Tag Archives: Haibun

March 30, 2021 · 2:34 pm

Come Join Me – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Frank is hosting Haibun with an invitation to write about cherry blossoms.

dVerse Poets – Haibun – Cherry Blossoms

Photo: Hans Braxmeier at pixabay.com

“To find yourself, think for yourself.” Socrates

Come Join Me

Going to hell in a handcart seems infinitely better than joining with the elite ignorance of those who presume they're on for a visit to the angel bar in the ether. How can it be that we tolerate the essence of ego over integrity, where is the authentic one, where the grounded reality? How is it that we have put a gun to the head of community, in pursuit of self-indulgence?

Of course, it is infinitely more valid if we charge a small fortune  for courses that enable wrong choices to look like someone else, someone who knows the mantra. Surely it is time to self-prune, to take stock and account for the present moment? Whatever your disposition, my handcart has plenty of room, so come join me on the road to the hell that is not really hell, it is not what you'd imagine, but then, the path to a constructed heaven is just an irony of marketing, so what have you got to lose?


An autumn pruning
safeguards generous spring 
cherry tree smiling

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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March 2, 2021 · 2:18 pm

One Way Through – Haibun by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Lillian is hosting Haibun with a focus on walking down memory lane.

dVerse Poets – Haibun – Walk With Me Down Memory Lane

Surreal Art Work by Jacek Yerka and found at image.slidesharecdn.com

“Everybody should keep some grip on childhood, even as a grownup.” Tim Curry

One Way Through

As spring made way for summer everything seemed full and lush, even the northern July evenings were slightly longer than the ending of Hey Jude which was idyllic when sleep seemed like theft of life. But there were dark tones in this summer of light. Why was mum so frightened, why were dad's fists so loud? It was a house of mixed feelings like the edge of a wave teetering near rocks.

Sometimes there was a deep silence, followed by absence. Baby-sitters appeared at intervals, young couples whose tongues were intertwined in closed eyes of desire, though not so much before I was given a cup of cocoa and soon sent to bed.

Our house wasn't ancient, but it was easy to hear anyone coming up the stairs, so I knew I could please myself in a wonderland. So I would throw back the curtains and marvel at the light, open the window and dangle my legs over the ledge. I was lost in the wonder of peace and stillness, dreaming of tigers, Sherwood Forest, and rescuing Alice from queens unknown. This was my refuge.


I sailed the angry sea
past dark resolution rocks
you are my refuge.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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February 2, 2021 · 4:04 pm

The Drought – Haibun by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Frank is hosting Haibun with an invitation to write about the eagle.

dVerse Poets – Haibun – Eagle

Photo: https://publications.australian.museum/ showing a wedge tailed eagle.

“Fierce eagles do not produce timorous doves.” Horace

The Drought

45c and the road, straighter than straight, rolling beyond what the rusted sign advised. Blues, liquid, twelve bar, driving through this dry land. Paddocks hollow and stricken, rain forsaken for so long now, nothing holds in this dust. Crows picking the eyes out of everything that ceases to move, that cadaver buffet for pall bearers.

The gates blur in fifth, the barbed wire whispers strained songs of lament and I weep as I pass the delusion of hope trying to bale non-existent hay, the sadness of twenty bales to a hundred acres. And I weep for this place where endings complete and there are no obvious beginnings.

I slow as I see the spectre eyeing emaciated sheep. The angel of death eyes me and I nod in deference, better an ending than tortured horizons. I wave my blessing, thankful that the feathered euthanasia will ease the shepherds pain. In this moment the eagle is surgeon, priest and mourner, holding a ritual, taking death for life.


Life now surrendered
throat offered for sacrifice
feathered friend loves life

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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January 6, 2021 · 1:53 pm

I Remember – Haibun by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Lillian is hosting Haibun with an invitation to write about something personal in regards to a new beginning, and to include a seasonal reference in the Haiku. dVerse Poets – https://dversepoets.com/2021/01/04/happy-new-year-2/

Photo: Jasmin Sessler – pixabay.com

“Gardening is an instrument of grace.” May Sarton

I Remember

Sometimes old tricks return, seemingly of their own volition. The mind puts on front, suggesting that it never forgets, but it does. Sometimes old tricks are left in dark corners simply because their pleasure faded. And sometimes old tricks return, not by will, but by motion rooted in embodied memory. To once again pick up spade and shears, to don hat and gloves and fold into the joy of memories turning soil.

The joy of a garden is so primal, so simple, yet so profoundly felt. To rejoin my elders in time honoured pleasure is a rediscovery that refreshes my soul. Sanatorium, health-spa, surgery, clinic, call it what you will, it is healing in every way.

And that’s the thing, remembering. Remembering is a strange thing, a rebuilding, putting back together what has been lost though not forgotten. It’s in the word itself. To remember is to re-member, to narratively, even practically, put that past back together in some semblance of knowing. There’s a host of saints in my collection of dearly departed who taught me to garden and impassioned my green spirit. And, as I lift my spade and plunge in rhythmic moves, I fondly recall them one by one in this eden. 

Chocolate tilth sits
fertile in my memory,
transcending seedtime.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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November 24, 2020 · 4:06 pm

To Feel Again – a Haibun by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Kim is hosting Haibun Monday, inviting us to to write about our sense of wonder. dVerse Poets – Haibun Monday

Photo: Grass Tree (Xanthorrhoea), State forest, Mundaring.

“I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.” John Burroughs

To Feel Again

Here in this place there is a sense of hope. To feel nature making her own way with a lush offering is a sensual privilege, to see to touch, to feel, to taste. The divinest of lovers. She is there, waiting, unmarried, mistress to no one. Waiting for all to come and sit alongside her charming soothe.

There is life in this place like no other. Even in that rotting humous, especially there, there is an abundance of life bursting before my eyes. Even in the dry rustling carpet, tenants and squatters alike come to feast, to produce life and to surrender it.

This is a place to be, just that, to be, to feel again, to be me, to be one of, one with, this crowd. Here I can connect, be grounded once more.

Where the grass tree grows
comes spring looking at me
I fly like feathers

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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October 27, 2020 · 2:31 am

The Keening – Haibun by Paul Vincent Cannon

Frank at dVerse is hosting Haibun Monday and the theme is Happy Halloween. dVerse Poets – Haibun – Happy Halloween

Photo: favim.com

“I can see lights in the distance trembling in the dark cloak of night. Candles and lanterns are dancing, dancing a waltz on All Souls Night.” Lorena Mckennitt

The Keening

Moving, yet completely still within herself as night pressed in gently around her, she stopped in a felt moment and stood in what seemed a right place of heart. Her bare feet connecting the hallowed ground, she raised her arms to the stars and danced in saintly solace, this way and that. She keened for love departed, for all her loves departed. She keened for the unknown. As the stars passed her voice softened to a love song, for all the faces now present as she had re-membered them. Her eyes opened with morning warmth and a garland of dew.

Hidden beyond stars
love remembered in thinness
as lotus shines.


 ©Paul Vincent Cannon


Note: the ancient Celts always believed that the spirit world interacted in special moments in "thin" places, the place between the secular and the spirit world was thin, touchable, knowable. Most often these thin places were in groves. Celtic Christians carried this into their own theological world view.

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September 29, 2020 · 3:42 pm

To The Moon – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Frank is hosting Haibun Monday at dVerse and has invited us to use the word moon. dVerse Poets – Haibun Monday – To The Moon

Photo: wallup.com

“The moon was up, painting the world silver, making things look just a little more alive.” N.D. Wilson

To The Moon

I found myself by a water darkly as moon wandered by and awakened my my soul with loves so ablaze with spring’s life as to raise the dead so long moribund of colour and light, and at once now alive. I sat for a while in night’s shadow as moon loved me, igniting my gladsome heart afresh with a thousand, thousand moments of radiant delight as a lake of fertile lotus. I stayed long in the hope that desire would kindle once more.

Transcending moon shines
while night heron wades
plenty of fish here.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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