Begin And Beguile

    If brains be gables & minds, say, the shutters
    in a derelict New England Mansion
    then intuition is in the
    eaves & casements
    the well-springs seeping into turrets & cupolas
    of all other nether spaces.

    These big, wide entrances are ourselves in all their splendor,
    notwithstanding the Winchester Mansions
    or Vanderbilt Estates where our
    very personalities are laid bare
    see antics give rise to attics
    feed in onto themselves
    where the Astor's of our alter-egos
    are resplendent in rich pride of self
    longing to manifest in lavish architecture
    so redolent of wealth
    yet see-sawing in, squabbling
    their thread-bare servant quarters
    where murderous passions
    bare dingy walls and where stained,
    yellowing wallpaper is harbinger to
    further heart-felt quarrels &
    what is unspeakable, gilded and more.
    Manifold and many, recant and lament. Repent.

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

Swords And Roses

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Approaching Thirty (Lauds And Matins)

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

The Rake's Progress

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Forest Spittle

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Offerings (A Movement In Four Parts)

The night is folly without the moon,
trees blank space against a frontal sky
where lattice work from a bled fish reveals
skeletal markings will not administer
the red jack of hearts to a mistress sea.

Most fickle, the ways of a cockroach
(I don't recommend them) to offerings
of white linen, cold squares atop
a stone diamonded floor.

Palaver shacks drone in ghostly light
communicating some message about eel runs
up the black river, the equivalent brush
of tombstones against dark nightsoil.

Tiny bars open as cubicles.
proverbial flashes of the coming evening,
haciendas to count every blessing.

The road to such places
snarls a dusty pleasure
and will heat thin blood
to boil in the daylight hours.

II

Swe...

Paul Cameron Brown

Turncoat

    Sitting in the spendthrift dark
    lilting pennies away,
    deciphering fate ... .
    The bed, a warm reach past
    the pillow
    like personal mortality in the
    incest breath of life.

    Warm stuff of dreams -
    the calender with its days mesh &
    march like soldiers
    dearly departed
    (cindered and bludgeoned)
    or the old sea-faring chest
    where all men are sailors
    past light's corner.

    Sturdy trudgeons,
    clock bursts thru the room
    mindful of time and aching,
    decaying things.

    Hallow's Eve in movements of the curtains -
    a remembered Rembrandt,
    self-portrait of the old man
    standing alone in a clammy room,
    idling the seconds, with drab

Paul Cameron Brown

Wanderlust

    Who administers to my needs?

    Is it the dandelion, so ant-encrusted, that
    yellow pollen dangles from a shiny abdomen
    suggestive of some actor's
    smeared and garish make-up?

    Or the cicada's song,
    difficult to describe,
    laundering thick summer heat?

    Perhaps, then, the Red Admiral butterfly
    especially active at the close of day and drawn
    to wooden lawn-furniture or the exposed human limb?

    If none of these
    breathes vigour or tonic
    through my nostrils,
    what of tubs of fresh water?

    Take pea-pods for crude, rudimentary boats
    and children as make-shift sailors,
    then they both shall spy the secrets of seas.
    Bold harbours will be their cues,
    astrola...

Paul Cameron Brown

King And John Streets (For Isabella Vacancy Crawford)

    When the shadows are hungry
    animals on walls
    and theatre goers are
    parliamentarians engaged
    in a repast or feast
    of words.
    the lone house stands
    as a stone shard or sliver
    about to disengage itself
    from the eye.

    For behind boulders of tenement
    walls and vines creeping
    to match the red brick of
    sumac and the parrot bill of fire escape stairs,
    I watch the building
    cylindrical in the darkness
    crouching thin air
    as if an awkward child
    were about to make strange
    for the dozenth time.

    There are few things to duplicate
    plaster held by the bite of wind,
    open poverty like lesions
    refusing to move.
    neglect that festers

Paul Cameron Brown

Passageways

    Greet the days -
        greet the moon,
            gather the stars.. .
    Man is not at one with himself -
    collars the infidel ways of his
    race under pressure domes of widening silence.

    I scan the horizon barely cognizant
    of the metallic bits that pierce
    the night's crown - no
    jewelled orb stabs this queen's spectre.
    I am running and lost. . . ever slow
    to breech this reasoning.

    Honeysuckle mist with armfuls
    of orange lilies with scent stronger
    than the carriage needed in their gathering.

    Place the constellations upon their heads,
    the colour so transcends.
    And then there are the bludgeoned
    stars fallen into the eyes of
    my farmhouse scene.
    The sphin...

Paul Cameron Brown

Shamrock

    Is there anything prettier than that -
    to stare into your manifold spaces
    toward the hook & vine
    of cathedral leaps,
    the vaults & crypts
    as go-betweens of an earthy worship,
    the supine female form?

    By quiet pools,
    thrush in the thicket
    with red berry behind its eye,
    miniature sun
    proceeding by the branch
    to undress the bark
    with leaves as
    passionate culprits
    kissing dark.

    Clasped hands
    upward lies the sky
    my masterpiece angel,
    I bite lush meadows,
    tread spongy brooks,
    endear daring small of back,
    crevice taste nape and neck,
    a beatific pilgrim nearing
    a fleshy way-station,
    first charting his co...

Paul Cameron Brown