Rouge And Gray

So much time has passed
& time is a hooligan run wild
littering the streets,
squeezing toothpaste at the wrong end
shredding clothes with a razor blade.

Time is never called into account    -
lives like Peter Pan
in a flying abode above it all
scot-free, the surly bandit.

A perilous acquisition    -
tiny pinpricks above the eye-brows
crows' feet
-    all too visible rending of
fleshy corners bulbed
to puffiness.

Red-handed,
I caught time
his knife in Youth once more
still-water decay,
brackish trouble-maker
with tint of rouge and gray.

This school-yard tough
still picking on the corner weakling.
braggadocio and upstart
spoiling for a fight
first elbow up,
each foot in a fray.

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

Rip

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Juniper Trees

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Flood

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Skin

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.

Turncoat

    Sitting in the spendthrift dark
    lilting pennies away,
    deciphering fate ... .
    The bed, a warm reach past
    the pillow
    like personal mortality in the
    incest breath of life.

    Warm stuff of dreams -
    the calender with its days mesh &
    march like soldiers
    dearly departed
    (cindered and bludgeoned)
    or the old sea-faring chest
    where all men are sailors
    past light's corner.

    Sturdy trudgeons,
    clock bursts thru the room
    mindful of time and aching,
    decaying things.

    Hallow's Eve in movements of the curtains -
    a remembered Rembrandt,
    self-portrait of the old man
    standing alone in a clammy room,
    idling the seconds, with drab

Paul Cameron Brown

The Crowkeeper

    "She gallops night by night through lovers' brains...."

    I see grindstones in the sky,
    pots of tulips overturned
    - big tug of the reins
    and chestnut hair
    is seen before the windowpane
    with chance & more chance lost to
    frost or hungry bees
    this still autumn eve.

    Darling,
    walls that division us
    are envelopes of passion
    bridging trust, seal it
    lest it rust.

    Skeletal scrapings
    make for poor bedding
    (this poor rhinoceros of lies)
    the devil gliding about so disguised
    on his tentacle and toenail chair
    (inviting lair) or is it
    hiccup and bandaged prayer
    yet stalwart wall is a rosary bead
    thick ale and bread to hungry snail

Paul Cameron Brown

Passageways

    Greet the days -
        greet the moon,
            gather the stars.. .
    Man is not at one with himself -
    collars the infidel ways of his
    race under pressure domes of widening silence.

    I scan the horizon barely cognizant
    of the metallic bits that pierce
    the night's crown - no
    jewelled orb stabs this queen's spectre.
    I am running and lost. . . ever slow
    to breech this reasoning.

    Honeysuckle mist with armfuls
    of orange lilies with scent stronger
    than the carriage needed in their gathering.

    Place the constellations upon their heads,
    the colour so transcends.
    And then there are the bludgeoned
    stars fallen into the eyes of
    my farmhouse scene.
    The sphin...

Paul Cameron Brown

Sequin

    A youthful bandit
    this forest -
    faltering eyelids in mud troughs
    & puddles like
    brisk lies
    woven thru deception.

    Stealing autumn into
    its colours,
    leaves in birchbark rustle
    a full mauraud stealth
    across every breeze.

    Thief, thief
    elf with a key,
    a thousand rasping angels
    their throaty javelins
    hurled from branch's edge,
    brief pageant robbing
    summer's pantry.

    Offal of the fall,
    the lake a sequined glove
    tossed from a careless hand;
    a rowboat as a buckle
    chromatic foam
    for a finger's fan.

Paul Cameron Brown

Cuando-Cubango

    1

    Moths, if they dream dusk,
    sport esurient hip-flasks on their wings -
    gangster rum-runners better to sully dark,
    traverse caravans of colour
    amid silk-routes
    to dazzle Prester John,
    cork unscrew the unicorn horn askew.

    2
    Compte de la Mothe
    escadrilles/flotillas
    D'Entrecasteaux
    with Bougainville discovering
    well, Bougainvillaea and I,
    latter day la Perouse,
    cunningly amuck on coral
    adoration and wine,
    (red as scarlet leaves)
    chenille, frangipanni and the Marquis house colours
    of the flame-bitten tropics.

    3
    Let me scandalize why.
    Watch the sea churn
    to white bubbles then coat
    your nostril with brine
...

Paul Cameron Brown

Shivaree

    These kettle bells.
    Is it the axe-murderer,
    with green garbage bag
    in the shadows?

    No. Green trees so thick
    their tops are folded hands
    or knotted knuckles
    to make perilous shrubbery
    by the garden wall.

    Yet this is a state of mind
    and shards of multi-coloured
    glass dot the top of stones.
    Interesting. Should a sociopath put
    out his shingle, come calling,
    a much under-estimated, rude uttering
    would take place.

    Still bees are active in the night air,
    not swarms, but a hum. Pleasant odours waft
    thru stiller air. There is no charged electricity
    to things, no tautness or leathery tightness to
    individual seconds. Still and stricken still.

Paul Cameron Brown