Peculiar Morning

As if every living thing lived, breathed
its existence
explained why water took the shape
of a container,
studied sharpened awareness of cold,
broke night spots onto a peculiar morning.

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

Carnival And Lent

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Regalia

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

The Bloodfish

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Highgate

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.

Sweet Water

    The leaves lie hidden as spades about their home.
    Brief movement of a kitten, then silence
    till the car's engine drones.
    Close by, a pioneer cemetery sits near a secondary wood.

    Queer is the effect of sun on a tinted roof;
    bluebells with poppies,
    cowslip and tiny brook
    back of
    fields redden and
    given to wheat.

    A house is a machine
    processing the water of living
    a replenished cistern,
    birds paying a call, a minor animal
    brushing past
    an ivy-railed fence.

Paul Cameron Brown

Eyeshine

    I remember the world like a picture.
    The habitat of trees and sense impressions,
    the cover of leaves as fall spurred its way
    thru corridors of plasma forest & sarsen stone.

    Most of all, I saw illuminated clearly
    the brash self poke of logic that came
    massively when sunlight stirred, lilted
    its early head erasing the world thru
    sand crusts of colour.

    The cabin floor, a cold dawn infinity,
    was a chilblain on frosty morning shadows -
    the old cupboards staring like flowers
    through a break in the leaves
    watched till the latches & hinges were worlds
    in frozen power, dark rust as thoughts
    meandering like age.

    The stamped down clay, the well worn earthen crust
    that m...

Paul Cameron Brown

Mirage

    The intense focus of light
    but pointillism,
    into this juncture bits of light
    surround rough, inverted sky -
    dawn is their message
    unfurled about
    the alumni apparatus
    of incensed eyes
    and whispered sun.

    The heavy mirage of dots,
    landscape locked
    Seurat, a frieze of summer heat
    choking water lilies -
    the sun as a crystal ship
    adrift across
    bedlam-sponsored
    random dots.

Paul Cameron Brown

Swords And Roses

    Some lives have themes.
    Goldfish that stubbornly die;
    compatability only with distant lovers
    - flowers (but no sweet-breads)
    that wilt to the touch.

    Waiting. Charcoal-grey cat
    agreeably on a green linoleum table
    with light basking in....
    a tad playful,
    paws up,
    (classic boxer stance)
    but no one notices.
    Others oblique in their transparency,
    are unmindful of even the empty closet
    and greeting cards that smile hello.

    In the dark
    this room shimmers below
    life-raft status;
    chairs are buoys
    bobbing under waves
    of congealed fright.
    In the morning
    the first pigeons
    rifle over rooftops,
    mad flutterings like your eyes

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

Bloodstream

Camping out, a miraculous thing happened.
The kaleidoscope of vision was focused on a precipice,
caught endangered water about to fall
under microscopic attention.

Moisture was shortlived; so, too, congealed lava sheets
& bedrock over which the water flowed.
The cabin in the distance seemed prisoner to mist
while a rainbow gathered its wits for the next performance.
Nowhere did leaves intrude though a fly made
headway up a glass pane
embedded in wood like antidiluvian plants have been
known to seek amber.

In their chorus, other flies droned then ran up & down the ledge.
In the iate sunshine of the day, a bastardized vision of dirt farmers,
pioneers imprisoned in similar toil.

Paul Cameron Brown