Category Archives: psychology

July 9, 2021 · 2:55 pm

When The Handle Turns – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: found at wellbetter.com

“These mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb.” Najwa Zebian 

When The Handle Turns

When the handle turns, slowly, tightly
along its coiled, oiled spline, do you
shrink into yourself becoming small,
blaming self, or do you feed the furnace 
of anger and strike out, hoping to feel
better through ironically self-inflicted
wounds or, do you pretend to hold it 
all together, watching your implosion
as you paper over the edifice of your
chaos? Perhaps, if we let it wind, a
diamond will come.


Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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May 10, 2021 · 3:35 pm

Wanting Everything – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: Sri ram pixabay.com

“I believe that living on the edge, living in and through your fear, is the summit of life ….” John H. Johnson

Wanting Everything

There is always a price for a
life lived in fragments
between passion and pain,
and when the experience
leaves us ragged and drained,
we conspire to throw ourselves
back into the beginnings and
repeat the frustrating cycle,
rather than be relegated to
silence, wanting everything
to take shape, never stepping 
back, always to the brink,
desiring the crisis of possible
futures, never the still calm
or the disorienting ordinary,
never teetering, always 
confident on the edge.

Copyright ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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April 21, 2021 · 3:32 pm

Awaiting – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly Challenge – I’m Bored

Photo: Dieter-G, pixabay.com

“Boredom is rage spread thin.” Paul Tillich 

Awaiting

When the monitor screen runs flat and 
everything is flavoured chalk, I bore 
holes in the universe to see what 
leaks down the strands of my mind,
resisting the blind rut of ordinary days,
those vanilla plays fritted to dust and,
when the portal opens the river flows,
like milk and honey as caramel as 
smiling stars and the gaze of a
tangerine sun, the air electric with 
held breath awaiting the creative new.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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April 11, 2021 · 2:04 pm

Little Dark Corner – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: ‘Free Photos’ on pixabay.com

“There is a correlation between the severity of a person’s moods and a lack of self-knowledge.” Jill Alexander Essbaum

Little Dark Corner

The mood of a moment is so fragile,
like a cloud momentarily covering the
sun, and everything changes in an
instance, confusing the very heart of
us with lingering uncertainties, that
sense of something unresolved, 
something wrong, not right, the 
feeling of an accusing little dark 
corner tucked in the back of the
mind, deservedly waiting to rain
down on any joy.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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March 29, 2021 · 3:36 pm

The Big Questions – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Image: shutterstock.com

“…. identity is performatively constituted by the very ‘expressions’ that are said to be its results.” Judith Butler

The Big Questions

What are the narratives that matter most of all,
how do they form and shape our fragile lives,
and, when do we know ourselves as ourselves,
is fate our lot or, is fate a story about our lot.

How do they form and shape our fragile lives
these harbingers of unseen inner truths,
is fate our lot or, is fate a story about our lot,
what is it that we think we know of knowing.

These harbingers of unseen inner truths,
we must learn to live with what we have created,
what is it that we think we know of knowing,
is this the demise rooted in our blindness.

We must learn to live with what we have created,
and, when do we know ourselves as ourselves,
is this the demise rooted in our blindness,
what are the narratives that matter most of all?

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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March 18, 2021 · 1:55 pm

Fiction – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly Challenge – Describe but don’t reveal

“Controllers, abusers, and manipulative people don’t question themselves.” Darlene Ouimet

Fiction

Diablo,
unlabelled, even when
labels seem apparent,
the friend who is an enemy,
who is transparent only with
lies and manipulative smoke
that mirrors for the observant
a path of broken glass hearts,
twisted into a sculpture of
sticky dark love like bitter
treacle on the tentacles of 
lost hope, you stood apart
from everything and denied
everyone who you really are,
and sucked the life out of all
who trusted your pain and 
felt for your narrative fiction
as if it were their own child.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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March 15, 2021 · 2:02 pm

Allowing Ourselves – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: found at shutterstock.com

“It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.” Sir Edmund Hilary

Allowing Ourselves

Changing our relationship with the past,
refusing to keep it alive in the present,
the embers of yesterday are passing,
allowing ourselves to dwell in possibility.

Refusing to keep it alive in the present,
not letting the incomplete shape us,
allowing ourselves to dwell in possibility,
accepting the strange value of ambiguity.

Not letting the incomplete shape us,
stepping back from self-defeat and doubt,
accepting the strange value of ambiguity,
creatively embracing silent imperfections.

Stepping back from self-defeat and doubt,
the embers of yesterday are passing,
creatively embracing silent imperfections,
changing our relationship with the past.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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February 28, 2021 · 3:07 pm

I knew – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Image: found at slideshare.net

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” ee cummings

I Knew

I knew it was the only way to go forward
to something gentle, something deeper,
awakening slowly in that tender place,
beyond the mask that fails to hide me.

To something gentle, something deeper,
letting go the image I hold in my hands,
beyond the mask that fails to hide me,
dissolving into a vulnerable softness.

Letting go the image I hold in my hands,
the most endearing self-deception of all
dissolving into a vulnerable softness,
falling into myself for the first time again.

The most endearing self-deception of all,
awakening slowly in that tender place,
falling into myself for the first time again,
I knew it was the only way to go forward.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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January 21, 2021 · 6:13 pm

Je m’accuse (I Accuse Myself) – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly Challenge – The Other side

VJ has invited us to write from the other side, which involves us reflecting and writing from a perspective of ourselves.

Image: found on pinterest.com

“Self-doubt imprisons those that never overcome it.” Obiora Embry

Je m'accuse (I Accuse Myself)

The darkened cell shrinks and enlarges 
with every swing of the yellowed light
overhead while my hands are restless
upon the greasy table as my narrowed 
eyes stare back at me, interrogating my 
every emotion, there is nowhere to hide,
I know myself even when I don't, at 
least I know that which I most want to 
deny of myself; what is this rage that
coddles within me when it suits, to
justify my wounded, fragile self, by 
hurting others, of this I accuse myself,
of this I absolve myself, I reach for 
water and begin again.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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January 10, 2021 · 1:12 pm

To See – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: perfectness.ca

“Look in the mirror. The face that pins you with its double gaze reveals a chastening secret.” Diane Ackerman

To See

The mirror sets up a silent but knowing
conversation of self, a soap opera thinly
disguised as drama now exposed to all
of myself to see what others see beyond
the image of heavily invested self-deception,
masking myself to self, but the mirror shifts,
begging the eternal question, what is good, 
what is bad, to which I have no answer,
knowing only that things just are and I just 
am and not only today, this is somehow a 
moment, an epiphany, that sustains.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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