Category Archives: quote

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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January 20, 2020 · 3:26 pm

When Rivers Change – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly Challenge – Habit

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Photo: found at wikimedia.com – Nowitna River

 

“Life is like a river, sometimes it sweeps you gently along and sometimes the rapids come out of nowhere.”  Emma Smith

When Rivers Change

When rivers change
as rivers do
unstraightened into bends,
sweeping earth from
side to side and back again,
they subvert and challenge
every shibboleth and quasi-truth
embedded in the byzantine routines
of our quotidian humanness,
which until that moment
remained unnoticed, hidden,
in the accepted drudge of
our self-created lives as
if this were the only way to live,
and for evermore.
Not so, shout the rivers,
today your habit is interrupted,
you’ll need to go by another route.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com.

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January 19, 2020 · 2:14 pm

Moon Trick – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

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Photo: pixabay.com

 

“Never give up for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.”  Harriet Beecher Stowe

 

Moon Trick

At five the shore was long,
as long as it would ever be today
or any other day,
and I had not taken the time to
remember this nor to ponder
that it it might remain so,
that the tide might not come back
today or any other day,
that the sand should be divorced,
she the grieving widow
uncovered by her beloved
exposed and bereft,
her tears captive to the sun,
but the moon played her trick
and covered the shore once again,
I left with joy in my heart
knowing that all the tears were gathered.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

 

 

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January 18, 2020 · 4:00 pm

Beautiful Advocate – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

5 Lines – Beautiful

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Photo: Getty Images. Princess Dianna sitting with amputees, victims of landmines, Angola, 1997. Dianna as many will remember ignited opposition to the use of landmines which resulted in the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty and drew attention to the work of the Halo Trust whose work is clearing mines and advocacy against mines and weapons of war. She had that inner beauty, photos of her shaking hands with lepers, sitting with HIV sufferers, visiting homeless shelters and os on. I’m not a monarchist, but her work was of a different order.

“I’d read the statistics that Angola has the highest percentage of amputees anywhere in the world … that one person in every 333 had lost a limb, most of them through land mine explosions. But that hadn’t prepared me for the reality.”  Dianna Spencer

 

Beautiful  Advocate

So beautiful, those legs, her …
And such a mind, but O her heart,
her beauty drew the cameras,
merely a stage for the inner beauty
of her compassion for the world.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

 

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January 17, 2020 · 12:37 pm

Shall I Be Real? – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

dVerse Poets – Meeting the Bar – Soliloquy 

Frank at dVerse has invited us to write a soliloquy, to speak one’s interior dialoguee aloud. Latin: solus – alone; loqui – speak.

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Photo: pixabay.com

 

“Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be?”  Charles Bukowski

Shall I be Real?

Who am I in this curling world,
do I speak from that deeper self,
the I who sees all of all
and knows a word,
or, do I hide and speak a simple side
of who they want of me,
will I pretend to be one of them
and speak their truth against myself,
shall I pretend of them or
shall I be real of me?

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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January 16, 2020 · 12:58 pm

The Point Of Nothing – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

RDP Thursday – Nothing

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Image: http://www.thinkstockphotos.co.uk

 

“Free yourself from the burden of feeling the need to hold on to anything. Let go … you are a part of everything.”  Steve Maraboli

 

The Point Of Nothing

The point of nothing is
precisely the point,
the indecipherable point of everything,
as much as every colour is white
in the making, a surrender,
nothing is everything at one let go,
having it all by having none,
you cannot imprison love
for it ceases to exist,
only when it is set free
can it truly be.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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January 15, 2020 · 2:18 pm

There Will Be Time – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

dVerse Poets – Poetics – Last Lines

Wish at dVerse has invited us to select either the last line of a book close at hand or from one the links she has kindly provided.

I have chosen Haruki Murakami’s ‘After Dark’,  Tokyo, Vintage, 2009; and the line:

“There will be time until the next darkness arrives.”

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Photo: pixabay.com

“After a lifetime of darkness, I want to leave something behind that is made of light.”  Marie Lu

There Will Be Time

The lantern in the lonely shack,
a slender glow on morning’s horizon,
that candle talisman of human heart,
cliched clouds over moonlight,
silvery awareness, while
silhouetted peaks are imposing,
always the reveal of light sneaking
under life’s door,
and you just know
there will be time until
the next darkness arrives.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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January 14, 2020 · 2:07 pm

For Justice – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

dVerse Poets – Quadrille

De at dVerse has invited us to write a Quadrille (44 words) around roar and ‘roaring in the new’

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Photo: http://www.wgbh.org

 

“People can be at their most vulnerable, but still tenacious at the same time.”  Toni Bernhard

For Justice

Love overflows in perpetual caprices,
while anger escapes my imprisoning geist
and leaks across my world
as watercolour paint bleeding,
a tincture of passion released,
not so injustice,
action forthwith,
a torrent from a wellspring brimming,
an irreproachable love,
a roar for justice bursting.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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January 13, 2020 · 3:53 pm

To That Place Again – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

VJs Weekly Challenge – Subtraction

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Photo: beliefnet.com

 

“God is not found in the soul by adding anything but by a process of subtraction.”  Meister Eckhart

 

To That Place Again

How many valleys and ravines have been
that perfect sense of standing on the edge
seeking subtraction by addition,
rather than simply surrendering
the me of me for the real me,
unravelling the complexity
of my false true self,
offering substitutes two sizes down,
placating the demons of acceptance,
rummaging the garbage of life
for hollow platitudes,
a reductio ad absurdum
that returns me unfulfilled
to that place again
of self emptying towards
onement.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com.

26 Comments

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January 12, 2020 · 5:54 pm

I Want a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Word of the Day – Lust

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Photo: pixabay.com

“If we the substituted the word Lust’ for ‘Love’ in the the popular songs it would nearer the truth.”   Sylvia Plath

 

I Want

How I want, yes want
the depth of your smoky eyes,
and to capture the rainbow that
speaks from your heart
in syllables of colour
vibrating your slender spine,
soon to quench my desire
and to drink your most perfect skin
while greedily feasting on the
abundance of the shore of your lips,
to ravage your coastline
and breathe the note of your whole.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul, pvcann.com

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