Tag Archives: Free Verse

January 26, 2023 · 3:32 pm

To Be Grand – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Celtic burial items from the site at Hochdorf. Kreis Ludwigsburg. at scilogs.spektrum.de

“To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent that is the triumph over old age.” Thomas Bailey Aldrich

To Be Grand

Will I be buried
with the symbols of my life -
golden shoes, anointed with rich mead
and scattered jewels;

will they prepare my altar and
sweep my grave removing all the 
joss dust I might have accumulated?

Will they set fire to my bones so that 
I might find the glory of that which 
comes after life and list me among
all the souls?

Will they celebrate my ways of 
stumbled parenting?

I hope they toast the grandness
of my second round.


Copyright 2023 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

2 Comments

Filed under Free Verse, life, poem, quote, relationship

Tagged as , ,

January 25, 2023 · 3:30 pm

The Thin Thread – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Sarah is hosting Poetics with an invitation to write about grandmothers.

dVerse Poets – Poetics – Grandmothers

Photo: found on pinterest.com

“And when we said goodbye to one grandmother we said goodbye to them all.” Sherman J. Alexie

The Thin Thread

We carry the past with us in little parcels of love or feelings,
mostly in unconscious acts;

mine is to always gather people,
a reaction to the distances that have turned my life,

my mother's mother is how she was told into my story,
that she died sometime after VE Day and her long
struggle with MS;

and so we never met except in my mother's potted stories,
no wonder that I love a mystery.

My father's mother filled a room both in size and manner
she was a formidable presence barking orders,

laughing, always kind, always gathering her brood
around her sagging laden table of love.

We waved her goodbye for over 15, 000 kms
and the rest of her short life.

I have a child's image of her,
A thin, frayed thread of connection to which I cling.




Copyright 2023 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

17 Comments

Filed under Free Verse, grief, life, poem, quote, relationship

Tagged as , , , , ,

January 24, 2023 · 2:17 pm

Those Moments – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Mish is hosting the Quadrille (44 words) with an invitation to write about ice, or one of its word forms.

dVerse Poets – Quadrille

Photo: cottonbro studio at pexels.com

“Dread is a sympathetic antipathy and an antipathetic sympathy.” Soren Kierkegaard 

Those Moments

There are moments forever
in my throat where my heart resides,
moments touched by conversations
eavesdropped from my past,
a knife,
felt a fist,
the phone call,
that crash,
he'll be alright
the ambulance is here,
chills run and
my spine turns to ice.


Copyright 2023 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

26 Comments

Filed under awareness, Free Verse, grief, life, poem, psychology, quote

Tagged as , , , ,

January 23, 2023 · 3:10 pm

The Eyes Have It – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: found on pinterest.com

“I’m convinced we all are voyeurs.” David Lynch 


The Eyes Have It 

The eyes see
but the heart and mind battle interpretations,
setting agendas
making perceptions;
on any one day something, anything
might repeat never to be received the same,
always a turmoil of filters and contexts,
what once might be sublime
at a turn in time might just be ordinary,
after all, objectified life is still subjective
like when a glimpse of intimate longing occurs -
is it so simple and mundane, innocent,
a nothing
an invitation to memory,
perhaps a reminder (to buy some roses)?
The eye sees,
the mind remembers,
the heart plays its hand as it will.


Copyright 2023 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All rights Reserved ®️

13 Comments

Filed under awareness, Free Verse, life, passion, philosophy, poem, psychology, quote

Tagged as , ,

January 22, 2023 · 3:11 pm

I Have Those Days – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: ‘Emotions in my hand’ by alex1972 at portraitphotos.org

“There is nothing to be known about anything except an in initially large, and forever expandable, web of relations to other things.” Richard Rorty

I Have Those Days

Like a wet mirage shimmering
the day caught my attention 
and drew me towards it,
exciting me and terrifying me
all in the same swirling second,
paralysing my attempts to move,
until at last the day passed and,
with a sigh, released me from
all the emotions I had dreamed
and desired to hold in my hands,
for one moment I had glimpsed an
evolution of reality where more
could be breathed and felt.



Copyright 2023 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All rights Reserved ®️

5 Comments

Filed under Free Verse, life, mindfulness, passion, poem, quote

Tagged as , ,

January 21, 2023 · 1:57 pm

Sparks – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: Amit Talwar at pexels.com

“Unclose your mind. You are not a prisoner. You are a bird in flight, searching the skies for dreams.” Haruki Murakami

Sparks

Rambunctious, fugitive thoughts rolled in
seeking refuge and
took roost in the emptiness of my mind,
a mischief afoot,
but what can be done?
The door was open,
nothing was going on,
how could I refuse?
I can feel them fluttering about,
their eloquence so light in
expressive songs of radiance,
a dispersion of rude exactitude,
an abundance of inarticulate cool,
sparks to light my wondered wandering.


Copyright 2023 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

14 Comments

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

Tagged as , ,

January 20, 2023 · 2:18 pm

Hoping To See – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Image: Coyot at pixabay.com

“My fascination with letting images repeat and repeat – or in film’s case ‘run on’ – manifests my belief that we spend much of our lives seeing without observing.” Andy Warhol

Hoping To See

To see,
that is indeed a thing,
to really see what is at heart,
when all we usually do is 
say we see while hoping that by the
time we do see we can claim 
the moment as if we have 
always seen when we know
perfectly well we haven't seen
anything at all because we are 
looking in the wrong way and
looking in all the wrong places,
seeing something but yet 
nothing of any substance that
is at heart.


Copyright 2023 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

19 Comments

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

Tagged as , ,

January 18, 2023 · 3:39 pm

Transcending – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Sanaa is hosting Poetics with an invitation to write about winter.

dVerse Poets – Poetics – The Blizzard of the Self

Photo: Victor Miyata at pexels.com

“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.” Albert Camus

Transcending

Summer always smiles faintly as she leaves me,
her lips suddenly thin and sharp,
knowing I will grieve her warm embrace
and the fruit of her lush kisses,
leaving me to the inexorable prudery of the
wasteland of winter's serge,
better suited to vows of unbending monasticism,
funereal finery of dark intonations,
like spells that clang on hard, cold surfaces.

Winter, ever impassive, never smiles at me,
she is far too sensible for such frivol,
always she has work to do,
inexorably instilling us with
her parsimonious agency,
those short, cold, grey days
when I feel most despondent,
summer leaves a note of light 
an intimation that she is on her way.


Copyright 2023 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

27 Comments

Filed under awareness, Free Verse, life, nature, poem, quote, seasons

Tagged as , , , , ,

January 16, 2023 · 11:30 pm

The Shattered Dream – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

“Withhold admiration from a narcissist and be disliked. Give it and be treated with indifference.” Mason Cooley

The Shattered Dream

When it all just sits unmoving, 
like a clog of hair in a drain,
and no amount of hoping will 
move it or restore the flow,
knowing that when something 
is broken beyond repair,
it cannot be put back together as 
you once dreamed it would,
in that child's wistful eye,
the mountain of dysfunction 
that will never be surmounted,
leaving us all waiting for the
moment that will never come.


Copyright 2023 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

8 Comments

Filed under awareness, dreams, Free Verse, poem, psychology, quote, relationship

Tagged as , ,

January 15, 2023 · 3:00 pm

The Tree Root – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

“It seemed to me that some things were ugly enough that fixing them was worth trespassing.” Brenna Yovanoff

The Tree Root

It started with a tree root,
which required much thought,
not unlike a military strategy
to follow the mischief imagined,
and, sure enough
it leapt through the garden edging
and, characteristically, it ran
shallow through the lawn,
around the water pipe,
the reticulation pipe,
requiring much surgery,
then under the paving,
pushing up, up, up
till we tripped and stumbled
then down, down, down
into the drain and
round, round, round
in a frenzy through and through
in a confusion inviting reconstruction,
out and along the border garden,
clogging the soil,
refusing the spade,
out to the fence and
under the weak spot
reordering its level before
heading off to the curb.
What seemed like a five minute job,
became a plumber,
a reticulation expert,
some brick-paving,
a little edging,
lawn repair,
fixing a drain,
realigning a fence,
some swearing,
much money,
and that's not the end of this story.


Copyright 2023 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

13 Comments

Filed under Free Verse, Gardening, life

Tagged as , ,