Category Archives: Quadrille

The Shift – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Mish is hosting the Quadrille with an invitation to write a poem including the word shift or any of its forms.

dVerse Poets – Quadrille – Shift

“Life is always moving, changing, shifting into its next shape.” Melody Beattie

The Shift

A little tectonic
or factory floor,
maybe the goal posts,
something gauzy,
packing boxes,
another house
though perhaps not yours,
third gear, down fourth,
deckchairs,
cattle to the top paddock,
hit enter,
blame,
the sun
its shadows,
environmentalism,
a shift in place and time.


Copyright 2023 ©️Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

9 Comments

Filed under awareness, Free Verse, life, poem, Quadrille, quote

Last Gasp – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse De is hosting the Quadrille (44 words) with an invitation to write a poem using the word, or a form of the word, gasp.

dVerse Poets – Quadrille – Poetry is a Kind of Gasp

Photo: A stretcher bearer provides a cigarette to a wounded soldier, WW1, found at stokesentinel.co.uk

“He lighted a cigarette, and in the curling smoke of it caught visions ….” Jack London

Note: a gasper was in old English parlance, a cigarette, especially amongst the military.

Last Gasp

Gaspers for bullets
to disappear pain,
nineteen to the dozen,
while the hack digs my wound.
"No filter" he said
as I screamed.
What a drag, I thought
as I sucked the stub,
hoping for visions of heaven
exhaling life
with my last gasp.


Copyright 2023 ©️Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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Filed under death, Free Verse, poem, Quadrille, quote, war

O Little Stars – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse De is hosting the Quadrille with an invitation to write a poem using some form of the word star.

dVerse Poets – Quadrille – A Star

Image by Pfüderi from Pixabay 

“No sight is more provocative of awe than is the night sky.” Llewelyn Powys

O Little Stars

How I thirsted to get past moon
to those other mysteries shining 
in deep space, and learn, breathe,
everything about them -
their gas fields, orbit, dimensions,
were they planets or stars?
But now and then I love to just sit
and watch them twinkle.


Copyright 2023 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️ 

30 Comments

Filed under astronomy, Free Verse, poem, Quadrille, quote, Space

Lost In An Extended Frame – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

“When you’re being truly creative, time stands still, and you enter a dimension that can carry you beyond the ordinariness of everyday life.” Denise Linn

Lost In An Extended Frame

What is it to be absorbed in a moment
when time is suspended without appeal,
a new reality in violation of the old
lost in an extended frame at every point?

When time is suspended without appeal,
like love floating on warm summer air,
lost in an extended frame at every point,
waiting to be gathered in the eternal field.

Like love floating on warm summer air
only lightness can insist on truth's approximation,
waiting to be gathered in the eternal field,
where listening transcends knowing.

Only lightness can insist on truth's approximation,
a new reality in violation of the old,
where listening transcends knowing;
what is it to be absorbed in a moment?


Copyright 2023 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️ 

22 Comments

Filed under awareness, life, poem, Quadrille, quote

That’s When – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse De is hosting the Quadrille (44 words) with an invitation to write about being bold.

dVerse Poets – Quadrille – Boldly Go

“Jump and build your wings on the way down.” Ray Bradbury

That's When

No great oration
just standing in the gap
between antagonists,
catch in my throat,
a doubt in my mind,
which I wanted to speak into 
this lions den mayhem
where the prey bares her neck,
that's when I boldly shouted no.


Copyright 2023 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️ 

16 Comments

Filed under Free Verse, identity, injustice, life, poem, Quadrille, quote

Sweet Feeling – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Mish is hosting the Quadrille (44 words) with an invitation to write about candy.

dVerse Poets – Quadrille – I Like Candy

Photo: StockSnap at pixabay.com

“Love is in the sensual details.” Lebo Grand

Sweet Feeling

Laughter among many things,
those stolen sideways looks,
sweet lips after wine,
hands possessing as if
reaching into the center 
of my feeling,
excited silences holding
that proximity of intimacy,
warmth flowing,
surging like a current till
reaching the mountain top,
she's my candy.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️ 

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Filed under erotic, Free Verse, love, poem, Quadrille, quote, relationship

I Never Want to Let Go – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Lisa is hosting the Quadrille (44 words) with an invitation to write about warmth.

dVerse Poets – Quadrille – Warmly

Photo: instagramFotografin at pixabay.com

“How we need a another soul to cling to, another body to keep us warm.” Sylvia Plath

I Never Want to Let Go

Once,
in my teens,
an accidental encounter,
a broken power cable touching 
the metal I was holding,
filling me,
so warm and tingling,
I didn't want to let go,
Now when I hold you
it is so electric,
I never want to let go.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon 
All Rights Reserved ®️ 

38 Comments

Filed under Free Verse, love, passion, poem, Quadrille, quote

Free – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse De is hosting the Quadrille (44 words) with an invitation to write a poem and including some form of the word wing.

dVerse Poets – Quadrille – Winging It

Photo: Evie Schaffer at pexels.com

“I am a feather for each wind that blows.” William Shakespeare

Free

That one feather free,
seesawing,
swaying,
hanging on a note of breeze,
singing soft songs of oft wings,
and the great letting go,
the detachment risk,
no longer a flight of fancy,
now an adventure of self
awakening,
it is its own wing,
free.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️ 



22 Comments

Filed under awareness, Free Verse, life, poem, Quadrille, quote

Not Alone – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse De is hosting the Quadrille with an invitation to write using some form of the word scared.

dVerse Poets – Quadrille – Let’s Scare Up Some Poems

Image by Jordan Stimpson from Pixabay

“There is something waiting for us at the edge of the woods, and it is our fate to meet it.” Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Not Alone

Walking,
alone,
not alone,
tone imperceptible,
feelings shifting,
a movement peripheral
makes my saliva coppery,
narrowed eyes darting,
alert,
the sound of nothing,
spine creeps scared,
skittering leaves startle,
distant urban shrill,
nerves on edge as my mind
traverses fluid shadows
watching me.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️ 

22 Comments

Filed under awareness, Forest, Free Verse, poem, Quadrille, quote

All The Young Does – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Kim is hosting the Quadrille (44 words) with an invitation to write a poem using some form of the word bell.

dVerse Poets – Quadrille – For whom the bell tolls

Photo: gettyimages.com found on pinterest.com.au

“In alchemy Mercurius is allegorised as the stag because the stag can renew itself.” Carl Jung

All The Young Does

The high street doe unconsciously paraded,
offending older women with supple confidence,
and her taut longings, 
leaving all the young bucks pulsating 
while older stags inwardly belled at their 
stirring memories of the young does
they grazed with in fields, 
glades and hedgerows.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️ 


Note: to bell is bark or bellow, and in earlier times a stag was said to bell or bark when it scented a doe.

18 Comments

Filed under Free Verse, passion, poem, Quadrille, quote