Skootematta

    Sheldrake, a magician
    - the mandrake
    a mythic plant whose shriek
    drove listeners wild....
    this lake, Sheldrake
    and its windsong-heartswoon
    counterpart, Skootematta
    with Shabomeka &
    a whiff of Buckshot Lake to boot,
    waves lapping the
    prayerful stones -
    water's edge
    the earth's bones....
    Lakes an art-form
    hardscrabble scribble
    shorthand on a blessed land.

    The mysticism of basic shadows,
    occult shapes of ourselves.

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

Moon Dark World

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Reading The Tides: Petroglyph Park

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Ancient Of Days

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

For Tom Thomson

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.

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

Moccasin

Backwoods cabin, opera house
from the pines awash with stars,
skullduggery in place over spruce hills
dredged to open revolt
against invading plough    -
where greenest leaves
in a miser's hand part
rotting gold bags
all nugget strewn, step to step,
with water speaking magic
over the sound of countless woodland ducks.

Hocus-pacus, the
flies are sleeves over the world,
black granite pull-overs
slung thru the air
a twinkling of the eye invokes
funeral trees, deerskin in colour,
the rabbit in the hat behind
rich birchbark racing thru the dark.

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

Casting Rocks

    Merely on edge,
    the wharf in bad light
    clinging to water's ledge -
    a loon from afar
    the Woods
    closing with each sound.

    Casting rocks toward moon's glare
    lapidations laughing back,
    the treacle of warm night
    coaxing fire's glowing might.

    Sudden, oceanic wilderness
    breathless in barked silence -
    and camphor to keep the flies at distance,
    the anchored boat like a prison ship
    dallying on the waves,
    brambles & underbrush
    sunken wet sand,
    abundant berries rasp in thickets -
    the cottage like a jar
    closing for the night.

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

Shadow River

MUSKOKA

A stream of tender gladness,
Of filmy sun, and opal tinted skies;
Of warm midsummer air that lightly lies
In mystic rings,
Where softly swings
The music of a thousand wings
That almost tones to sadness.

Midway 'twixt earth and heaven,
A bubble in the pearly air, I seem
To float upon the sapphire floor, a dream
Of clouds of snow,
Above, below,
Drift with my drifting, dim and slow,
As twilight drifts to even.

The little fern-leaf, bending
Upon the brink, its green reflection greets,
And kisses soft the shadow that it meets
With touch so fine,
The border line
The keenest vision can't define;
So perfect is the blending.

The far, fir trees that cover
The brownish hills with needles green and gold,

Emily Pauline Johnson