Old Brompton Road

    1

    "Death is but a sleep"
    quaint rationalization
    even to Revolutionaries.
    Think of Robespierre
    holding his bleeding jaw
    or Marat outside -
    eyeing the inscription,
    scofula no longer distracting while
    tepidly emptying bath water.

    2
    Dreams, poetry of painting,
    deathly pastel shades alongside
    granite canyons
    entwined with rosebuds and leaves -
    bone horseshoes clanking in the dark.

    3
    Catch basin, drainage ditch
    upon which the raspberry
    parts its tendrils and
    human remains, the loathing
    of the living ("not dead yet...."
    ...appropriate obscenity:)
    scrawled on one Victorian
    mortuary, windows knocked out,
    coffins in full view a
    hand's reach away on a dare
    dignitaries in a pile pried loose;
    one, few years hence across
    the Channel, sworn enemy
    to the French.

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

Passageways

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Claws

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Plaudits

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

The Draper's Cloth

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

English

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At The Red Throat

    In youth, Death was
    a puny boy possessing but
    wormy hands & fleshless fingers
    as in Witch Hazel
    or Scrooge's Future Ghost
    - that insipid Evil One
    Hansel so easily outwitted
    in a gingerbread house.

    Time brought increased notoriety.
    Saucy times with a soupçon of respect
    for the artful dodger.
    Givens change, an armful of
    orange lilies, limp & loathsome,
    on a tombstone door
    before trumpets of rain.

    Graven images. Lifeless stone.
    Death became stone.
    Stone empty. The maggot emptiness
    burrowing into chiselled easel and
    the stone-cutter's savage magic.
    Just a bitty stone
    to herald a passing.

    Night-jars.
    Old straw-...

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

Point Spread

    The skull in the box is that of Cornelius A. Burleigh, the first man to be hanged in London, Ontario, August 19, 1830. The public hanging attracted an audience of over 3,000 when the village of London numbered only a few hundred. Because the rope broke, he was hanged twice! The top of the skull was taken on a world tour by Dr. O.S. Fowler, a phrenologist.
    This part of the skull was presented to the Harris family.
    (Eldon House brochure)

    Off memory
    & a dare,
    the grave man
    coming to a bitter end.
    Burleigh, top of his
    skull reminiscent of a laundry cup
    (or toothpaste cap) separated from
    its yellowing, rightful owner.
    No jaws of life here -
    rather vengeance beyond death,
    shellac & varnish twist shoved
    ...

Paul Cameron Brown

Apparent Failure

We shall soon lose a celebrated building.
- Paris Newspaper.



I.

No, for I ll save it! Seven years since,
I passed through Paris, stopped a day
To see the baptism of your Prince;
Saw, made my bow, and went my way
Walking the heat and headache off,
I took the Seine-side, you surmise,
Thought of the Congress, Gortschakoff,
Cavours appeal and Buols replies,
So sauntered till what met my eyes?

II.

Only the Doric little Morgue!
The dead-house where you show your drowned
Petrarchs Vaucluse makes proud the Sorgue,
Your Morgue has made the Seine renowned.
One pays ones debt in such a case;
I plucked up heart and entered, stalked,
Keeping a tolerable face
Compared with some whose cheeks were chalked

Robert Browning

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

The Night Raid

Around me broods the dim, mysterious Night,
    Star-lit and still.
No whisper comes across the Plain,
Asleep beneath the breezes light,
Which scarcely stir the growing grain.
Slow chimes the quiet midnight hour
In some unseen and distant tower,
While round me broods the vague, mysterious Night,
    Star-lit, and cool, and still.

And I must desecrate this silent time
    Of drowsy dreams!
On mighty wings towards the sky,
Towards the stars, I have to climb
And o'er the sleeping country fly,
And such far-echoing clamour make
That all the villages must wake.
So must I desecrate this quiet time
    Of soft and drowsy dreams!

The hour comes ... soon must I say farewell
    To this fair earth.
Then to my little room I go
Where I ...

Paul Bewsher