Corner Store Fifties Reveille

    I met Bear at the 5 n' dime
    sipping a Cream Soda
    he was voluble &
    needed to talk...
    "I got a shit-load on my mind,"
    mumbling something about some
    run-in with a Mountie - tampering
    with Crown Evidence, the purloined Honey Jar,
    in question, Jimmy Dean was there, too,
    polishing his coolness though he would
    have his own Run-In later in the evening.
    As Marilyn had left,
    I decided to forgo Bear's company,
    still slurping his Soda &
    crying into the bubbles,
    some things never change.

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

The Draper's Cloth

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Fortress Snow

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Old Brompton Road

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Southwark

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.

Woodsy Backwoods Poem

    I saw Bear
    shopping with Santa Claus
    at the North of 7 Plaza
    only he wasn't wearing a bib -
    only a cotton-wool imitation synthetic
    polystyrene white fluffy instead.

    I saw the Bear
    gracing a wall at the
    Old Trout Lake Hotel
    (part-time job),
    looking self-satisfied,
    smug back of the Mosque Lake Road
    but a self-starter, no less,
    lacking the wherewithal, nonetheless,
    to be a serious shit-disturber
    accolades & kudos aside, still
    circus Work is hard &
    good dancing difficult to come by,
    poor dish of custard, sticky stuffed bastard.

    yet the pay-off begins
    when Bear gets home
    with only grubs in the bank
    and maggots to show
  ...

Paul Cameron Brown

Blackamoor

    Breaking up -
    as in the cloissoné jar you dropped. . .
    little regard,
    a few brittle pieces scattered about the floor.
    Let's call it "shedding feelings". Expensive?
    There's always another humidor tucked away in
    the cranny of another antique shop; after all,
    a woman is only a woman
    although a fine, Cuban import
    is a worthy smoke.

    "What this country needs is a good 5¢ cigar".
    Panatellas?
    He might have added tight-fitting, long lasting.

    Nooks & crannies.
    Little things, your ways. Fruit fly (perhaps damsel wing)
    as symbol of perishability. My emblematic coat of arms.
    No season of regrets, rather
    snatch of minutes, the oasis span of a single candle.

    Who knows?...

Paul Cameron Brown

Chain Letter

    I'm sitting in a "sixties bar." No put-on.
    All around old Rolling Stones music is playing.
    I can tell it's a sixties bar by the spiffy waiter recycling sheets for
    tablecloths. The sixties was "into," environment.
    It's the eighties now as Heineken was unobtainable in 1969.
    Someone reminds me in order to run a tab a credit card is needed.
    This seems logical but very out of sorts with the people power complex I'm nurturing.
    Even the jokes above the bar are old hat.
    This confirms with certainty that Madcaps is Nostalgia.
    It's too built up for Sha-Na-Na, fintails or Nancy Sinatra's,
    These Boots Are Made For Walking.
    In my sensible decade that tune is considered sadistic. Obviously,
    the effect is too sophisticated to imagine I'm even ...

Paul Cameron Brown

Gangland

    A sailor, "tatoo you,"
    the cigarette Players
    with tape-deck playing
    a jaundiced "Yellow Bird",
    Cerveza, Dos Equiis, the
    two horses, in red flame,
    across the label.

    Trolling in a deep sea-trench
    (spinners and chubb),
    the dark night
    a religious procession,
    acolyte stars in hymnal to the wind.

    Across the channel
    a Party Boat
    - the words almost demand capitals
    with actions so diminutive -
    creased laughter "to go" cross the waves
    flicker of lights, siren call
    then a lemon shark strikes the bait
    on anchor reel, Horse-Eyed Jack
    perhaps borrowing the name
    from the Outback -
    think pantomime, enter Wahoo
    and the aesthetic of fear...

Paul Cameron Brown

Bravura

    Memory as embankment,
    a mudslide at High Tide
    with shades up...
    my avocado green brethren
    pleasures the soil.

    Memory as enchantment
    a Belle at a Soiree,
    pureed, Gaston at a Dinner Party.

    Napanee suggests sympathy,
    a serendipity...
    as water winders its way
    to clay in a moonlight
    turn of the bottle,
    I shall find a way.
    that's ironclad.

Paul Cameron Brown

Ancestral Memory

Patrician to my plebian,
aristocratic leaning versus
unbridled backwoods feeling    -
distinct Old World breeding
countering rudest colonial lean-to;
his carcass lay, roadworthy,
blinking back cold starlight
with all the forest as silent voyeur
stretching for a look,
black fur & quills
in disarray like Crazy Horse's warpaint
after the Big Horn,
this roughneck Canadian porcupine
shot clean with bumper & chrome.

Then little hedge-pig
quaint as porcelain china cup
half a world away
greeting pints of milk
in an English doorway
half his scalp torn thru
dirty, British lorry choking fumes
the petrol in its tank loose.

Paul Cameron Brown