Homuncular Forms

Cape aux Morts.
Cape Diable,
Points of Massacre
Rocks and Island
a plethora of Wreck Bays.

But on Funk Island, nothing matters.
Brahmsian rhetoric could describe the island
Prokofievian,
the sound of Mars
homuncular forms;
an imperative monotone.

Murrelings fell from cliffs into the sea,
rose and floated in foam, screaming.
Olivaceous puddles.
Murres and gannets, kittiwakes,
sun splashed white & pitiless
light on rock    -
argon, radon, krypton
seasons of millennia suffocating
in the original gases of earth:
xenon, neon.
Granite intestines
with its outer edge lost
in the darkness between the stars.

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

Distemper

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Toronto

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

The Waters Of The Bay Lie Beneath

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Eyeshine

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.

Amherst Island

    In winter, you were
    a flash of light,
    tundra against
    Arctic floor

    Warm breath
    stirred yr
    summer's breast
    and I saw
    windblown hair
    the colour of kelp
    transfix
    the lavender print
    of a scalp strewn
    shore

    Later,
    tiny bits
    from
    a calico dress
    became domiciled wings
    off butterflies,
    miniature bitterns
    ever more shadowy
    strewn across the Barrens,
    an unbridled strength from that

    Faraway isle released to orchestrate sunlight
    amongst all colonies that flower -
    a statuesque Red Admiral,
    Banded Purple,
    feckless Comma
    all aswirl to the
    pipes of a Devil's Paintbrush...

Paul Cameron Brown

The Gingham Dream Utterance

    As I watch the clouds assemble, steam-ship fashion, with funnels to
    alert passersby, I realize the Romanovs tore silk & riches from
    every bazaar leaving the bright spot of this evening studded with emerald marks.
    A dot in the ocean is a spark upon which minnows play, their silver
    bellies upturned to imitate the moon's white shawl.

    I am wanting in the delights of the reef narrowly hauled from
    rambunctious depths, the tiniest splashes of green, yellow, blue darting in an upturned fish's tail.
    An octopus rock commands squadrons of fingerlings while the eisel
    fish decorates a steeper, coral garden.

    Jet black sand crowns the lagoon volcanic ages' past the innocence
    of this spurting palm while mounds of pitch dark ants deposit slivers o...

Paul Cameron Brown

Warhorse

    Taken as metaphor ...
    Ophelia's funeral oration,
    derogatory snout
    of the Morning Glory
    breathing pollened fire
    overladen steps of the church.

    II
    Limestone rock
    caulking in grey
    limpid cracks ...
    doublet and hose
    then gold doubloons
    down sunlit honey
    where a smear of red lichen
    onto brown-yellow moss
    colonizes rock.

    III
    Poor Ophelia, dicing
    for a sedentary-free Hamlet,
    duty-free of fissures + frost.

    IV
    Elusiveness,
    water rushing over stone
    torrent of words
    (Ophelia receiving these),
    red hand of the berry
    swollen shut,
    prisoner in the dock
    bird of quarry, pit
    &am...

Paul Cameron Brown

Metaphor

    There is a star near
    the hinge of planets,
    a barn under
    a cow's lick of moon -
    plausible people
    moving thru an
    airless universe.

    Pay attention to the frond of lilac
    . . . limestone troughs upon which
    thickets of Indian scalp &
    devil's paintbrush soar
    to the horizon
    and, afterwards,
    little creeks run
    with the sparrows of evening time
    in step to tiny boatmen
    that echo enamelled snails
    from the very consonants of earth.

    Rustle of leaves,
    some might argue
    breathless gasps
    to intone the savagery
    of little seasonal voices
    cut off
    mid-stream.

    A spate of bees,
    early colonizers
    deflo...

Paul Cameron Brown

Tide Charts

    To create dream -
    the pearl thru wine effect,
    oil and vinegar viscidity
    of giant salad leaves
    basking on the
    broken picnic table
    like so many lemurs
    taken to a
    Malagasy forest.

    Liverwurst on rye,
    cuff-links drag
    the hard, mica table;
    so, why be afraid
    'cause spume from waves
    glows upward
    in so many trails of
    grey-laden smoke?

    This island looks like a loaf,
    a dot or mole on inviting cheeks,
    to me; so wary, invariably, of land
    (and perhaps the Sand Man)
    amongst all those wandering eyes,
    especially the sea-scape,
    curl of snake
    illuminated
    in a sudden, tropic shower.

    See the sudden bandanna ...

Paul Cameron Brown

Ahoy

    Image throttled in the subconscious,
    romantic throwback -
    the mind on a voyage round land's end
    to eclipse pyramidal fires
    set as beacons along rock strewn shores -
    her skeletal inhabitants on ice flows
    wrapped in bearskins
    with dirks between their teeth
    slapping one another to keep warm.

    Then, alpine ranges carrying
    the plight of the Andes in their mouth;
    a dull, white sail propped against ship's bow
    with a noise like an anvil
    coming loose in the brain.

    More frightening, sailors mutiny on a diet
    of bread as sallow maggots
    march in a quarter horse sized trot
    across the floorboards.
    Such men in the bellows of one's mind
    break out rubber dinghies
    i...

Paul Cameron Brown