Category Archives: psychology

April 1, 2022 · 3:27 pm

Everything – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Ingrid is hosting Open Link Night – where we link a poem of our choosing.

dVerse Poets – OLN – Spring Has Sprung!

Photo: The power of emotional maturity – wisdomfromnorth.com

“Everyone is an ocean inside.” Khaled Hosseini

Everything

I want to sit in the light,
to know what slices darkness
and why the sun laughs out loud,
to untie the knot of oppression 
for all who pass along this way,
to understand, that as my skin 
holds my innards, what holds 
the wriggling, translucent bag
of emotions from spilling out,
and would it matter if they did,
spilling might be good, not
everything can be held long in
perfect balance, but everything
can be given time to distill,
even resolve, if not fully, at
the very least, just a feeling 
of being at one with everything.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved®

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February 3, 2022 · 11:11 pm

Even When – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Linda is hosting Open Link Night, where we are invited to post a poem of our own choosing.

dVerse Poets – OLN – Smile

Image: found at letterpile.com

“We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.” May Sarton

Even When

The diversity of my parts are not the sum of me,
but merely the complexity of possibilities,
I am not my body's disparate functionality
divorced nor captive to its parts dogmatised
by loud voices from the past as if they are flags
of virtue, I am not an acronym to be sung as a 
standard, never a diagnosis or an expectation to
be pinned, roled, or approved as part of some
myopic, narrow definition; I am not that, I am
myself as I find myself at any given moment, even
when I am a stranger to myself.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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January 31, 2022 · 1:57 am

If A Day Can Be – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: found at perfectposture.co.uk

“Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.” John Lennon

If A Day Can Be 

If a day can be, then just let it be,
let it evolve without synthetic control,
without saccharine precision or that
timetabled conscience ingrained,
the day is just a day, why force yourself
upon it for the sake of producing
something meaningful, that cold press
of identity that withers at sunset,
let the day just be.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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January 22, 2022 · 10:28 pm

The Question – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: found at cuinsight.com

“Curious things, habits.” Agatha Christie

The Question

Does it bring life,
this thing that you do,
the habit of a lifetime,
week in, week out, 
which has quietly 
formed so much of
who you are and your
understanding of the 
world and the meaning
of your being, without
even thinking about its
sum and parts, does it
bring life?


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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January 21, 2022 · 12:30 am

Wrapping – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: The bark of a Jarrah tree along the Railway Heritage Trail, Mundaring.

“Your personal boundaries protect the inner core of your identity and your right to Choices.” Gerard Manley Hopkins

Wrapping

From my earliest moments of cogito,
the eye of my I, O aye,
I learned to wrap myself against the
cold of an encroaching world and 
the desires of others, while yet 
offering little gaps and holes through
which the mew of you, O true
can slip through.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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December 31, 2021 · 12:33 am

One Of Those Days – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Image: a still shot from the series The Green Arrow, found at: wallpapercan.com

“Heroes are made in the hour of defeat. Success is, therefore, well described as a series of glorious defeats.” Mahatma Gandhi

One Of Those Days

It's a soviet sort of day,
an orwellian double-thinking,
a self denunciation in the court
of me, myself and I, awaiting
self-admonishment, a cross 
examination of all I've left 
undone, as if to say I could 
have done it all, an unlikely
truce of words belying the 
sentiments of conscience, 
to which I adjure, I cannot
save the world singlehandedly.


Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
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November 19, 2021 · 2:18 pm

The Bell Tolls – a Wayra by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Grace is hosting Poetry Form with an invitation to write a Wayra, a short poetry form (five lines 5-7-7-6-8) non-rhyming. The Wayra is a popular form from Peru and Bolivia (you can learn more by clicking on the link to dVerse below).

dVerse Poets – Poetry Form – The Wayra

Photo: Bernhard_Staerck at pixabay.com

“Free yourself from any load that impedes you.” Charmaine J. Forde

The Bell Tolls

Peal a ding, ding, dong,
when the sonorous brass bongs
what do I need to put down,
heavy weight title mine,
suffocating leaden deadweight.


Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
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October 22, 2021 · 2:38 pm

The Baggage Handler – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

“We may define therapy as a search for value.” Abraham Maslow

The Baggage Handler

I paid her for the letting go,
those harboured thoughts
pushed down,
now surfacing again.

She listened from her somber chair
to my every grief,
her silent compassion
a soft incise carefully drawn.

My many wounds released,
those neatly folded feelings
that have travelled long within me,
she drew my truest sense of self.


Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
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October 13, 2021 · 2:00 pm

The Trauma Dance – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Ingrid is hosting Poetics with an invitation to write from a place of pain.

dVerse Poets – Poetics – From A Place Of Pain

Photo: differrencebetween.com

“I’m not lazy. I’m just exhausted from fighting my way through every single day.” Mimi Love

The Trauma Dance

The light,
dim the light,
the sound , the noise jars,
turn it down, no, turn it up,
lock the doors, hold the 
blankets tight, shut the 
curtains, no, open the curtains,
what, no, I thought you meant,
O, I know, this is weird, I'm in
the midst of, well, something,
I don't know that I can give 
voice to the sound in my throat,
in my mind, down my spine, 
my body, why am I so sweaty, 
hot, so cold, why can't I feel,
so detached, everything shouty,
angry, not present, totally present, 
so, up, no down, crying, dry,
heart like a freight train, heart
failing, thumping, no feeling,
my head, aching, thoughts so 
fluid, stimulated yet exhausted,
talking like a jet, craving silence,
craving crowds, wanting solitude,
shut up, please tell me more,
will I bother, will I open my front
door, will I feel, will I ever be real?


Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All rights Reserved ®

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September 23, 2021 · 3:39 pm

Like Winter Gulls – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: pixabay.com

“When emptiness is still, that is eternity. When it moves that is love.” Adyashanti

Like Winter Gulls

If love is possible how 
will it survive when all my 
self-beliefs, like winter gulls, 
have migrated south, leaving
me with the immutable
feeling that meaning has
abandoned me in a place 
where I don't have myself,
just a vacuum of abstractions,
like the absurd question, if 
love is possible, how will it 
describe me.


Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All rights Reserved ®

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