Paul Cameron Brown

“ This island looks like a loaf, a dot or mole on inviting cheeks, to me; so wary, invariably, of land (and perhaps the Sand Man) amongst all those wandering eyes, especially the sea-scape, curl of snake illuminated in a sudden, tropic shower. See the sudden bandanna of rock squeezed so tight by shore's edge that a grim hammer of stones intones a warning? Its back from the wars to dive, there, among threads of water where needle eyes of little fish ("young fry of treachery") are so scalpel-like dunes and eddies of living colour shake you. To slake a thirst. ”

“ Water and air, the two chief elements in a brisk compound with earth and fire. The land itself nursing a presence by the sea as a lizard might devour a fly on a bough above a tree. Then there are the granaries of this empire, the washed up logs darting into footprints from the inlets. A white sand making its presence felt like a tireless magician. Green strands of the cucumber bush big with melon, a mother with expectant child hushed and sitting by a clearing. "The waters of the stream please me more than the sea," coconut groves with hand-me-down messages for the ages. ”

“ THE TREASURE SHIPS Rich ornamental procession enough wealth to dazzle a Prester John, Sheba's queen, even the fawning burghers of Rothschild's domain. Reams of it, Park Avenues in torrents down a mountain side; Eldorados, the gardens of Babylon become shimmering in the sun; this vulgar display, this sheer ostentation. Such are the waters of the rich I now approach. Peach gold fabulous wealth. More men of substance here than all the proverbial luxury since antiquity, - talents, ingots, ducats - bars so heavily encrusted with gems the very floor boards groan with the largesse. ”

“ Perhaps a runic stone will fall from tangled roots when he burns the dead stumps of trees deciphering once and for all why men labour or think at all. The fence swirls on and on in growing amnesia becoming the very touchstone of all purpose, stones from Jericho's Wall or the passkeys taken from our material existence. Gabriel, the archangel, will sound his trumpet here, he is assured. The dead and unburied of nameless acts of toil and dread will stand a stone's breadth across this fence. The Face of God will be seen in the pact nature has made with earth and stone. ”

“ Indeed Boca loved his words, tinkering with the very essence of language. "A great beginning", cheered a rare voice. "Let's hope one without premature end." Boca continued to conceive titles by the hundreds. He didn't merely dream up a few, in snatches, he proliferated them in vaster and vaster quantities. It was if a salmon left to spawn could endanger a sea shelf or river bed under the sheer quantity of her seed. "A one-man explosion at the typewriter", chortled an onlooker, happening to see the quantity of Boca's largesse. That was before he stopped to inquire of the nature of Boca's work. ”

“ Then again, in the last hour before end time, before dawn's arrival and floodlit sky finds you -- knuckles clasping bars, pitiless bayonet-like with eyes swishing truncheons at all the getaway air your lungs will never take; wheezing in growing fear to the sound of footsteps, clank of keys and gallow's humour as they prepare to Skuttle your short life, wall up clouds of their own pestilence nakedly mask each firing squad gathering for its fighting chance. ”

“ WHITE CHINA PLATES I The moon hummed like a refrigerator, light thru shadows --the solitude of dusk closing in; black scars visible across the moon's face shaped like mountainous hands, all silent, the occasional leaf rustling. 2 My fork at plate's edge listening, listening to the haunting one eye on the staircase wall white as the numb light outside palest night. Caught off-guard, the musty settee and armchair acting as hallucinogen to the nostril, the calendar of events playing ghostly tag with sheer curtains hovering, shroud-like, on the family Bible big and brown as the Lord's foot stool. ”

“ But the Big Top can't accommodate all the poets. Word jugglers sneak under the tent to court the ringmaster's favour. Poetry is a religion, said the neophyte before downing its meagre fare. A window on life confounding reality, fingering experience. Feast for the intellect, grace and passion abiding as one. Yet, with poetry becoming as all things to all men and with every man doing as right in his own eyes, privateers and other assorted scalawags, eager to toss in their lot with the real Empress, lay ransom to this queen of arts. Somewhere, every person alive has written a book of poems. ”

“ Every time man lifted him across the keel of a boat he would see his obsequious face panting to the sky.
In fact, when sturgeon or the spirit commanded to be pike were caught, the thrash of their tails sent small tears as ripples across the lake. These stirred sand people and minnows were born. Each sob from dying pike's tail, doomed to a long toothy snout for her disobedience by Manitou, formed a larger fish. In this way, fish were ever reminded of their punishment and man kept fed.
The Indians enjoyed new food as plenteous as the grains of golden earth on each lake's face. ”

“ I've seen the parfumerie the snake pit, mongoose burrowing into the hills after serpentine fer-de-lance, want bigger things waves can't splash away, scrawled slogans to turn the human tide. A bottle sits menacingly on the table -- a universe on its own, imagine her little water droplets the key to unerstanding a woman firm to the grasp bare-shouldered, lips to the moon in twilight. ”

“ JAGGED WIRE A rail fence is more than that on a country dawn moving by lots over hill & stone; it barely pauses in the small of the field's lap, then is caught in grey positioning as light unfurls the sky. All is a matter of perfect blistering - dauber wasps are seen to heave the moistened wood in chunks to mossy furrows, benign in their firm embrace upon alabaster trees. There, crusts of heavy nails, marked like fortresses, droop in their rusty mail. Mostly ants, in open canter, move in as upon an urn & lance far more than jagged wire the breath of stillest air. ”

“ The shadows of the rock, piled drifts huge monotony's ledge, accumulations by the side of the tree wear thin visages; the breath of summer eclipsed. Snow reigns supreme; teeters about the rim of the city's existence. Pettiness of man's realm - pretty foliage of the transient, wrappings upon our lives brittle near the storm. The reply of the eternal, fire on stone blazons reality the peaked remains of snow streaked sun. Immensity governs us; clarity of the temporal fire set by the staccato of man's rhythm.
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CIENFUEGOS The white pin wheel of heat turns up the grasses' edge. ”

“ THE GARDEN And like a cobbler at a bench I return to my musings why Kensington Gardens with its grand, theatrical entrance is gateway to London's poor --why the stiff Victoria and Albert monument or grand canopy to the Hemispheres has a bison for the Americas or sultry elephant of Asia fame (India being the brightest jewel in the Empress' crown) ; why other archetypal animals at their pleasure are carved in gleaming milk white when the rich at their leisure, to and fro, dine elegantly as tight buds arranged on a stem. ”

“ The world teems with poetry in much the sense the universe teems with life. A poet or two is squirrelled away in every major office. Boiler rooms hum with the tooth and nail, robust imagery of working class poets. The neurological desire to express oneself transcends even social barriers. Be creative, like a brain surgeon. My scalpel runneth over amongst all those cerebral ganglia. The mind washed clean, scrubbed down. Words burn holes on the paper. Firemen disguised as poets douse the heroic flames. ”

“ Ensuring his immediate safety, MacGuire went a second time into the now inferno like remains of O'Leary's. Conscious now of the enormity of the blast as sirens wailed and a clatter of noise began, grim faced police and officers whose job it was to make sense of such happenings began to arrive. He was about to attempt a second entry when a wall of fire ended further heroism. He could not visualize anyone surviving twin disasters of explosion and torch. For a scant moment he watched the smoke billow into the sky illuminating the shabby houses of the neighbourhood. ”

“ Ducats tumble from a cloth bag the way the gypsy remembers caravans and the remembrance of gold steeled against warm flesh in moonlight of his native Umbria. Lavender is the coat of dreams along navy blue hemmings the colour of the gypsy's eyes, the blood's colour progeny whose men of wealth both are related to. The gypsy stares at the taverna wall and the ducats gleaming to outside rain. Men joke at rail depots where in a like fashion water splashes mud into little arches up a riverbank. Neither has the shallows of minnows at his command. ”

“ The rain is heavy with the stamp of perfumed trees realizing slight restraint on bursting seed. Cloaked in fragrance, tufts of mossy step kiss the opening earth, a basement horizon presumes the darling test of flower across dale & rustling nook, then undresses moist greenery with sumptuous eye. The last is hardest - cat crimson, a fire weed sunset lotion, the rain erased away; nobody special harangues the leaves but birds steal in quietly with tenderness clothed of verdure to pinch a leafy oasis about their forest haunt. ”

“ THE WORLD OF DYING LOVE The long finger of blackness is holding its head for us. Dingy bue is its shade, comatose in movement, hazarding a slow swiftness, it inches toward us. Relief comes fitfully. The dragon alone, an upstart crowned with drunken spending, has horse colours as ribbons with his eyes. It cradles a breast of trembling bone. Misercorde, Misercorde. I dreamt I saw skeletal slackness dangling; the poverty of touch is a casket with love in rumbling sockets. Craziness is the passion of the engulfed, dribbling pleasantly. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Leaden eyes that cast no shadow. Hardly analogous to being "called home" or "going to their reward". More light is cast by the street lamp, the pale glow of fireflies and neon signs winking-drinking waves like the fisherman's cork. This place is holy to me. A shrine. Night air with mist collecting, watching flames shuffle over hearth-stones; leaves mount a glade. The bitterest berry, flower to lily of the valley. A heart that makes gravelly noise. Tiny angel spread of petals, no black funeral vestments for me. Standing close to the clock and thinking. ”

“ As trembling shale collapses into thin hills, light fuels to cross the Pale. A little exploratory weeding droops this lava rain. A long, dove fence comprised of stones & rattled by ancient slaves winds its distance along the gully borne in fire, percussion caps, cretin growth lobbed under creeping wire. Shafts of pioneer light delight in coral baskets, empty twilight darts the agave swords' mauve pitcher plants. The 1692 Tremens decimated Port Royal [1] --moved a ravine from florid to mossy shadow where antler shoots today announce temperate plants, eclipse by-gone tropic flowers. ”

“ Life in such climes is built on connotations rather than pure innuendoes of purpose. The southern sky, the heat above the sea allude to this. This triumphant trilogy embossed upon volcanic slate, more crumpled paper than firm land. Gravesides lying in twilight nakedness. The scion moon in her damaged vestry between acolyte clouds. Hamlets resembling clotted blood, nicks across an earmarked horizon. The poor, wavering to transfixed in their hotly owned sun; the one commodity they rightly possess. ”

“ The Scots had their order of the garter and a thistle, of all things, was emblematic to that northerly land. Why not a dandelion even if it were a bit of a dandy all dressed in that, shudder, colour of cowardice, yellow'? People were so emotional choosing a red flower simply because its colour reminded them of shed blood.
Adua was hurt to the quick and could bring no comfort to himself either in hope of future aerial flights or the prospect of his greens being eaten next season as tasty helpings. ”

“ DESIRE 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. ”

“ THE GATHERING OF DEAD WOOD The gathering of dead wood - driven, pinched in faces between the strain of Van Gogh's setting - had all the more realism hastening down that leaden street. Churning sockets, burdened with the duress of suffering, the street in vigorous winter raced like a bootblack up from the river. Hedged by black stems called trees, rows of withered houses and dim bread shops propositioned rough headlights along a promenade of ice stalks and careening streetlamps. ”

“ Haze thickens as sails blur to an artist's brush, then squiggles in the oilpaint of memory -- her sides fashioning red wounds as pigment surfacing from robotical crustaceans lancing the bottom of a deeper crevice. III My steps clank to the gaoler's key to become, within, handmaidens to thorned plants acting as fuselage along the building's exterior. Afar, a white seagull sits as a bespectacled tourist gracing a buoy like a madras shirt. Early stars in an afternoon sky are expansive in Chateau Lafitte finery, the Rothschilds of the universe playing a cosmic baccarat. ”

“ Up the stakes. Skillets off the meandering edge are pounding undertows and riptides resemble porters in foreign airports who simply smile. . . Purple dye on white toga, water retches up on land. A necklace, this activity, in warm shallows. Consciousness raising--reef life coming into contact with the bumper edge to freedom. Heavenly bodies parry light from the moon, wrath from a deeper bellows cough up one hand raised in silver mourning.
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“ He would prove white was an aberration. He and he alone would disfigure her perfection. A good pipe should camouflage its owner's hazards. He had only to tar and weather his rival or await the smoke to cloud the delicate perfection of that effeminate form.
Reveling in the sense of this new found power, Clarence became puffed up with more than his own smoke, and his thoughts fell into a dry rattle. The owner feeling this unaccustomed rush of heat and experiencing hard drawing from his companion, vigorously tapped the stem against an open door's edge. ”

“ INVESTITURE Our nights have cruel eyes And have cast us about too thinly, Fallen upon us, Divested the attention of the wind. Night comes to develop us, Will polish our minds with A precision lasting 'til daybreak. Its damp coolness peaks with wretched effect. Autumnal decay Whereby the slow process of vegetation Displeases the nostril, Is but a preamble to greater violence Leading tepid legislation in an orchestra Toward greater effect. The thin harmony of our lives Positions no alarms whereby We might use them. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The snow is wet like your eyes at parting, cold as the promise of a winter dawn wet again as city-streets I must tread to make a living, the flask of wine pressed to my lips. On the winter landscape all I see is the ghost white of sheets, our sheets wrapped to keep breath warm the log cannisters of our bed a heady raft upon which to travel to burn up an ocean of delight. ”

“ He is perspiring now and the rocks shove face-like projections into the consciousness of forest and that periphery area, his clearing.
The fence begins to melt as if in a haze and the logic of clearing this vast expanse of earth and rock escapes him. He thinks of each rock as the buttress of a treasure box he has just hidden and is loath to dislodge further stones. ”

“ THE INTRUDER The colouring of spacious flowers rove delicious to the eye. The road above the harbour fickle, carousing in its tendency to pull too gray by sky enamelled water. The tropical foliage, still and languorous, to my touch. Each particle of sunlight dangling as if hoisted from a perfumed ledge. Newly mown grass in streaks, browns serpent-like across the path. Low erogenous puffs of dust are swathed by passing feet. ”

“ LAVENDER A mind is a ray of light running to the sea; an arch of wood upon which birds rest. Minds roam the ocean's crest, sit as antlers upon a beach, watch eddies of water trap themselves in the sand. And minds are in anything but a state of rest--they violate physics, make mockery of other bodies not in ready motion. ”

“ Graven images. Lifeless stone. Death became stone. Stone empty. The maggot emptiness burrowing into chiselled easel and the stone-cutter's savage magic. Just a bitty stone to herald a passing. Night-jars. Old straw-chairs with a broom pronouncing the wall base with its touch empty, the empress of bandages leaning to rags on table scraps, sorry gloom of an old building by a pickled lake leaking into ebb twilight. ”

“ RED ILLUSIONS UNDER GLASS Life as green illusion - the cool fronds of the fern are deep set in firmest soil and the grassy narrows brook a silent, liquid play. Red illusions under glass - quietly picking strawberries where a woman hums to the buzz of flies with the afternoon sun disappearing overhead. Each grasp of the berry a red stain, the darting of seeds, crimson tendrils do confuse the eye with a polka dot starling raucous in glee above. ”