Tag Archives: dVerse Poets

May 5, 2021 · 8:16 am

The Old Boat – a narrative poem – by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Ingrid is hosting Poetics with an invitation to write using the narrative voice.

dVerse Poets – Poetics – Exploring the Narrative Voice

Photo: pxhere.com

“…. it is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.” Edgar Lee Masters

The Old Boat

I creak and groan like an arthritic bone,
my timbers are brittle and fey,
and I'm uncertain of my future
but they are taking me once again
across the adventure of waters
that thrill my boards and fill my sheets
with risk and the trample of my deck,
and I wait for the sea to wash me clean
of all that human debris,
now this might be my last as my time
is well past, but I'd rather sink than
be scuttled on clay.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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May 5, 2021 · 7:12 am

In These Moments – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Ingrid is hosting Poetics with an invitation to write a poem using narrative voice.

dVerse Poets – Poetics – Exploring the Narrative Voice

Photo: Shoalwater Bay, looking out west to Penguin Island a protected breeding ground for Little Penguins (the largest colony of Little Penguins in Western Australia).

“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.” Michel de Montaigne

In These Moments 

My heart is weighted and I must move 
into an unknown without my crutches 
which are leaning against the balustrade 
of friendships that are a kindness to me;
however, this moment is mine alone if I
choose to embrace its ambiguous intrusion,
begging persistently for a decision that
can only arise through painstaking discernment
which will point me somewhere, just not here,
and hopefully not to the shore of illusions;
it is in these moments that I know I am
an island, yet not alone.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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May 4, 2021 · 6:55 am

Some Need Fire – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Merril is hosting the Quadrille (44 words) with an invitation to write using the word seed.

dVerse Poets – Quadrille – Seed

Photo: a shot from the Beelu National Park, Mundaring, this section was last control burned about three years ago, thee regrown understory is great to see.

“The heart is like a garden. It can grow compassion or fear, resentment or love. What seeds will you plant there?” Jack Kornfield

Some Need Fire

The magnitude of a seed is mostly 
only noticed in death, in dying it 
rises not once, but many times, 
some need humidity, or damp 
mixed with dark, some need fire
to release their souls, which makes
me wonder what nurtures me to grow.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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April 30, 2021 · 2:42 pm

If I Had A Light – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Mish is hosting Open Link Night, the night we make our own choice of poem to post.

dVerse Poets – Open Link Night

Photo: Reserve trail walk adjacent to the Hardy Inlet.

“Anything we experience, no matter how challenging, can become an open pathway to awakening.” Pema Chodron

If I Had A Light

If I had a light I could see my way,
or perhaps a map where I could chart a
path, but it remains indecipherable,
though neither dark nor fogged in my
mind's eye, it is simply a discernment
of journey, a surprise awakening, a not
this, instead, perhaps this or that in a 
lived experience, all the richer for its
misdirections, its hidden meanings,
even its lack of clarity is a decided
gift of discovery, which, in the end
seems quite natural, a hindsight
twenty-twenty, a reverse of 
understanding of how we go,
not where or when we go, but, 
as we go we discover so much of
our beginnings with self and the
strive to transcend it.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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April 28, 2021 · 3:00 pm

Small Ways – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Merril is hosting Poetics with an invitation to write a Puente – a poem with a bridge.

dVerse Poets – Poetics – Build a Bridge

Photo: Tree growing from rock at Leda Reserve

“A river cuts through rock, not because of its power, but because of its persistence.” James N. Watkins

Small Ways

I think it's in the very small ways,
the infinitesimal, inconsequential actions
of fidelity to simplicity in all things

∽ that enables me to change ∼

the greater injustices around me,
slowly, incrementally, as I change myself
to an infidelity to complexity in all things.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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April 27, 2021 · 1:58 pm

The Present Moment – Haibun by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Frank is hosting the Haibun (prose + haiku) with an invitation to write about the present moment.

dVerse Poets – Haibun – The Present Moment

Photo: Patrizia08, pixabay.com

“If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. But, if you are at peace, you are living in the present.” Lao Tzu

The Present Moment

If I try to, I cannot reach back into all my yesterdays and reclaim them. And, even if I could, all that I would achieve is a reconstruction of days as perfect past moments. So I cannot reach back and hold any moment as it was. Besides I don't want to, the past is the past and best left as formative memory for better or worse.

The future eludes me in smoke and mirrors, the pathway is unclear, no plan is foolproof. Besides, if I could see even just a little ahead I would be adjusting my approach towards the perfect experience.

The most abiding feeling I have is of the fleeting present moment. That moment, the blinking of an eye, the moment between the inward and outward breath, which passes so quickly. These moments come and go and I have learned to treasure them before they slip into yesterday. But, to be in the present moment, I have to be present. 


under the branches
my inward and outward breath
present moment held.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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April 20, 2021 · 1:12 am

Want Some Bother? – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse De is hosting the Quadrille (44 words) with an invitation to use the word bother or some form of it.

dVerse Poets – Quadrille – Bother

Photo: istockphoto.com

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” Sun Tzu

Want Some Bother?

The bar humming good,
a well oiled crowd humoured up,
but you know how it is, a slip, 
a nudge in innocent times,
he went off, threatening all in
his path until one leaned in
with a steely eye, "ere', you
want some bother?"

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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April 14, 2021 · 4:13 pm

Blue Tongue Holding The Sun – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Kim is hosting poetics and inviting us to write in the first person comparing a trait of ours with something animal.

dVerse Poets – Poetics

Photo: a young “Bobtail” goanna, one of Australia’s Blue Tongue lizards.

“Everything in nature invites us constantly to be what we are.” Gretel Erlich

Blue Tongue Holding The Sun

There you were,
Blue tongue holding the sun,
your hiss warned that I had surprised you
and yet you didn't scuttle away, you stood
your ground and held my gaze, wary,
so like the corners of the world behind my
eyes where the unrelenting suspicion of 
strangers has cauterised the world against
joy, the hiss of distrust thrust against 
possibility with open mouthed disdain,
besides, when did the giants of this world 
care for the small ones, that they could
merely bask in the sun of wholeness
without fear of looming shadows of deceit?
And there you were holding trust.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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April 13, 2021 · 4:30 pm

The Dreamer – Prose by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Lillian is hosting Prosery where we are invited to write a piece of prose of 144 words including the line of poem offered by the host. Grace has invited us to work with the line ” If you are a dreamer, come in” which is from Shel Silverstein’s poem ‘Invitation’

dVerse Poets – Prosery

Photo: theculturaldictionary.com

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go and do that. Because what the world needs are people who are alive.” Howard Thurman

The Dreamer

I was walking along, multi-thinking, moving my mind to the end of the day so that I could get there quicker. I’m sure you’ve done that sometime. I wasn’t paying particular attention to anyone or anything. So I was surprised when a voice called out, a voice that was so unusual it. I didn’t think it was anyone calling to me but I looked around because I wanted to see who owned such an unusual voice. I was thinking hippy, free spirited, all tie-dyed, but there was Mr Business Suit beaming a smile. I stared at him and he gestured to the door “if you are a dreamer, come in.” Am I a dreamer? Yes I’m a dreamer, but I’m not coming in, I have my own dreams, I’m not buying yours, no way! They cost the earth, literally.” I walked away.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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April 9, 2021 · 3:36 pm

Flesh Of My Flesh – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Grace is hosting Meeting the Bar with an invitation to consider the body, our body, in writing.

dVerse Poets – Meeting The Bar – The Body And Poetry

Image: thoughtfulminds.org

“To be whole. To be complete. Wildness reminds us what it means to be human, what we are connected to rather than what we are separate from.” Terry Tempest

Flesh Of My flesh 

The wound I carry is not just 
for me, I feel its pain when I 
feel the earth speaking in my
flesh, when I hear the ocean's 
voice as my voice, as a child 
crying, or the wind, unconsoled,
recoiling at the violence of the 
rend that bleeds from my side,
but I just cannot unwind the
tourniquet of my addiction and
once again, I float to my heavens
as the wound remains in my 
anaesthesia of indulgence.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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