Full Moon’ by Alice Oswald: “Last night I dreamt I was the moon.”

 

One Side

The strangest things can happen in unguarded moments with a glass of wine. We were sitting out star-gazing when I blurted out, for no apparent reason, at least none that would make any sense, that last night I dreamt I was the moon. After a polite pause someone asked what I meant and I realised I was thinking out loud. I was roused from my thoughts with “Well?” Then someone filled the long silence with “They say that to dream of the moon means that you can face a challenge.” Someone else volunteered, “It means mysterious changes are coming in your life.” Then all eyes were on me again. “Well?” “Well, It struck me that I am only one side.” “What?” came the unified response. “you only ever see one side of me, I have a very dark side.” The night hid my smile.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

 

Paul, pvcann.com

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