Category Archives: Authoritarianism

April 3, 2026 · 10:31 pm

The Past Is Biting – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Laura is hosting Meeting The Bar with an invitation to write an epistolary/letter poem either verse form or prose form.

dVerse Poets – MTB – Letters In A Poem

Image by jacqueline macou from Pixabay

The Past Is Biting

Dear Carl,
trust you are well,
was thinking of you as
these past days have reminded
me so much of our student days
and those long beer soaked
reefered conversations
who would have thought we’d
be in this place right now
we sure thought it could happen
didn’t we, all those years ago
while musing over drinks,
the what if moments of life
a party game for when 
all else had run its course,
we talked Orwell, and Huxley 
do you remember?
newspeak and big brother
surely we'd grown up as a world
couldn’t happen again 
could it? We said!
And here we are in a 
post-truth world and not a 
little despair,
looking forward to when
you next visit maybe we
can rediscover truth among
the platters and wine again,
soon!
best,
Paul

Copyrights 2026 ©️Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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Filed under Authoritarianism, Dystopian, Epistle, epistolary, memory, poem, politics

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February 3, 2026 · 8:45 pm

Being Salt – Haibun by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Frank is hosting Haibun with an invitation to allude to Groundhog Day.

dVerse Poets – Haibun – Groundhog Day Redux

Photo: found on Twitter. ICE on ice, seems to me that both need to go.

Being Salt

When I was all of five my parents encouraged me to clear snow from the driveway for a few pence. Naturally, they were trying to occupy me, and given my age, it was a mammoth task. I had fun, got distracted, messed about. The snow was easy but its cousin was a little more tricky. Ice, once formed, was like steel and so slippery, so I turned it into a slide much to my mother’s consternation. Water will break it down. Salt is still used in many places to help turn it to slurry (though this is an environmental risk).

Around Candlemas or Imbolc people look for signs that a thaw is coming. A variety of methods are used, some more scientific than others. Groundhogs – shadow or no shadow, badgers on the move, certain birds returning. We always looked for the first buds on trees and shrubs with a sense of hope that spring was indeed coming.

Right now I’m not looking to groundhogs or badgers. Maybe salt is the only way. If we as people of the world gather with a view to compassionate action, if we become as salt, the flavour of compassion in our communities, then ICE and its cousins across the West will slowly but surely melt. Right now we need an early spring, and fresh life, vitality, creativity, hope. We all need an end to the evil that is ICE whose winter is symptomatic of the political moral collapse, principally in the US, but also across the world. The buds are showing and I’m optimistic.

buds appearing now
the new spring offers fresh blooms
pig sty cleaned ready

Copyright 2026 ©️Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

17 Comments

Filed under Authoritarianism, community, compassion, corruption, Fascism, Haibun, Haiku, justice, politics, protest

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