Pyromania

    She had a fireplace -
    the sexual kiln
    of her pyromaniac
    desire,
    a brick embedded in heat,
    white hot coal to ember,
    her lust flaring red,
    soot to powder
    dark as charcoal
    smear, a walk
    across shimmering mirror.

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

The Hire

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Currency

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

The Potato Eaters

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Entry Point

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.

Kindling

    As a matter of fact,
    ovens do carry a glazed stare,
    fireplaces are wont to parry
    thoughts to kindling
    before their stoop and
    on breathless summer nights
    one is hard pressed
    to recall cinder and
    blackened barleys any more
    vegetatively than upon
    these harridan pots.

Paul Cameron Brown

Pelée

    1

    The night before ...
    sultry Martinique, a
    tortoise shell cat
    climbed, lap to pipe,
    amid curbs of orange smoke.

    2
    Mount Pelée, a
    smoking hard hat
    with the candle-wax of longing
    gutting in paraffin for
    30,000 souls sent to the Crematorium
    her harbour hissing
    lava foam;
    even coffee beans fused into
    other metal bits, a
    danse macabre twittering machine,
    (nature au contraire),
    tortoise shell improviso with
    splotched colours weaving dawn's light
    & feline crouching.

    3
    - the curl of her island's paws
    lanced in heat,
    brief wisps tugging Pelée's
    synopsis (dark & smouldering), with
    cat eye...

Paul Cameron Brown

Moonrock

    She wears a cat encrusted T-shirt
    & panties with L*O*V*E
    guarding the Paradise door
    & when balm of night
    casts shadows,
    her face is moonrock
    distant to mysterious
    down storybook crags;
    her darling form cloaked
    in twilight garments
    of an inky earth.

    Gates of Venus,
    . . . as if feline whiskers
    whispered, wan cat eyes
    in amber dark glowed pale honey
    in alchemy or blur of soft movement
    was caress to stars' elopement
    with the sky.

    This woman summons fire,
    stokes furnaces to quicken parchment leaves
    of flame-thick desire,
    honed soft on ripples
    skin tones were curvaceous
    drift of oars, vivacious breast on buttock's

Paul Cameron Brown

Skin

    Her emerald top
    phosphorescent candy glow
    stick candy,
    sno' cane -
    floss like
    the mane revealed beneath,
    spun hair matted/woven into
    icicle lengths & pubis mink.

    Her presence as a monk sliding
    under a cowl, jet-black velvet
    or midnight eye-liner shadow
    knotting strands of dark.

    She comes on waves -
    candelabra is a name
    deft movement of finger
    caressing storm, bare legs
    shining wet street lamps
    decantered ambered wine.

    Cigarette floating between lips,
    uncharted voyage of the smile
    where puffs of smoke
    are parrots' wings,
    incandescent show-girls
    in novelty across the flame.

Paul Cameron Brown

Intime

Returning, I find her just the same,
At just the same old delicate game.

Still she says: "Nay, loose no flame
To lick me up and do me harm!
Be all yourself! - for oh, the charm
Of your heart of fire in which I look!
Oh, better there than in any book
Glow and enact the dramas and dreams
I love for ever! - there it seems
You are lovelier than life itself, till desire
Comes licking through the bars of your lips
And over my face the stray fire slips,
Leaving a burn and an ugly smart
That will have the oil of illusion. Oh, heart
Of fire and beauty, loose no more
Your reptile flames of lust; ah, store
Your passion in the basket of your soul,
Be all yourself, one bonny, burning coal
That stays with steady joy of its own fire.
But do not seek to t...

David Herbert Richards Lawrence

Countess II

    Imagining the smoke burnt
    imprint of a tatoo
    with tapers flickering,
    the bejewelled gaze a dragon's snout
    must bring
    or the serpent coil, crimson flame
    curl of dashing cobra,
    its very fangs drawing
    lifeblood from the fleshy
    perch in smooth, red scorching.

    On the pectorals of a sailor.
    Perhaps whiplash of the granite waves,
    grim trucker with a "Mother"
    grasping chains
    that see burly sandbags in place -
    hirsute biker, cords of
    hair lashing his tattooed lady
    the lavender caress of scar
    with implant that
    of the chopper itself,
    her fleshy buttocks
    careening off the road.

Paul Cameron Brown