The Five O’clock Ducks
Looking out the window
losing myself in the
effect of breeze on shrubs,
on the distant waves all
galloping in, we call these
wind riven waves white horses,
feeling the deep summer warmth
listening to small birds
sipping wine, talking the day
waiting for the five o'clock ducks
who will ascend from the river
and barely clear the roof,
why leave the river at night
and where is the grass greener
at night?
Copyright 2026 ©️Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️
At dVerse Dora is hosting Poetics with an invitation to write a poem in the way Elizabeth Bishop would write, for more detail, follow the link below:
dVerse Poets – Poetics – Borrowing Bishop
Photo: Augusta, the south-west corner, taken in winter 2023.
Sweet Salt
Even before the river mouth
summer’s air is heavy wet
battering my flesh sticky
with sweet salt that thickens
my throat with a cough,
sea grass is rotting under
bright intense heat,
some of which refracts off
the talc like sand smelling
of salt and kelp, absorbing
the scree of gulls and terns
in its dense depths that only
waves roaring can defeat,
pushing, pumping water
into the air, rusting boats
and shop front awnings
with acid precision,
window cleaners busy, busy,
rounding the last bend
the southerly stirs my
eyes to water and wafts
the fish and chip shop
in a yearning for battered,
salted fish and golden
crunch chips, and my walk
becomes brisker more
intentional.
Copyright 2025 ©️Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️
At dVerse Bjorn is hosting Open Link Night, the night we choose a poem to post.
Image by Sergio Cerrato – Italia from Pixabay
Form: Tanka (5-7-5-7-7)
I learned circles
from hedgerows lakes and forest
father gardening
from moon to sun and between
why make the circle dead straight
Copyright 2025 ©️Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️
Filed under climate change, environment, Forest, Free Verse, life, nature, poem, river, sea, seasons, Tanka
At dVerse Punam is hosting Poetics with the theme of – When life gives you lemons … – and to write a poem about about how we deal with setbacks.
dVerse Poets – Poetics – Life’s lemons and lemonade making
Photo: taken 29, July 2023 at the western end of the bay looking out across the Southern Ocean. Leeuwin – Naturaliste national Park
A Prose Poem
Listen To The Waves
The crashing of waves on the shore echoes across the bay, their rhythmic drumming soothing in the night, a primordial force ever present. But sometimes the rhythm changes up from slow lullaby to crescendo as if they are intent on breaking granite and swallowing the town like leviathan, wild waves in fury over who knows what? I wonder that the waves are retaliating after being thwarted by some petty shark and suddenly there’s hell to pay in Neptune’s kingdom. That’s how I like to think of it. I’m fine until that thought that I’ve been lied to, shortchanged, enters my mind and then the calm gives way to a strategic retaliation, but sometimes it becomes a pitched battle, locked in without resolution. Well it used to be that way, the patient long slow fuse giving way. Generally, time has mellowed me like granite polished by pounding waves, mostly. I still grumble when lied to, but there’s no longer a desire for a strategic campaign and I leave the waves to find their own way.
Copyright 2025 ©️Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️
Tanka Tuesday Poetry Challenge No. 26 – Multiple Meanings
For Tanka Tuesday Yvette has invited us to write a tanka or experimental tanka and to include a multiple meaning word (list provided) for more detail follow the link above.
I have chosen the word harbour and the form is tanka (5-7-5-7-7)
Image by Peter Olexa from Pixabay
When life becomes gales
and black waves darken wild rage
I seek safe harbour
in my port of reflection
where I nurture thoughtful sails.
Copyright 2025 ©️Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️
Filed under awareness, life, mindfulness, poem, psychology, reflection, sea, Tanka, writing
At dVerse Mish is hosting the Quadrille (44 words sans title) with an invitation to write about fish (fish or any form or conjunction).
Photo: found at perryponders.com
Note: the Greenland shark is said to be the longest lived and a recent specimen dating recorded 400 year old living shark.
Note: Fare is an ancient Germanic name meaning journey and used in Greenland.
Other note: Sharks are fish, primarily because they do not give birth to live young (i.e. it’s not about presence of absence of scales).
Of The Few
Fare peered through the
watery sky of the North Atlantic,
it had been a couple of years past
since a baited hook had appeared,
of his own he was sole survivor
among fishes he was of the few,
two-hundred years, maybe
starvation surely sooner.
Copyright 2025 ©️Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️
Photo: taken two weeks ago at Flinders Bay, Augusta. The rock and reef provide a sheltered swimming and snorkelling opportunity (and the recent addition of a fresh fruit ice cream van).
“Oh, to be lying on a beach, somewhere, with sand in my toes.” Linda Harnett
Down Along The Shore
He texted me
to say
the pallets are ready
but I have no energy
to go and get them,
it's not just that it's hot
the rain gauge is testimony
to the bone dry days,
not a skerrick of moisture
and yet the honeyeater
was so drenched
it could only hop and flap
along the brick paving
I was begrudging
into place with my mallet,
the pink and greys laughing
as they swung
knowing that I'd far prefer
to be consoling myself with
berry ice cream
down along the shore
of singing waves,
massaging my toes into
the soft squelching beach.
Copyright 2025 ©️Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️
Filed under beach, Epigraph, Free Verse, poem, sea
At dVerse Lillian is hosting Poetics with an invitation to write about the sea/ocean in some way.
dVerse Poets – Poetics – By The Beautiful Sea
Photo: taken from the dune ridge above Torbay Inlet near Denmark, Western Australia.
“I need the sea because it teaches me” Pablo Neruda
Partial To Turquoise
I'm partial to the turquoise
framed in white
with flecks of shell and
ribbons of black-green strewn,
like discarded garlands
sans umbrellas
cocktails,
never shaken.
There's always something
stirring and, though I see it,
my ears are always awash
with it's grand bass roar
shaking my soul
to joy from the first.
I hear the eye of the fish
I see the wind
my lungs, ever salted I
breathe in the tide while
I devour the reef of flesh
on which many flounder,
that untouchable brail.
I'm always hearing voices
gulls, whispers of glee,
but at somber dusk
at the corner of my eye
a husk of melancholy
cuttlefish
to be plucked.
Copyright 2024 ©️Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️
Sunskrit Rai
De l'existence formelle à l'existence informelle, j'habille poétiquement le monde, ou mieux, le mets à nu.
Celebrating the Art of Syllabic Poetry
A haiku journal based in Aotearoa NZ
Celebrating the haiku and related poetry of Chad Lee Robinson
As Always, More to Come
a monthly journey in a theme that's 17 syllables or less
All things flash fiction
Turning trauma into triumph since 1981.
parallax 