The Elysian Fields

The Elysian fields
gained commensurate with ability
quiet and shimmering in the sun;
varied realms
inverted islands
the angry blessed
ones - thrice born with
the option to survive
on into flesh and blood form.

The conveyer belt of souls
carrying the damaged ones
far into the night,
spitting out the lukewarm
with plenty of latitude
to manoeuvre
in between.

Lavender and the dye from purple shells
in piercing shrieks
extracting the enacted will
of Nietzscheans before their time;
fledglings in a world
ill begotten and
barely within a choosing.

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

Perhaps

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Trinkets

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Fabulist

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Sequin

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.

Cold Passion

        Some dead undid undid their bushy jaws,
        and bags of blood let out their flies.. .
                    ? Dylan Thomas

    The land is barren
    wears straw wisps
    as an unkempt man
    might razor stubble.

    The land is dry, a faded yellow
    in its barrenness.
    A sky broods from afar,
    a stalactite sun accounts merely a jot
    above that thin road into despair.

    Grass lies everywhere dead,
    faded tongues above an
    earth afflicted with scleroderma,
    deadliest of skin disturbances,
    forerunner of deeper pestilence.

    An erasing wind whips the fields
    further into bereavement;
    turns tiny bits of chaff to pursue themselves
    in a mad St. Vitus dance
    of cold...

Paul Cameron Brown

Offerings (A Movement In Four Parts)

The night is folly without the moon,
trees blank space against a frontal sky
where lattice work from a bled fish reveals
skeletal markings will not administer
the red jack of hearts to a mistress sea.

Most fickle, the ways of a cockroach
(I don't recommend them) to offerings
of white linen, cold squares atop
a stone diamonded floor.

Palaver shacks drone in ghostly light
communicating some message about eel runs
up the black river, the equivalent brush
of tombstones against dark nightsoil.

Tiny bars open as cubicles.
proverbial flashes of the coming evening,
haciendas to count every blessing.

The road to such places
snarls a dusty pleasure
and will heat thin blood
to boil in the daylight hours.

II

Swe...

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

Elysium

I have found a place of loneliness
Lonelier than Lyonesse
Lovelier than Paradise;

Full of sweet stillness
That no noise can transgress
Never a lamp distress.

The full moon sank in state.
I saw her stand and wait
For her watchers to shut the gate.

Then I found myself in a wonderland
All of shadow and of bland
Silence hard to understand.

I waited therefore; then I knew
The presence of the flowers that grew
Noiseless, their wonder noiseless blew.

And flashing kingfishers that flew
In sightless beauty, and the few
Shadows the passing wild-beast threw.

And Eve approaching over the ground
Unheard and subtle, never a sound
To let me know that I was found.

Invisible the hands of Eve
Upon me travel...

David Herbert Richards Lawrence

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

Elysium

From the dust, and the drought, and the heat,
I am borne on the pinions of leave,
From the things that are bad to repeat
To the things that are good to receive.

From the glare of the day at its height
On a land that was blinding to see,
From the wearisome hiss of the night,
By a turn of the wheel I am free.

I have passed to the heart of the Hills,
For a season of halcyon hours,
'Mid the music of murmurous rills,
And the delicate odours of flowers;

And I walk in an exquisite shade,
Where the fern-tasselled boughs interlace;
And the verdurous fringe of the glade
Is a marvel of fairylike grace;

And with never an aim or a plan
I can wander in uttermost ease,
Where the only reminders of Man
Are the monkeys aloft in the trees;<...

John Kendall (Dum-Dum)