Tag Archives: Meeting the Bar

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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March 26, 2021 · 3:52 pm

Subtle Shades – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Peter is hosting Meeting the Bar with an invitation to circular and repeating forms of poetry.

dVerse Poets – Meeting the Bar – Coming Full Circle

Photo: found at overnature.com

“I like the night. Without the dark we ‘d never see the stars.” Stephanie Meyer

Subtle Shades

Time carries a vulnerability within itself,
especially where night evolves the ground livens
in ways unlike the transparency of day,
where all is documentary for perception.

Especially where night evolves the ground livens,
all is mystery, or at the very least, uncertain,
where all is documentary for perception
of all that is unseen and released imagination.

All is mystery or at the very least uncertain,
less familiar in the subtle shades of shadow,
of all that is unseen and released imagination,
the things of darkness are so heartfelt.

Less familiar in the subtle shades of shadow,
in ways unlike the the transparency of day,
the things of darkness are so heartfelt,
time carries a vulnerability within itself.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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February 26, 2021 · 3:28 pm

But Her Smile – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Peter is hosting Meeting the Bar with an invitation to write a poem that changes mid way or at its end.

dVerse Poets – Meeting The Bar – Middles and Turns

Photo: static8.depositphotos.com

“All things truly wicked start from innocence.” Ernest Hemingway

But Her Smile

She played
everything in a minor key,
a high pitched dirge
for Sunday sins,
her primness a badge
of spinsterish anxiety
and determined moral
salvation wrapped in tweed
and ancient hairpins,
no one saw it, but her smile
belied her Friday nights
of wanton vixen over pints
and chips and sly thigh,
her ancient shiver of sigh.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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February 12, 2021 · 3:31 pm

That Day – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Grace is hosting Meeting the Bar with an invitation to write about a time and, or, a place.

dVerse Poets – Meeting the Bar – Setting

Photo: avonadvocate.com the result of the Meckering Earthquake, October 14, 1968.

“An earthquake is such fun when it is over.” George Orwell

That Day

Thinking of that day,
past the cognitive dissonance 
created by voids of time since
my recollection of Hey Jude
and paisley, athletes down in
Mexico, the warmth of spring 
with a holiday sleepiness,
rattled by 6.5 that shuddered
its way into my body in a 
millisecond, before panic set in
and my mother's shriek to run
outside clear of the walls,
adrenaline better than caffeine,
fear driving hearts while news
poured in of little Meckering
pummelled to the ground,
the plaster of our ceiling
shedding dust and the 
windows crackling,
earth rumbling in waves,
shake, rattle and roll,
after-tremors wielding terror,
what can now be trusted but 
open space, in the spring of 68.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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January 29, 2021 · 2:42 pm

The Question – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse, Peter is hosting Meeting The Bar with an invitation to look at first lines – beginnings.

dVerse Poets – MTB – Beginnings

Image: pixabay.com

“I seem to have run in a great circle, and met myself again on the starting line.” Jeanette Winterson

The Question

And, so it begins,
I buy myself in order to be myself,
that I might become a symbol of me,
some utopian project where stories 
abound with the courage of hopelessness,
and the maelstrom of warlords in my 
mind, private pathologies irrupting,
ever renewed, the punch line obscure
and, finally, the question,
how might it end.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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January 15, 2021 · 1:23 pm

The Next Dance – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Grace is hosting Meeting the Bar with an invitation to personification and imagery.

dVerse Poets – MTB – Personification and Imagery

Photo: sierraclub.typepad.com “The Right to Dry Movement”

“But what about those windy spring days? You know the drill, you fight the sheets onto the line. Then the wind catches them and makes them want to sail into the next country!” The Texas Homesteader

The Next Dance

Sick of line dancing, she wanted
to cut loose with a tango or a foxtrot,
even a rouge can-can would do it and,
once safely pegged, she gave herself to the 
sea breeze throwing her legs up, her head back,
tossing her skirt about with laughter just like 
linen flapping in the wind, and soon the others
joined in the fun, swirling and twirling
along the good time, refreshed and waiting 
for the next dance in the sun.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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December 18, 2020 · 2:50 pm

And Cut Them Into Pieces – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Peter is hosting Meeting the Bar with an invitation to explore endings/beginnings.

dVerse Poets – MTB – Endings/Beginnings

Photo: pixabay.com

“I’m interested in memory because it’s a filter through which we see our lives ….” Kazuo Ishiguro

And Cut Them Into Pieces

I lived the secrets and cut them into pieces
lest they find me and undo my perfect belief
that I am indeed my true self and not another,
a mere codicil to a footnote of self-deception.

Lest they find me and undo my perfect belief
that I am merely myself and no purified saint,
a mere codicil to a footnote of self-deception,
lost in the annals of myopic delusions.

That I am merely myself and no purified saint,
exposed to the world, bared in all emptiness,
lost in the annals of myopic delusions,
accusing me or mirroring myself to my face.

Exposed to the world, bared in all emptiness,
that I am indeed my true self and not another,
accusing me of mirroring myself to my face,
I lived the secrets and cut them into pieces.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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December 4, 2020 · 2:43 pm

The Yellow Thrum – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Grace has invited us to once again look at synesthesia, this time music as colour.

dVerse Poets – Meeting the Bar – Synesthesia

Photo: pixabay.com

“Although I see colours in every song, it’s the artist put his (sic) heart and soul into that produce the best images.” Melissa McCracken

The Yellow Thrum

The prologue for a country pastorale
was a warm summer's picnic basket
where the oranges dislodged and fell
into the sky a new palette which walked
like a bass line thrumming deep orange
right down my spine a glow turning
crimson with vibrations lighting up
the grey neutral neural centre with
a blistering violin solo so thin it
caught fire across the parchment of 
dots to be joined in a minor key, 
while the coda became a sombre 
capitulation to the merging rainbow
pulsating backbeat defibrillating my
plexus in bursts of visceral orange and 
yellow treble cross talking me all the way
to ecstatic floods of warm mood in C.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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November 6, 2020 · 3:48 pm

Spiced As Wise – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Grace is hosting Meeting the Bar and she has invited us to write a poem working with grapheme colour synesthesia.

dVerse Poets – Meeting The Bar

Photo: unsplash.com

“The colour yellow is a mystical experience shared by everybody.” Tom Stoppard

Spiced As Wise

Orla wandered a new 
beginning trusting herself to this 
new path with an optimism born 
of moonlight where she yellowed 
a glow from her very centre 
that radiated so golden,
spiced as wise cumin to be 
lavishly bestowed on all the 
suns in the orbit of her generous 
aching flames bursting upon the 
scene beyond mellow fields,
seeking beyond hue to the
crackling of possibility.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Note: I am stronger at hearing and feeling colour than seeing it in letters. The name Orla is Celtic and can be translated as Golden Princess. O is my starting point as O is yellow and so it goes.

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October 23, 2020 · 2:41 pm

Rumbling – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Peter at dVerse is hosting Meeting The Bar and his invitation is to write a poem based around sounds.

dVerse Poets- Meeting The Bar – Let your words ring out

Photo: shutterstock.com

“I’ll have what she’s having” (cafe patron played by Estelle Reiner) ‘When Harry Met Sally’

Rumbling 

Stiletto staccato on platform five
invites leather soul antiphon, an
echo of his quiet love quickening
her pulsing temple oblivious to 
the bustle of the milling crowd
passing in the shadows, 
oblivious to the hum in this nest
of hulking, clanking metallic beasts
whose breath shouts for presence,
aware only of reaching into each 
other with shivering groans,
the whole place rumbling as they
filled its emptiness, she smiled,
he was confused, he hadn't 
expected that train to come in.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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