Dry Guillotine

    In my childhood, "Verdun," meant madness.
    Bars on the windows, cages around the intellect.
    Time was a poor keeper of souls, it seems, wore out all but
    a fragment of my memories. Musical, poetic. The sounds of clay china
    being dropped on the floor. Fierce Celts with a gift for the muse in
    keeping with their love of lyricism and war.

    Driving by 999 Queen in Toronto accompanies a lot of the above.
    A cuckoo bin by any calculation and a reference not meant to be
    pejorative. A subject so clothed in solemnity only irreverent
    "kidding," can hope to disarm its grasp. Still, the truth must be told.
    In university, no one shrinked from whispering the ultimate fate -
    a stint in Sydenham or a trip down the road to Cedar Springs.
    Delightful euphemisms, the names reminiscent of sonorous rivers,
    tree lined groves, peach blossoms across Georgia springs. Or
    Ophelia's funeral oration wherein Polonius rightfully alludes to her
    sudden falling away amid laughing brooks.

    I am reminded of Charrière's desperate attempt to stay sane on Ile
    du Diâble, the cutting edge of his dry guillotine - his mind's fabric
    giving way to the slightest irritation. In the present, the chant of
    a crowd's "jump, jump," to the would be suicide. Then there is the
    most foreboding type of all dementia, the collective sort. A strength
    through joy movement of the Hitler camp with society's many
    institutions set up along the spit and polish order of the Reich.

    Indeed, if we think of it, we all have a deep knowledge of madness;
    days when the centre is about to break alongside the pit. Days when
    wars on the periphery take hold, colours appear different.

    As a child, madness was watching Ichabod Crane in cartoon form
    outrace the Headless Horseman. In Sleepy Hollow trying to put
    down the panic in himself. Ichabod, the peaceful school master,
    driven to the edge. At war with himself but trying to reassure that
    same self the plodding sound of approaching hooves was only dried,
    bullrush stems hitting against his head.

    Madness is more than Van Gogh offering an ear; Druid priests
    garnishing oak trees in a British forest or plaintive Gauguin
    abandoning his family at 34, mid-stream in a successful career. It
    probably stands behind half the men on skid row, beckons like a
    welcome friend before turning fiend and consuming impulse to a
    bag lady.

    The close relation between the creative impulse and "letting go."
    Between the arts and wide eyed eccentricity. Between wanting to be
    free. And knowing. Hearing if you go on like that you'll end up on
    the Lakeshore. Another pretty euphemism. A dangerous truth left
    like an upturned rock for someone to trip on in another garden.

    The farthest away anyone can be.

Paul Cameron Brown

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

English

Suggested Poems

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

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

Terminal Living

    "Everybody in the world is frightened of getting cut."
    Charles Manson

    I
    The image complete
    - collapsing corpses, rag dolls
    with skulls shot away ...
    ruby-red blood spurting
    slipstick/eyeshadow/mascara
    all so reptilian replete.

    II
    The long fingers of the pianist
    playing rifle fire to a
    captive audience,
    stiletto tones;
    the trance effect,
    precedes a cobra's strike,
    summer without smoke.

    III
    A glass of absinthe
    - the Degas painting,
    Marc Lepine measuring out his vial,
    measuring the worth of a single
    woman and finding her long on the call,
    cartridge shells exploding
    filaments of smoke
    (long and blue)...

Paul Cameron Brown

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

Knight-Errant

    A well-thumbed book
    like a well-thumbed life,
    "whilst you walk this earth"
    yet nothing is "afoot",
    as so many small boys
    throwing stones through the funeral parlour
    glass door.

    A cake-walk? Being alive and interacting
    across the face of the multitude is terrible
    algebra running into unfathomable sums.
    "Doing your sums", my grade school teacher
    used to say and I still am. Whippersnapper,
    learning lessons in a strange stamina
    sort of way.

    One of the multitude died last night &
    is now "resting" in a large, Victorian parlour.
    Even the walls grimace. I went by, caught a peek
    at the assemblage chasing thru rain to see his
    last hurrah. Look, "parlour" can be deadly s...

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

The Poetry Pond

    Everyone is a poet, or so the philosopher said. The world teems
    with poetry in much the sense the universe teems with life.
    A poet or two is squirrelled away in every major office.
    Boiler rooms hum with the tooth and nail, robust imagery of
    working class poets. The neurological desire to express oneself
    transcends even social barriers. Be creative, like a brain surgeon.
    My scalpel runneth over amongst all those cerebral ganglia.

    The mind washed clean, scrubbed down. Words burn holes on the
    paper. Firemen disguised as poets douse the heroic flames.
    Sherpas tightly drawn amidst depths of a Himalayan winter
    weather a torrent of words. Groggy, I search for breath, am given
    oxygen but see writing materials.

    In the future,...

Paul Cameron Brown