Tag Archives: dVerse Poets

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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October 12, 2021 · 2:37 pm

Fierce Beauty – prose by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Mish is hosting Posery with an invitation to using a line form TS Eliot’s poem ‘The Waste Land.’

dVerse Poets – Prosery – The Waste Land

The line offered and which must be included is: “What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow out of this stony rubbish?”

Photo: an example of eremophila taken at Niagara near Kookynie.

“According to ancient mythology, trees link the earth to the sky. In this respect trees link humans to another world.” Richard Allen

Fierce Beauty

The eastern goldfields suffer only the strong or determined living in the extremities across these vast open plains of mostly dry laterite and also quartz, granite and sandstone outcrops populated by shy fauna and rugged flora. The summer is merciless, the winter winds penetrate layers. The rainfall is pitiful, the reason the state government commissioned the grand and ambitious Goldfields Water Supply Scheme in 1896.

When the rains do come they seem to evaporate before they touch the surface soil, and it is a wonder that anything could grow in such a place. Which raises the question, what are the roots that clutch, what branches grow out of this stony rubbish? Dozens in fact, varieties of eucalyptus, acacia, eremophila, grevillea, and callistemon tenaciously hang on out here where humans wilt. When the sun is fierce, the soil unforgiving, the trees are beautifully fiercer.

Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon

All rights Reserved ®

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October 8, 2021 · 3:31 pm

Galleons Rising – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Bjorn is hosting Meeting the Bar with an invitation to write a poem using the form cadralor or to write a poem about the author Abdulrazak Gurnah who won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

dVerse Poets – Meeting the Bar

Image: found on http://www.pinterest.fr

“The stars, like dust, encircle me in living mists of light ….” Isaac Asimov

Galleons Rising

(1) The place of my being is so deeply wounded,
    though unrelated to what we might agree as original
    innocence of knowing, perhaps an unknowing if,
    truth be told, of all that has passed through me.

(2) What of the night darkened soul that lies behind
    my moistened eyes of longing for the white dove,
    to see the road clearly now the map has ceased,
    while clouds press inwardly to the journey.

(3) Grey winter has pleased not one of its friends,
    offering the discomfort of predictable uncertainty,
    the continuity of intermittent falling patterns
    going deep to the bones of an unframed life.

(4) The eastern shore of the lake clear yet impenetrable
    leaving the tortoise to carry its own burdens,
    those dreams of galleons rising to the stars far,
    collecting surprises along life's paradoxical way.

(5) Do you know the field of expectation's weediness,
    un-mended fences demand no sense of belonging,
    the place is riddled with interlopers of no conscience,
    time to slip away free-range, ebullient, rising.


Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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October 6, 2021 · 4:11 pm

Where Now The Sword – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Sanaa is hosting poetics with an invitation to explore the genre of panegyric poetry.

dVerse Poets – Poetics

Priam Pleading with Achilles for the Body of Hector ?engraved 1775 Gavin Hamilton 1723-1798 http://www.tate.org.uk

“I’ve seen this moment in my dreams.” Hector (Iliad – by Homer)

Where Now The Sword

Galant Hector,
even under the mantle of Achilles,
you are ever the evening star,
beyond the dark sweetness of death,
where songs regale your courage
and the gods dare drink your health,
where now the arrow, where now the
sword that could spite your flesh,
no grey for your hallowed head,
ever the memory of your youth,
your integrity in death
untrammelled by Achilles.


Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

Note: Homer's (the accepted author) poetic epic the Iliad is an a mazing piece of literature. In my view Achilles cheats and acts out of rage (grief) killing Hector, then dishonours the body until begged by Priam for the return of his son Hector's body. Hector seeks honour, mercy and justice, Achilles seeks revenge.

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October 5, 2021 · 1:42 pm

I’m Glad For The Gate – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse De is hosting the Quadrille, with an invitation to write about stones.

dVerse Poets – Quadrille – Throwing Poem Stones

Photo: mandalelimestone.com

“Stone walls do not a prison make ….” Richard Lovelace

I'm Glad For The Gate

There's nothing as handsome as a dry-stone wall,
a certain beauty in its rugged, chiselled symmetry,
stone upon stone against any sense of predation or
unwanted attention and, even though I crave this very 
boundary, I'm glad for the gate which lets me choose.


Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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September 28, 2021 · 2:01 pm

i – Haibun by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Frank is hosting Haibun with an invitation to write about writer’s block.

dVerse Poets – Haibun – Writer’s Block

Photo: steve_a_johnson at pixabay.com

“You can’t think your way out of a writing block; you have to write yourself out of a thinking block.” John Rogers

i

The screen mocked my every thought, the arctic white page blinding my eyes as snow on a sunny day, making me squint in the hope of a direction even though I cannot see where I am going. The page an abstracted projection, a freudian note to myself that the page was mirroring my inner malaise of lost consciousness. The page was not unfriendly, we dined together as always. It’s just that the ideas flew past at the speed of sound, refusing to land in my mind. Even the dictionary drowned in my thoughtless fug. But, mercy be, there was the letter i and I’m sticking with that.

circling the blank page
my mind in another room
the curlew calls me


Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
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September 22, 2021 · 1:59 pm

The Blueberries – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Mish is hosting Poetics with an invitation to write about fruit.

dVerse Poets – Poetics – Always In Season

Photo: Blueberries – Nowaja at pixabay.com

“Age is not all decay, it is the ripening, the swelling, of the fresh life within that withers and bursts the husk.” George MacDonald

The Blueberries

In the very first of the season came the 
promise of delight cached in smooth,
taught, dark skin, shining, exposed,
ripening before the sun, full of rich delight
to please any tongue or wanton fingers
willing to scoop the sugared, juicy high,
now torn at first bite, passion longing for
another, and then another, until consumed
in faint exhaustion, sated, drunk, and only 
then noticing the pink tinged florets
modestly calling my eyes to something 
deeper than a possession of fruit, and so 
in the latter of the season I gazed into 
your abundant, fruitful self, waiting  to 
be gathered together in a devotion fit
for a tender deity.


Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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September 21, 2021 · 12:15 pm

Of Things Past – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Linda is hosting the Quadrille (44 words) with an invitation to write about the word linger or any of its forms.

dVerse Poets – Quadrille – Linger

Photo: an old Ford truck – part of the history of Kookynie and mining.

“Grief is the agony of an instant; the indulgence of grief the blunder of a life.” Benjamin Disraeli 

Of Things Past

The past lurks in the present,
intensifying the sense of wanting
to restore, heal, the original 
intention once the pride of purpose,
now a felt grief, an if only, raising the
question: can we overcome the grief
of things past that linger within us?


Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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September 15, 2021 · 1:12 pm

I’m Only A Spider – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Sarah is hosting at the Poets Pub with an invitation to write about Creepies and crawlies.

dVerse Poets – Poets Pub – Creepies and Crawlies

Video taken in the Mundy Regional Park – this is a red-headed mouse spider (Missulena sp. Insignis)


“Spiders – so needed and yet so misunderstood.” Donna Lynn Hope




I’m Only A Spider
With a furry little flurry I'm always on the scurry
when a shadow intrudes to remind me that
you're so beyond big I can't flirt with you, and so
I run and run, though slowly, so as not to attract
your attention to my plight as I take flight with
all my might, that I could make for cover fast,
as in the past, and at last I would hide  my pride
in the shrubbery in recovery, and start my day all
over again, without your imposing shadow and,
unlike my prey, live to scurry another day.


Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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September 14, 2021 · 4:57 pm

Just Following Orders – prose by Paul Vincent Cannon

At Dverse Ingrid is hosting Prosery with an invitation to use a line from William Blake’s poem ‘The Chimney Sweeper’ – “If all do their duty, they need not fear harm.”

dVerse Poets – Prosery – Doing Our Duty

Public domain photo of Adolf Eichmann.

“Being evil is only something that only humans are capable of.” Jane Goodall

Just Following Orders

In 1960 an architect appeared in court in down town Jerusalem charged with crimes against humanity. He was the architect of the Holocaust, his defence was banal, he claimed immunity because he was only following orders.

Who never questions motive? Who believes they are perfect and above the law?And who never effects harm on others? But of those who excelled in following orders, no matter how perverted, Adolf Eichmann stands apart as intentionally evil, and more so because of his claim that he was just following orders. And, so, if all do their duty, they need not fear harm? really? Think slavery. Think Eichman, think Vietnam War, Think Derek Chauvin, think so many.

Our actions always affect others, and where there is evil the effect is always negative. Harm comes to those in the orbit of such people. Just listen to Holocaust survivors.

Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon

All Rights Reserved ®

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