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. ”

“ Brown's magic is the vibrating universe, his sympathy is his ability to receive these vibrations. Sympathetic Magic captures the movement of life in its intervals-- his poems resemble stopped action photographs from a film. ”

“ 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.
[73] ”

“ I left pathways contoured with Merlin rock & trees like Babbitt refugees from the Nahanni, fearful Dogrib aboriginals swarming my imagination their scalp-locks loaded for bear. Arabesque boulder, lavender curls of winter-wind swept moss and berets of tiny, dead soldiers. The moisture between you and clearing. Hushed forest an envelope edge of moisture patterns, more leaves in reindeer formation asserting themselves in beckoning sleighs and trance of veined, elfin hand skirting cracks & fissure gloom. ”

“ METAPHOR There is a star near the hinge of planets, a barn under a cow's lick of moon-- plausible people moving thru an airless universe. Pay attention to the frond of lilac . . . limestone troughs upon which thickets of Indian scalp & devil's paintbrush soar to the horizon and, afterwards, little creeks run with the sparrows of evening time in step to tiny boatmen that echo enamelled snails from the very consonants of earth. ”

“ 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. ”

“ LOLITA GARDENS A man weeps at your ankles, climbs the stairs to peek-a-boo panties, with finger clasps, a Rapunzel lowering your hair, the long-matted braids a skilful weaver turns to gold. An ivy forest in a castle impregnated with doors, the prince overhears the code "let down your hair" and, with perilous grasp, mounts the stirrup wall, foot to clasp, searching cloud grey & storm blasts for billowy mists green within this empress queen. ”

“ But it is the moon, large and eerie, a golden earring mindful of a Chinese panda that plies its trade. Mandarin-like, a snout so cloud-entrenched soft night barely resembles willow and bamboo shoots the universe left to feed her. ”

“ 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. ”

“ TALES OF A BRAVE ULYSSES Artists (astrologers never lie) are birthed when Venus is rising-- not against cat's whelp (eye of newt, tongue of frog) calamitous mist or London fog; far, ferny forbidding fenn. When Venus rises, yes dons Botticelli's cloak or was it her hair gathered in tresses long by lovely handfuls parading it all on a patty shell --her twin oysters ambrosia a Ulyssean mirroring winedark sea, purpling color of a robin's egg. Artists are born in something of Venus . ”

“ Death as voyage escaping prison confines of the harbour. Cliches donate dim glimpses into the apparent. One sees a lot by the moon. Crisp, fall air and leaves yellowing frightened from their wits to end their brief, balloon walk. ”

“ Others oblique in their transparency, are unmindful of even the empty closet and greeting cards that smile hello. In the dark this room shimmers below life-raft status; chairs are buoys bobbing under waves of congealed fright. In the morning the first pigeons rifle over rooftops, mad flutterings like your eyes stabbing gables looking curiously like your heart. A tree bandaged in wood manages a feeble handshake with sky cajoling winter. ”

“ No season of regrets, rather snatch of minutes, the oasis span of a single candle. Who knows? The sun nudging petals at the close of another day. Your eyelids casting shrouds (and shadows) , the long funeral walk of your hair across the pillow. Then awakening. You gathering tresses much as a bird trilling feathers. ”

“ PENNY WISE, POUND POOR Fall was a tubercular cousin residing in the country sparse hair, rasping cough. 2 Night air was damaging stringing pumpkins around orange chains, the milkweed pod shivering in open shirtsleeves little noises sifting from burrows in her chest. 3 Fall was... reputedly from another country wore glaring cravats, gold leaf and Rubenesque chain; stalked the lark mocked the breeze. 4 Penny wise, pound poor leaves a shock of hair prematurely white degradingly picked from the comb flung out fireflies crisp bodies to singe fire-cold light. ”

“ I see grindstones in the sky, pots of tulips overturned --big tug of the reins and chestnut hair is seen before the windowpane with chance & more chance lost to frost or hungry bees this still autumn eve. Darling, walls that division us are envelopes of passion bridging trust, seal it lest it rust. ”

“ KNIGHT-ERRANT A well-thumbed book like a well-thumbed life, "whilst you walk this earth" yet nothing is "afoot", as so many small boys throwing stones through the funeral parlour glass door. A cake-walk? Being alive and interacting across the face of the multitude is terrible algebra running into unfathomable sums. ”

“ It was maddening that literary civilization was within a hair's breadth at being snuffed by the ordinary convention of task bearing. Being a poet, so basic to everything, didn't even show up on Manpower's computer scan. The universities didn't care they were having the times of their lives parsing verbs and conjugating declensions, telling graduates "the pendulum will swing". The best retort for that was the pithy epigram of the working man toiling in honest sweat within the secure bounds of a trade. ”

“ Death lifts them in one heave of the casket. More illuminating are the mourners. Dashing thru the sleet in brief poignancy; shrill, old voices that knew the deceased reciting what can only be the obvious. ”

“ All power to the people; a gun run is a good itch, works up a powerful thirst for Justice; good mercy disguised brother Lenin as a simple dock worker, the plague-bacillus quickens. 20 Orange filaments of smoke are better than the factory whistle, a good arsonist recruits his own flames, fans his own fire. The crackle of desire over hearth stones is reward enough in itself. ”

“ AT THE RED THROAT In youth, Death was a puny boy possessing but wormy hands & fleshless fingers as in Witch Hazel or Scrooge's Future Ghost --that insipid Evil One Hansel so easily outwitted in a gingerbread house. ”

“ MEN OF SHADE All the candles are passing out, one by one. They have evaporated their brightness, overpowered limpid cracks in their own flames, seized the outpouring air with hesitant breath to brave a flicker of new hearth while knocking holes against the warm men decorating fireside shade. ”

“ Why it gave a man depth, a presence, a gracefulness that transcended petty, material strivings. Too bad, one couldn't show the white palms of one's hand for a living or revel in soft flesh as the natural mark of a born aristocrat. ”

“ Sure 'nuff, even Sunday driving stands at the motor edge of frenzy while Mom's apple pie is little more than just peaches & cream home baked greed. Take stock car racing or the trots, Little Orphan Annie Comics or Budweiser. Vice, like charity, starts at home. Each curtails a larger problem and self worship begins the moment your zipper opens. ”

“ I pack a mean wallop-- humour, I mean, for no one on this spic 'n span planet wants somebody too droll. Intensity is a ripple from the sixties. "Relationship", kickback to the after-glow on-glow seventies. Eighties women love "feedback", "interfacing". Its fashionable to think chic. Restless troubadours should be dyed in their own ilk. Sporty chaps are in demand, ones with visceral longing for babies & the peroxide smell of Javex in diaper pails wafting thru their nostrils. ”

“ There's always another humidor tucked away in the cranny of another antique shop; after all, a woman is only a woman although a fine, Cuban import is a worthy smoke. "What this country needs is a good 5¢ cigar". ”

“ IMAGISTIC There in the cosmos-- white dwarfs launch a black rooftop imagistic, clean as a pantry, the twilight roads with ledges lean like raw openings. And coming upon stars in a country woodhouse --cold, big as frozen pears, each breath of light visible thru chinks & clusters of broken ceiling wood ”

“ Almost every poem in Sympathetic Magic boasts an admirable image or two. Brown can write, without a doubt. POETRY CANADA POESIE ...wry humour. The poet revels in image and can use it well. Paul Cameron Brown is capable of interesting, even arresting work. CANADIAN BOOK REVIEW ANNUAL 1985 Le voyage exotique devient parfois fantistique... Se plonger dans les pages de "Sympathetic Magic", c' est partir pour un autre monde oil Paul Cameron Brown envoute par les mots et les images. ”

“ So drivel passes as conversation, a handshake for real investment. A lot in common, the wrong dreams. Pretty awareness, the desolate pennies stumble from our hands. More substance, really, in the rustle of a silk dress or static electricity that pops over orb-sized breasts. Hide and seek peek a boo, you don't need me I don't need you.
[18]
MOONROCK She wears a cat encrusted T-shirt & panties with L*O*V*E guarding the Paradise door & when balm of night casts shadows, her face is moonrock distant to mysterious down storybook crags ”

“ Or elephants in tow, trunks wrapped around the other waiting for the ringmaster to signal the question important; whether a neophyte new at sharpening his teeth at a daily wage should be allowed presence onto such a hallowed ground. ”

“ MAY 8, 1902 With the smile of morning in her purse, the dark laughter of her cat napping in the crevice, half-alert, Martinique (angelique) on padded paws climbs from night. I saw her hair-brush the lava to warm the bay, crinkle little St. ”

“ I'm lisping in the burning sun, Ethiopia done Tigré and Eritrea key components on the Horn's chessboard, mere human paste re-patched, re-worn. 18 Ditto, "take-out", liquidate. Run a new poker thru the rubble. A good anarchist's cathedral accomplishment is the chicken coop's destruction. 19 Make the rich pay. ”