Orange Lichens

    Orange lichens, in sun-like clusters,
    entomb the Rockface wall
    a sheer ascent from the waterline
    into glassy viscous green - -
    the plummet from skyward
    to lake face
    passes breathless squadrons
    of Dragon Flies
    - devil's Darning Needles
    threading the air
    where Wolf Spiders
    bivouac in web-castles,
    thin Draculas to their insect host
    each hairy mantle black
    with burrow moats at high watermark;
    yet unforeseen are the funnel lairs
    for bull snakes
    each water thrasher
    gracing the rotund, behemoth Rock
    lunging like a Spirit Presence up
    from this watery chalice.

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

Prospectus

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Ahoy

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Flashpoint

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Cape Of Good Hope

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.

Serpentine

    More fragment of tree
    than serpent
    clothed in wet
    he mirrors me
    bedraggled in stone
    cloak or so it seems
    this cavernous ledge coven.

    Is he witch's totem
    swimming at yard's length
    I can web reach him
    startling darts of rain
    cutting lagoon's edge
    this sedge & eel grass dragon.

Paul Cameron Brown

Red Fox (Red Horse Lake)

    A magnificent Red Devil
    splayed out in his tracks;
    this tumultuous soul, baron of the backwoods
    with his provenance unknown ...
    this compromise to individuality
    abandons him to chorome death
    under a canopy-canapé dream-coated rock dome.

    Trepanned, empire of trees, dark matter
    & a castle of leaves,
    a fish-hawk for a tomahawk
    in his thermo-cline eyes ...
    dithyrambic young osprey in the offing,
    candelabra under stars.

    Going inland for freshwater prawns,
    sandalwood and tortoiseshells
    finding bewitchment amid moving cars.

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

When I Was A Much Younger Man

    When I was a much younger man,
    my spiritual homeland was a scrub-mile of bush with thicket
    leaves the size of your palms.

    Saucer-size holes of white air enveloped the edge of trees
    and the sky was large, an upturned pitcher
    placed upon its ears...
    edge-wise cicadas & June Beetles let out long throbs
    and the people rounded out lives between the farmhouse & the barn.
    This ennobled them and they were famously resilient and, in turn,
    redolent with firmness & the gladness of life.

    There was a Drive House, a pig pen, sheds & a chicken coop and, by
    night, stars became the earlier evening swallows gulping the space Left in
    the train of the moon. There was no one Empress of the Night anymore
    than a Pr...

Paul Cameron Brown

Shamrock

    Is there anything prettier than that -
    to stare into your manifold spaces
    toward the hook & vine
    of cathedral leaps,
    the vaults & crypts
    as go-betweens of an earthy worship,
    the supine female form?

    By quiet pools,
    thrush in the thicket
    with red berry behind its eye,
    miniature sun
    proceeding by the branch
    to undress the bark
    with leaves as
    passionate culprits
    kissing dark.

    Clasped hands
    upward lies the sky
    my masterpiece angel,
    I bite lush meadows,
    tread spongy brooks,
    endear daring small of back,
    crevice taste nape and neck,
    a beatific pilgrim nearing
    a fleshy way-station,
    first charting his co...

Paul Cameron Brown

Entry Point

Ants colonized it
-    huge abodes littered with the dead
(leaves, sticks, the occasional granulated insect
piled high, totemic-fashion)
reaping a fortune in scenery,
though probably not food Ojibways were next    -
their tell-tale encampment by
pocket-sized waterfall,
inlets off a winding cataract
& moss, loam-thick with black soil
a future arboreal dream
inching over rock, darling crevice
for northern orchid, then kiss
of red death the hybrid trillium
& more sinister cousin,
jack-in-the-pulpit
for Indian foragers.

Animistic limestone shone hands,
poked thru the forest with stealth,
petroglyphic lava beds
-    a cougar pouncing    -
runic carvings the cold in the
Giant's stone nostrils billowing
off the lake li...

Paul Cameron Brown