Paul Cameron Brown

    1

    I won't envy the heat this August.
    The fall (English say autumn)
    burrowing like urinating dogs
    thru trees,
    carrying winter woolies
    with sniff of air
    crisscrossing the lion's tamer's
    path I must trod
    when snow hits.

    2
    No, I won't envy searing blasts
    be they inclement
    weather or lost souls
    bargaining with rain.
    Acceptance . . . they say
    is the key
    and the word clangs like chimes
    into my biology, a grandfather clock
    to my own chamber music, a
    little something to cheer and
    serenade the buffeted spirit.

    3
    Think still thoughts in gloomy houses
    when petals cry burst in springtime.
    This is done in prep...

    Sleep is a striking woman
    accosted by various men
    while in a dance;
    the warring desires thus
    present themselves as on
    a battlefield -
    hunger comes arrayed with
    red plumes to befit
    his appetites,
    sensuality somewhat
    decked out as a dandy
    in a mauve waistcoat
    and, of course, there is
    Fear, the most thwarted
    of the suitors, bejewelled with a
    flashing sabre, rattling it from
    the tail of his skinny stick horse,
    the pale charger riding
    to intercept the beautiful courtesan
    Sleep
    bestowing her favours illicitly
    wherein she would but choose.

    Sleep is a striking woman
    accosted by various men
    while in a dance;
    the warring desires thus
    present themselves as on
    a battlefield -
    hunger comes arrayed with
    red plumes to befit
    his appetites,
    sensuality somewhat
    decked out as a dandy
    in a mauve waistcoat
    and, of course, there is
    Fear, the most thwarted
    of the suitors, bejewelled with a
    flashing sabre, rattling it from
    the tail of his skinny stick horse,
    the pale charger riding
    to intercept the beautiful courtesan Sleep
    bestowing her favours illicitly
    wherein she would but choose.

Little red berries are
the crop of this stump tree.
They are the prize stubble
where little growth is come.

A transplant of hair after
a serious illness
or after fire ravages
the body's wilderness
is that first sip of broth taken.

Little by little, they bring cautious
hope that more will
stumble into other pocket crevices,
the bits of life amidst the spores of stillness.

    At times, I thought of swizzling white rum
    in the tropics (not as a vocation),
    dropping into the club
    for a round of tennis
    before dinner at eight
    or a quiet set of darts
    before retiring.

    I had grown accustomed to my new routine
    (at least vicariously).
    In the best Somerset Maugham tradition
    I would dress for dinner,
    decline to be patronizing,
    avoid the potential slur
    if crisp linen did not appear
    regularly on my bed or table.
    I still found time to stop
    for breakfast coffee,
    take a moment from regimen
    to fondle fresh, wet flowers,
    look over the balcony at the
    blueness of the bay.

    The metaphysical qualities that come
    into play ero...

    Looking into the glassy crucifix of water.
    slits of rock form stigmata across creviced limestone -
    green pools with an occasional fish passing
    air bubbles to the top
    the eerie night crumbling under shafts of starlight
    with the smell of hemlock pods & cedar bringing
    nard and precious stone within
    crowns of natural thorn -
    this body of muskeg pressed onto
    aromatic herbs then borne away
    along the road to a wooded Calvary and
    the sense of Christ
    in that light at dawn.

"The universe is expanding".
There's cause for reflection and bound to do wonders
for "who am I" queries.

At this late moment on the Celestial Clock, man isn't
sure if he's stumbled into a Black Hole or just the
debris from the Big Bang Theory.

Many of the earth's residents desperately want to be
E.T.'s    -    travellers with carte blanche passports
welcomed in any galaxy. Therein lies the ultimate
twist to "getting away".

Alas, what if we're alone?

What if the universe expands so much it forgets
there's an inhabited world and obscures the planet
from our collective vision? Sobering stuff.
Meanwhile, on a spaceship earth preparations are
underway. Preparation to abandon the planet.
Preparations to forget life is a serious matter.
...

    In my childhood, "Verdun," meant madness.
    Bars on the windows, cages around the intellect.
    Time was a poor keeper of souls, it seems, wore out all but
    a fragment of my memories. Musical, poetic. The sounds of clay china
    being dropped on the floor. Fierce Celts with a gift for the muse in
    keeping with their love of lyricism and war.

    Driving by 999 Queen in Toronto accompanies a lot of the above.
    A cuckoo bin by any calculation and a reference not meant to be
    pejorative. A subject so clothed in solemnity only irreverent
    "kidding," can hope to disarm its grasp. Still, the truth must be told.
    In university, no one shrinked from whispering the ultimate fate -
    a stint in Sydenham or a trip down the road to Cedar Springs.
    Delight...

    Ticonderoga to Lake George,
    the classic invasion route
    up the Richelieu valley
    past Plattsburg,
    Verdun,
    à Montréal
    across the North Shore
    reroute again

    to savour Albany;
    last of the trading posts east of Oswego
    before New York
    protective sanctuary
    lodgings,
    free from the scalping knife
    barrens and
    the horrors Fenimore Cooper described.

    Apple crisp, fall damp the air
    with an unbroken stretch of forest
    and Adirondack mountains,
    there, delicate slip
    of fair womanhood
    bliss, she lies, gentle as the finger lakes
    clothed in autumn crimson.

    Fantasy, Capri. The edge of a pillow.
    Certain words - murmur, seashells.
    A face beckoning thru time, lacy windows with
    purple shades simultaneously drawn.
    Tears of gold. Love signs,
    glass of champagne.

    A tree of hemlock nearby. A delightful print
    tablecloth that signals the breeze. The courtier
    in fancy dress. Twin bottles of vintage wine abreast
    rider and horse.

    Potables. A blue eggshell. The sun stirring Virginia Creeper
    that moves in unison with the wind.

    Electra and electricity, the current that prods the mind.

    As you enter into dream -
    its the unconsciousness
    which stifles,
    the thin embers
    called flame
    that outdistance
    the controlled rubric
    of desire.

The threadbare uniforms
we let stare at others
we would refuse ourselves.

The bare walls, misunderstanding,
Support nothing,
taut empty sounds.

The inclusion of everything
excludes nothing
except why it was done.

The jungle where the meow goes in, is
a forest for hoodlums.
Trucking up, the empty warriors
breakfast on lost impatience,
apricot fields away.


Now see them speed away.
Their lollipop cars drizzling in the sun.
Their apathetic stares really cantaloupe harvests,
left too long in the sun.

reads like
living down    -
a coconut arriving with the tide,
bottles perched in sand
the blue glass
colour or imprisoned dreams
genie of a bottle cap.

Ending up.
the brow or a gondola overturned
sees memories squared away    -
the window of the envelope
an all too foggy membrane.

Turning out like
ending up
no check-out time or
non-existant room service
in a flea-bag motel.

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...

    The four Equinox sisters,
    the one, Fox, streaked -
    all color, a blur
    a Bloomingdale's on fire,
    a wedge between Everest
    & her fortune.

    Samantha, the other
    dun-coloured
    earth-tide (in full bloom),
    blossoms vernally & literally
    busting out of her breeches with
    eyes like barely sugar.
    Jubilee. Fête de la vie.
    Lighthouse keeper beckoning twin
    shafts of warmth. Camberwell Beauty.
    Rattan Bar, shooting star.

    Carraciou (and castanet) an evening song,
    the most buxom but with dog days & tiresome moods
    flushed with heat.
    Tidewater in full ripple, a
    murmuring of abstract intelligence
    orchestrating summer's growth.
    Emerald keeper....

We repeat, the aim of the IRA has always been the liberation of our homeland. Any who aid or abet the enemy must fall full prey to force of arms. (The Republican Proclamation)

Somewhere in the distance a dog kept at his baying. A long mournful whelping that seemed torn from the damp night's very throat. Sean could not help but hear it; so deeply did the dog's vocal cords implant sound upon human ears. He could not help but think of the provos warning nuzzled like that dog's steady cry over and over into the fabric of one's memory swift as searing iron.

"Aid or abet," he murmured softly to himself, "a long distance is covered by such a comment."

His Catholic heritage did him no justice in resolving the torment. By birth, name even appearance and occupation - all such persuasions meant he should embrace what...

raised against them
hussars, cossacks, zouaves
the renegade janizaries and corsairs
in for an indeterminale stretch
assorted soldiers of furtune,
never-do-wells
or just low brows duelling crusts of bread
scarce precious little else
when for pennies more,
(Wellington's phrase)
the scum of the earth
enlists for drink.

Too harsh, I think, of
imagining the Foreign Legion,
kepis of scarlet
the near requisite haggard looks
moving in waves across the desert
pitting date palms with bayonets.
the occasional fellow ravaged by French pox.

Then dunes where water should be    -
storms granulating blown particles
twice the perimeter of a camel train
from whence decent men become driven
(as the desert fox) to crouch beside thems...