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.

English

Paul Cameron Brown

Page 1 of 20

1920's Flicker

    John Dillinger and Baby-Faced Nelson
    in a dream together
    - one shooting holes thru
    theories of his untimely death,
    the other frying in an old-time
    (e) Electric Chair
    with balloons waving, bonbons
    going off, the crowd in a joyous,
    boisterous mood.

    The marquee reads:
    "Public Enemy Number One
    laid to rest in a
    shallow grave as
    gravelly as the heart
    that beat in his stoney chest."

    An adjacent sign noted,
    crime does pay the undertaker
    but other, good-hearted folks
    need look no further than
    the Dempsey-Tunney fight
    to see which has the
    bigger box office draw.

Paul Cameron Brown

A Face

A face in the mist, with rain around,
clings to bare leaves frowning.
A face through the mist, convulsed,
plays stationary, perching from twigs.
A face, not knowing it, trust it is good.

Paul Cameron Brown

A Thief's Notebook

    Baggage. Banal brigands,
    turn-coats, stiletto to dirk
    appraise warm flesh
    upraised over a pie-shaped sky,
    bread crust moon.

    On oyster rock,
    with grinning, red hibiscus,
    jute and henequin
    smother the lavender caress of stars.

Paul Cameron Brown

Ace Of Spades

    Parable as metaphor -
    profile in hard glint of light,
    buckskin garb
    merging from shadow &
    buckboards -
    sandwiching of memory
    being elbowed
    thru a Deadwood City
    saloon door.

    Noneother.
    Dead Man's Hand.
    Cards strewn,
    last tumbler ...
    chamber on empty.
    Yancy Derringer modelling the
    latest revolver of his namesake,
    in pit & the palm
    bullet in the back
    for Wild Bill, just for a keepsake.

    Treasure-trove for the funeral parlour:
    "they done him up well". Peccadillo as provocation.

Paul Cameron Brown

Adua

Adua had never regarded his life as a pantomime. He wanted so much to please. As a dandelion, he thought of himself as little brother to the sun catching her yellow butter in his eyes.

It came as no small surprise, then, when Adua learned of the world's misgivings toward him. Other flowers, far less nobly constructed, seemed held in such greater esteem. The first shred of evidence of this that Adua was indeed not a bountiful plant came when cattle distained his presence. Later, a smelly herbicide was used in his presence and Adua knew all was not well. Most discomforting, however, was the manner in which other flowers measured up in comparison to Adua. Even flowers that Adua considered quite ordinary seemed, tongue in cheek, to fare much more prettily.

"Adua, Adua as the wind blows so do the poppies grow."

Paul Cameron Brown

Adventurer

    How desert islands
    in a cartoonist's imagination
    invariably are flat,
    palm-studded
    peopled by a solitary, abject
    yet humorous man.

    In real time, no delight;
    such islets
    are razor hot,
    rock sharp
    treeless, barren
    slabs ... examples
    of art shirking, but
    not shrinking life.

    Three days growth of beard,
    bottle with note on the incoming tide
    comic survivor swimming up
    (tramp steamer in the distance),
    shirts waved in unison
    predictable disappointment et al,
    glum hands to face
    then the inevitable credulity
    splitting retort
    amid plaything for the crabs.

Paul Cameron Brown

Adversaries

He held his hands like plastic    -
his vestments the finer
calling of his trade,
vocation as modern strummer
of Nature's laws
Engineer in brief    -
wine glass in hand
bestowing the more salient points
of mawkish disbelief with
cigarette to numb the spine.

The Reverend
looked down on fire,
caught papryus smoke in the bellows
of his chest,
made laundry of
the Plumber's intellect    -
tore savage parchment
from the soft cheesecutter's
contemporary breath.

Paul Cameron Brown

Ahoy

    Image throttled in the subconscious,
    romantic throwback -
    the mind on a voyage round land's end
    to eclipse pyramidal fires
    set as beacons along rock strewn shores -
    her skeletal inhabitants on ice flows
    wrapped in bearskins
    with dirks between their teeth
    slapping one another to keep warm.

    Then, alpine ranges carrying
    the plight of the Andes in their mouth;
    a dull, white sail propped against ship's bow
    with a noise like an anvil
    coming loose in the brain.

    More frightening, sailors mutiny on a diet
    of bread as sallow maggots
    march in a quarter horse sized trot
    across the floorboards.
    Such men in the bellows of one's mind
    break out rubber dinghies
    i...

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

Alcatraz

White ibis/blue crane,
the arch of wings
in full sail over leafy barques
a wise stork scanning water
like the Disney character,
conductor on his train
with eye-glasses
& stop watch.

Sift of wind,
unseen hand exploring the pond
the stork ungainly on a single leg
the bird-man Jolly Roger
a pirate burrowing in the muck
add skull and cross bones
upending frightened fingerlings
the snout of the bandit
a rifle shot away
creasing the shallows.

Paul Cameron Brown

Ambergris City

Felt no pain against the water,
the tea-cup sky was a turquoise colour in its wrath
illuminating ambergris city in spot checks below.

The sperm whale population was in decline.
Little or nothing remained of former commitments.
A bitter legacy consumed itself in half-truths
against the sound of upturned lies.

Winding alleys come as the conscience of well plaid cities.
are open zippers revealing the indecent poor.
The fire hydrant lives of cellar inhabitants strain these urinals
for wretches sniffing out the edge of completed walls.

Gray nuisances, the men in asbestos overalls finding their way
through the apricot fire of dark, eclipse Park Plazas with the
stately elegance of empty dinner dishes or red trash cans
against indentured snow.

Paul Cameron Brown

Amherst Island

    In winter, you were
    a flash of light,
    tundra against
    Arctic floor

    Warm breath
    stirred yr
    summer's breast
    and I saw
    windblown hair
    the colour of kelp
    transfix
    the lavender print
    of a scalp strewn
    shore

    Later,
    tiny bits
    from
    a calico dress
    became domiciled wings
    off butterflies,
    miniature bitterns
    ever more shadowy
    strewn across the Barrens,
    an unbridled strength from that

    Faraway isle released to orchestrate sunlight
    amongst all colonies that flower -
    a statuesque Red Admiral,
    Banded Purple,
    feckless Comma
    all aswirl to the
    pipes of a Devil's Paintbrush...

Paul Cameron Brown

Ancestral Memory

Patrician to my plebian,
aristocratic leaning versus
unbridled backwoods feeling    -
distinct Old World breeding
countering rudest colonial lean-to;
his carcass lay, roadworthy,
blinking back cold starlight
with all the forest as silent voyeur
stretching for a look,
black fur & quills
in disarray like Crazy Horse's warpaint
after the Big Horn,
this roughneck Canadian porcupine
shot clean with bumper & chrome.

Then little hedge-pig
quaint as porcelain china cup
half a world away
greeting pints of milk
in an English doorway
half his scalp torn thru
dirty, British lorry choking fumes
the petrol in its tank loose.

Paul Cameron Brown

Ancient Of Days

    It's Epsom but could pass for Epping,
    New Forest or Dumbarton Wood.

    There's ivy of the thickest
    English sort not commonly
    found in America; sprigs
    growing across open ground
    mantling it.

    Shiny to the eye, soft encircling
    the touch, I am reminded of blue waters,
    green grass Blake's Ancient of Days:
    an old man's beard stepping from the trees,
    Spanish Moss so unearthly it covers a
    southern forest.

    There are tendrils in herbal potions of unbroken lips that move
    across both dew and clover.

    I see Druids reciting psalms, weaving ivy along garlands
    of oak, the incantation set before a British lake -
    briar baskets carrying the trusting dead;
    food offerings tran...

Paul Cameron Brown

And Then Some

    The anger past
    as a cat arches her back
    a thickly rich robust anger
    blackest coffee in a thick
    earthen mug
    this thug & mugger with sufficient
    silk thread.

    Yet the assassin is back
    with catcalls & hiss
    cortisol adrenalin that
    lunge like that cat
    rapid-fire along the back garden fence
    this patio stroll
    my senses black.

    And time luxuriating like a thick veil.

    That dread pack with
    anger in the lead
    - what prevokes it -
    obviously really
    a pack of violent
    running lies - wolves
    hell-bent running over
    intent on deceit,
    thievery, then some.

    A narrative with a long reach.

Paul Cameron Brown

Animals And The Stars

    Crickets are a strange place,
    cricks of dew hemmed
    with hoar-frost
    mushrooming by a door.

    The glens are fashions of a loom
    eerie pads
    are nightly rooms.

    The padlocks
    remove the key
    as grass-hoppers
    keep the meadow free.

    A twilight world
    along the edge
    at rapier's length
    this light, this point
    at end of the void.

Paul Cameron Brown

Antarctica

Perhaps it is needed to balance the planet: to provide
employment for penguins, or that ice in the form of
crystals calls forth tiny sleighs.

That the orange hibiscus be associated only with deepest tropics
...plankton learn to feed Baleen whales
And iron hulks, off ships. submit to greater Masters. the elements.

Second Theories

Another supposition projects...
snowy wastes are but vapour trails of jets and tatter sails.
Sleet comes only from cannonized rain, galvanized by inclement ironmongers.

Yet a third hypothesizes frozen energy is stored in the
form of ice caps and that the lost amongst departed
souls are reborn with every powdery breath.

Ptolemy knew of a southern polar continent. Cook
and Shackelton attempted separate conquests. Ship...

Paul Cameron Brown

Approaching Thirty (Lauds And Matins)

    Laconic tears or Botticelli's Venus
    holding the years
    like tresses
    in a wistful pose.

    Tenebrous youth accosted
    by callow Time
    bleeds the heart
    with spring aloes.
    No comfortable shibboleths
    to restrain the wriggling polyps
    in the skin or nestling hair.

    Gerundive in movement,
    each particled whimper
    of the clock surrounds
    a cloistered second
    poised about the bearded target.
    As far as you know, nothing unusual.

    A total of eight hundred months
    but grammar school sums,
    spiel & mileage
    to drift across a lifetime.
    At thirty, the best half of the potage
    is gruel hand drawn from
    the sabulous pot.

Paul Cameron Brown

Page 1 of 20