Bargaining Unit

The man about to become a sparrow
is shouting his head off
wearing green trousers
with red eyes framing mustier tweed,
he lambasts the lad
for not conducting
his person properly
in showing up for work
in a white shirt.

The fact the future labour
requires only lifting boxes
to a shed
is a fine point
about as important
as the man himself
who has transformed
himself into that sparrow
where several would not
span the breadth of a
bigger man's hand
or four could be had
in the Biblical sense
for less than a penny.

Paul Cameron Brown

Paul Cameron Brown is a Canadian poet known for his extensive work in both poetry and art criticism. Born in western Canada, Brown has had a prolific career in writing, often intertwining themes of human experience and nature. His works have been showcased in various literary magazines and anthologies. With a style that is both reflective and evocative, he has gained recognition not only in Canada but also internationally.

Paul Cameron Brown

High Roller

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Water Fast (The Pearl Fishers)

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Warhorse

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Ending Up

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

English

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When Labouring To Break

Perhaps one is in prison    -
fidgeting as time
draws to a close    -
a scrap of house tunic
between the fingers
or when labouring to break
cuticles on swollen fingers
pressing both hands against ears
that refuse to hear the stop sound
of rushing blood.

Then again, in the last hour before
end time, before dawn's arrival and
floodlit sky finds you    -
knuckles clasping bars, pitiless bayonet-like
with eyes swishing truncheons at all the
getaway air your lungs will never take;
wheezing in growing fear to the sound of footsteps,
clank of keys and gallow's humour as they prepare
to Skuttle your short life, wall up clouds of their
own pestilence nakedly mask each firing squad
gathering for its fighting chance.

Paul Cameron Brown

Up From The Floor

    They sit in silence. In camera, around the table. Terrifyingly stern, stares that grew antlers in my eyes.

    It was as if thunder or bolts with electricity were being decreed.
    The self-important, the pompous, well-fed and self-assured.
    Here to hazard a fling of the dice - to decide whether another should eat.

    Employment. The interview. One with yellow tusks protruding to his coffee cup. Eyes, some primordial forest cut for a firebreak back of his soul. And I think of the desperate, those lacking bus-fare to get to such a carnival. Valuable postage money, photocopying, scrimped dollars for a suit to entertain the pumpkins dicing for a worthless garment. A scavenger run, piles of white applications heaped as bones in a graveyard made careless after a violent storm.

    Or elephant...

Paul Cameron Brown

A Ballad Of Buttonry

Clothes and the Man I sing. Reformers, note
These of the Subaltern who owned a Coat.

He was what veterans miscall, for short,
By that objectionable term, a wart:^[1]

The Coat an item of the 'sealed' attire
Wrung from his helpless but reluctant sire;

Also the tails were long; and, for the pride
Thereof, were buttons on the after-side;

Majestic orbs, whose gilded obverse bore
The bossy symbol of his future corps.

The youth, ere sailing for a distant land,
Did, in the interval, receive command

To join a 'Course,' where men of grave repute
Instruct the young idea how to shoot.

Thither he sped, and on the opening day
Rose, and, empanoplied in brave array,

(Ample of flowing skirt, and with great craft<...

John Kendall (Dum-Dum)

Slaughterhouse

    You're the aggressor
    and your passion exceeds mine
    but we're in this slaughterhouse together
    and it's near closing.

    Vats of prickly ointment
    destined to repattern animal skin
    and tubs of steaming formaldehyde
    rest casually with the more antiseptic
    thrill of green sawdust.

    Blood is a chameleon, here, changing colours
    en route to sausage and Pram but
    my hotdogs and donuts are
    holding better to the cuttlefish
    in this unnatural forest.

    The stars are a jangle of planets
    in a world where wood became noise;
    each ceiling beam, incidentally,
    is the wrenched out spine
    of a Longhorn steer,
    doorknobs pig knuckles
    bound for Octoberfest fear.
    Ev...

Paul Cameron Brown

Adversaries

He held his hands like plastic    -
his vestments the finer
calling of his trade,
vocation as modern strummer
of Nature's laws
Engineer in brief    -
wine glass in hand
bestowing the more salient points
of mawkish disbelief with
cigarette to numb the spine.

The Reverend
looked down on fire,
caught papryus smoke in the bellows
of his chest,
made laundry of
the Plumber's intellect    -
tore savage parchment
from the soft cheesecutter's
contemporary breath.

Paul Cameron Brown

Camouflage

Beside the bare and beaten track of travelling flocks and herds
The woodpecker went tapping on, the postman of the birds,
"I've got a letter here," he said, "that no one's understood,
Addressed as follows: 'To the bird that's like a piece of wood.'

"The soldier bird got very cross, it wasn't meant for her;
The spurwing plover had a try to stab me with a spur:
The jackass laughed, and said the thing was written for a lark.
I think I'll chuck this postman job and take to stripping bark."

Then all the birds for miles around came in to lend a hand;
They perched upon a broken limb as thick as they could stand,
And just as old man eaglehawk prepared to have his say
A portion of the broken limb got up and flew away.

Then, casting grammar to the winds, the postman said,...

Andrew Barton Paterson