Canvassing

    And I thought of things,
    things that come in small clutches,
    tiny memories,
    thoughts evoking the
    approach of time or
    footsteps about to open graves.
    More things than the troubled
    single entities we attach to them;
    things marbled with the elasticity of rain,
    rumours of war, pitch black leaves in the
    bottom of a pond where the whelp of a dog
    tries to outrun night.

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

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Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Testimony

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

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Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

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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.

The Clearing That Is The Trees

    "They know they are going to the filth of numbers and laws,
    to the games anyone can play, and the work without fruit."
    Lorca

    I want to go walking in troubled marshes
    where cold gray coves leave off the mind
    and the scent of rushes twist the wind
    as fall covers dungeons of angry sparrows.

    I want to go quickly to troubled marshes,
    hear the squeak of brackish waters
    over crocks of sponge bubbles crabbing
    their surface.

    I desire stands of dead brush
    to wave in grave solemnity,
    whimpering little houses
    off forest glades to flicker
    out lamps with
    large dogs poised on verandahs
    like stone gargoyles.

    I want to handle anguish as if
    it were an interesti...

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

Trinkets

    My mind a buzz saw,
    wood chips in decapitated thought
    soil chilblained hands

    II
    Cleansing wood,
    the keen smell of sawdust
    - good, raw earth drenching
    the nostril, clean odour
    of nature like my brain,
    a broomstick sweeping
    the coffee pot speaking ...
    bubbles massed in steam
    inchoate in their pensive rivulets.

Paul Cameron Brown

Shivaree

    These kettle bells.
    Is it the axe-murderer,
    with green garbage bag
    in the shadows?

    No. Green trees so thick
    their tops are folded hands
    or knotted knuckles
    to make perilous shrubbery
    by the garden wall.

    Yet this is a state of mind
    and shards of multi-coloured
    glass dot the top of stones.
    Interesting. Should a sociopath put
    out his shingle, come calling,
    a much under-estimated, rude uttering
    would take place.

    Still bees are active in the night air,
    not swarms, but a hum. Pleasant odours waft
    thru stiller air. There is no charged electricity
    to things, no tautness or leathery tightness to
    individual seconds. Still and stricken still.

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

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