Candlelight In Black

    The ghosts are marmalade
    thin as rinds across toast
    or the Weeping Willow, whose
    green beard leans,
    crane-like, into a child's
    backyard.

    A Morning Cloak butterfly,
    maroon wet with the paint
    of morning, cat paws
    thin filament leaves
    astride a larder
    of memories.

    Dalliance with the past,
    smoke grey these architects
    of memory
    the privet hedge,
    lone pine tree,
    jet black caterpillar
    poised about a green
    carrot top trigger
    laced in emperor's gold
    like fathoms of the sea
    held ... in quiet repose.

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

Ancestral Memory

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Fortress Snow

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Cold Passion

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Turncoat

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.

Ghost Tales

    With leaves twitching
    the autumn air
    and the burnt almond
    breath of landscape
    heaving relief,
    the afternoon heavy-footedly
    walks across
    evening's threshold.

    II
    A garment is held high
    as adrenalin in the marble
    glow of wintery air.
    Mud puddles reflect the faery shrimp
    of clouds while cone-shaped
    coniferous trees perch on lawns like
    starlings.

    III
    High above to skating and
    sugar-icing rinks in misty hues,
    a ginger-bread man
    manoeuvres past the ghost tails of a dead
    luna moth.

Paul Cameron Brown

Marzipan

    1
    A thick hole in the dark
    from which
    stars pour silver
    as in pails
    their runny divide
    ink-strewn scalps
    torn from the roof of the sky.

    2
    Padded footprints
    giant ferns blooming
    constellation prints,
    the wind an athlete
    pacing about a track
    drying thru fingerprints
    thin, nectarine light.

    3
    Sand down whitest skin
    moving past your hand
    a gown, mauve to green,
    iceberg lettuce,
    the black festering
    across a ribcage;
    while night arranges
    moths to dusting powder
    pucker-lipped
    fronds from afar

    4
    Afar, the word a gypsy
    tangled in the waves,
    foam from a medicine ...

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

White China Plates I

    1
    The moon hummed like a refrigerator,
    light thru shadows
    - the solitude of dusk closing in;
    black scars visible across
    the moon's face shaped like
    mountainous hands, all
    silent, the occasional leaf rustling.

    2
    My fork at plate's edge listening,
    listening to the haunting one eye
    on the staircase wall white
    as the numb light outside palest night.
    Caught off-guard, the musty settee
    and armchair acting as hallucinogen
    to the nostril, the calendar of events
    playing ghostly tag with sheer curtains
    hovering, shroud-like, on the family Bible
    big and brown as the Lord's foot stool.

    3
    The unravelling tale slowly much as
    thick yarn with a kitten

Paul Cameron Brown

Tickings Of A Clock

    I began to see old lanterns, books
    opening/folding within your eyes;
    a pale light running as silver
    to the sea.

    Then crestfallen leaves dangling
    as from fishhooks or the autumn moon's
    skeletal lightness tossing a path
    between waves over this sidewalk, that,
    with the back streets passing occasional
    hisses at the main culprit, night.

    The prim measurement of your smile,
    not the wan neglect of cool skin tones
    or fabric always more suggestive
    of summer colours, sideway movement
    of shadow into tickings of a clock.

    Rather mist and clamminess,
    lipstick in a smear as a
    thumbprint before the
    coughing of a motorcar
    as its elliptical wedge
    tears darkne...

Paul Cameron Brown

Airbrush

    Iced coffee,
    wedge of toast -
    the sun poking thru
    cranberry glass
    delights exquisite Duchess of Berry,
    her decanters & an hourglass.

    Halo-hello in your fingertips
    I said,
    to a cadaver of light
    boldly striking a tuning fork
    to ring an engagement
    of gold flecks
    by your bed.

    Limoges vase
    for lace and pretty underthings
    for outside the stream
    steals my interest,
    wearing tumbledown silk pyjamas
    and a peek-a-boo smile that points
    thru reed curtains.

    A rustle from her chemise
    and sun parasol parts green boudoir
    draping shiny, black rock.

    The muddle of this earth-time puzzle,
    brief flutter to the eyelid...

Paul Cameron Brown