Within Reach

    There are two images,
    a moon within reach
    yet trapped under snow -
    an old woman's threadbare shawl
    with peasants furiously working brooms
    scraping ice shavings
    into howls and husks of frenzy.

    Ii
    Then the same pond,
    this time summer
    with fishing nets,
    and briefer shawls
    pirating light's wanton swoon,
    a spyglass hour moon
    all bathed in yellow
    colour of kerosene
    - a rich creamy butter -
    goldilocks let out on weekends
    her spun, golden tresses
    lowered onto the water
    like so many little boats
    nimbly hopping aboard.

    lii
    A kerchief folded on a fence
    a man wearing an overcoat living there
    in white satin swooning
    to the pianist's expert touch
    down magic chambers
    soothing, soothing there
    to fold and tear
    the pileated moonlit edge
    of her skin.

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

Desire

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Unpaginated

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Resignation

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

The Treasure Ships

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.

Flashpoint

    1
    The moon has a larder
    and a kitchen,
    wears a nightcap
    as Father in the Night Before Christmas.

    2
    The moon hoards pistachios,
    marzipan
    commands the shadows
    is mustachioed
    sleeps in a sloop
    (at least when I look)
    like the boat
    owl and pussycat
    took to sea.

    3
    And on country nights
    in high summer
    fishing nets seem drawn
    about his face,
    reveal ribbons of light,
    eerie panhandlers grubbing quarters;
    a sinister sailor with a sack
    on a pitch black wharf.

    4
    Between clouds,
    leafy barques
    the hinge reflected on the
    thick, ashen door
    the moon will pirate
    your sen...

Paul Cameron Brown

The Gingham Dream Utterance

    As I watch the clouds assemble, steam-ship fashion, with funnels to
    alert passersby, I realize the Romanovs tore silk & riches from
    every bazaar leaving the bright spot of this evening studded with emerald marks.
    A dot in the ocean is a spark upon which minnows play, their silver
    bellies upturned to imitate the moon's white shawl.

    I am wanting in the delights of the reef narrowly hauled from
    rambunctious depths, the tiniest splashes of green, yellow, blue darting in an upturned fish's tail.
    An octopus rock commands squadrons of fingerlings while the eisel
    fish decorates a steeper, coral garden.

    Jet black sand crowns the lagoon volcanic ages' past the innocence
    of this spurting palm while mounds of pitch dark ants deposit slivers o...

Paul Cameron Brown

Airbrush

    Iced coffee,
    wedge of toast -
    the sun poking thru
    cranberry glass
    delights exquisite Duchess of Berry,
    her decanters & an hourglass.

    Halo-hello in your fingertips
    I said,
    to a cadaver of light
    boldly striking a tuning fork
    to ring an engagement
    of gold flecks
    by your bed.

    Limoges vase
    for lace and pretty underthings
    for outside the stream
    steals my interest,
    wearing tumbledown silk pyjamas
    and a peek-a-boo smile that points
    thru reed curtains.

    A rustle from her chemise
    and sun parasol parts green boudoir
    draping shiny, black rock.

    The muddle of this earth-time puzzle,
    brief flutter to the eyelid...

Paul Cameron Brown

Presence Of Mind

    Spring heralds the summer with lilacs perched from that door.

    In snows, a swarm of bushes lie black and apparently rootless as the town's iron-gate bridge collapses under the centre part of the main road.

    Little enclaves of activity pass as stores, mere centrefolds across busy highway arteries this time of year.

    I am a grey fleck in my dark wool coat near the perimeter of a winding fence.

    The casual observer gives me half a chance to be seen in the deathless white, opaque coloured moonstone so still against the field's shores.

    A plaster river, her sides inserted with isle-dotted chunks, hands across a winter solstice tribal dance.

    Ostensibly, I poke the land from stylized limbo, a chalky substance disturbed with every movement's cough.

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

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