Cape Of Good Hope

    Poltergeist activity
    - the sun winding like a staircase
    onto the pavement,
    rickety afternoon
    shooting back thru
    shawls of the city.

    Tippy-toe. Curtains
    ajar, a face at the cross-roads looking,
    looking for all the world as
    pavement stones,
    greasy & black, a thin
    oiled compliment to
    Mrs. Blight registered
    at Old Inn Road.

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

Cuando-Cubango

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Men Of Shade

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Dress Rehearsal

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Magpie Tongues

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.

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

Clippership

    Pausing to see
    light thru chinks
    the corner door
    battered barn floor
    musty webs and pebbled face
    expect shadows from
    flecked dust, yet
    damsel flies
    with doily edge
    blanket the air
    a throaty radiance
    in angel hair
    and stepping stones to
    nearest crevice
    and laddering place.

Paul Cameron Brown

The Waters Of The Bay Lie Beneath

    An abandoned house -
    dark salved to eclectic;
    crinkly, black pigment of old pine boards
    disparate to the elements.

    The waters of the bay lie beneath.
    A long slope trailing back of brush,
    garbles stones hoarse
    in the throat of a dust-flecked field
    are made more barren
    by the skunk cabbage weeds,
    the ugly, flotsam cloaks
    of horse hair to the neck -
    a hair shirt, coddling abrupt the barren pain
    tilled from empty soil.

    The summer's heat.
    Nameless insect waifs
    wavering, adjusting tumult
    to straighten the tight air
    about the outward door frame.
    Pinched in windows, glass in
    refugee lots billowing about
    urine paper;
    nails a ruddy pick

Paul Cameron Brown

Piltdown Man

    Popping out of the dark
    reddish "Merry Christmas" haze
    twinking blinking land of Nod (or
    rather it's Ned, the hefty trucker);
    eyes, steel-belted radials,
    in a rig big like Santa Claus;
    a Stegosaurus
    swinging sabre-toothed tail
    & flexing padded paws
    to gobble night.

    Loads so dreary-weary their chrome-plated
    swamps are debris after a tank battle
    for troglodyte trilobites &
    chocolate coloured ooze
    belching brown down funnel flaps
    to carve deep bellows inside earth.

    Such energetic slaves
    to cough & sound their
    wheezing sandy blasts make for
    breaks in a clearing
    for I see our trucker,
    eons from now,
    wedded to sentiment an...

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

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