Paul Cameron Brown

“ ROGUE AND PRIVATEER The Squirrel, a corsair, rides the wind black arm of a pressing sea, Tribal hostilities finished, she slinks into port. Traveling lightly across open ground, a squirrel upends a brigand sapling. ”

“ ROUGE AND GRAY So much time has passed & time is a hooligan run wild littering the streets, squeezing toothpaste at the wrong end shredding clothes with a razor blade. Time is never called into account -- lives like Peter Pan in a flying abode above it all scot-free, the surly bandit. ”

“ The human race has great resilience. We've come back before -- all those plagues, the Black Death, despoliations, scorched earth policies "prove" it. We're proliferate and we love the sex act. It won't be hard; human fecundity is a count-on. There are so many of us, see. People have overestimated the alleged horror. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Dining splendidly on one's own children unbeknownst is a favourite -- maddens the victim no end. Brief success turning to bitter sawdust is the supreme moment of ecstasy. Serves precisely as metaphoric extension of all earthly reward as illusionary. (A delicious ruse borrowed shamelessly from fellow representatives on Earth --the Sicilian Mafia.) Further spin-offs centre about the Absurd But spare us juvenile intrigue with petty omens like a bird loose in the house. ”

“ PRIMAVERA A poem is perishable and, like it, so much of life is spent in intervals -- the jarring second regaining consciousness, a post-mortem flick of the lank equestrian eyelid that signals, morning's first crepuscular move. ”

“ A woman commandingly tall receptive as water, quicksilver to the light yet mirages all. Two cubits to an arm's length a bridge to span, virgin territory with the compass needle jumping -- a plane dusting crops. A woman once, parchment twice warm treacle to the core -- a marshmellow for a heart. ”

“ DRESS REHEARSAL "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. ”

“ To watch as life forms, more intricate than lavender curls, so hushed their tones produce melodies like "Castor and Pollux", "Leo", "the Three Sisters", seizes any boarding pass along the remaining train of thought. ”

“ Japan is the Britain of the universe. The whole cosmos is borrowing her tricks. No one does things so efficiently. No one has developed cooperation to such a fine "T". Nowhere is individualism shepherded to the goal of the "greater good". Pierre Trudeau would be pleased. "To each his own according to his worth." Sounds impressive. Does that mean Jaffa oranges are safe to eat -- mercury and cyanide poisoning notwithstanding. Will the Levant acknowledge the supremacy of the Orient? ”

“ Noon and blood purring like a two minute egg over and over the spitting, curses mandatory flies and sweat trickling on sandbags from manured lives little to eat-- C rations a century away, the good populace begrudging meals to vagabonds and trash anyway. See the last desperation in classic terms betrayed by finite trength brisk elements raise the odds a measly temperature climb, a few more driving winds to stir the pot animal suffering dancing like stretched canvas on thin frames. ”

“ 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. Preparations to drown protracted speculations about existence's intensity. E.T. mania is carrying the day. People adorn stuffed, life-sized dolls of imagined creatures on the dashboards of their cars. Children queque up for hours to get gingerbread designed from scary, monster dough. ”

“ EVERY MAN'S HAND raised against them hussars, cossacks, zouaves the renegade janizaries and corsairs in for an indeterminale stretch assorted soldiers of fortune, 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. ”

“ Of course, such things are fictitious. Death plays no favourites (and waits for no man when rivalling Time) . Still, parlour games are one indulgence. Hardly comforting to know human beings function at one purpose when this Hallow of Hallows puts on the smirk. ”

“ There will even be a special chamber to experience what it was like before you knew you were dead with carefully monitored "response signals" to give the audience a "sensasound" aura just like living through an earthquake, only fake. ”

“ ROCKING HORSE Fate is a mahout astride a large elephant, impersonal as dark sun with winds raging across a desert. Fate is the old bones of dead Indians being resurrected as ground mist on the edge of a salt marsh. ”

“ A solitary figure trapping hapless sparrows not in a net but with his footprints doubling as dungeons against the sun -- here & there rusting eavestroughs ballooning into avenging shadows their harpsichord voices spun on dreams Dick Whittington once used to buy a cat. ”

“ Earth for humankind carries more immediacy than "Canada for the Canadians". If they are "out there", they'd better behave. Hollywood's got it all figured out. There's no shortage or scenarios. Life support systems will be rushed wherever there is a sighting with artillery back-up. ”

“ BARGAINING UNIT The man about to become a sparrow is shouting his head off wearing green trousers with red eyes framing mustier tweed, he lambasts the lad for not conducting his person properly in showing up for work in a white shirt. The fact the future labour requires only lifting boxes to a shed is a fine point about as important as the man himself who has transformed himself into that sparrow where several would not span the breadth of a bigger man's hand or four could be had in the Biblical sense for less than a penny. ”

“ Bunched up stubble in the wind cannot fathom lies or gender hope -- it is the province of the mind, the coinage of perhaps a Spaniard on discovering San Cristobal, one's own sieglo oro in fortune squandered in sunlight with only the sweating Appolosa still straining on this, the last taverna ride. ”

“ How then our era? (These same psychologists pinpoint people's spirits rise in the opening years of a new century.) Now we're poised for the "really big one": the cataclysm. What a boon for the absurdists. Peaches and cream -- not just one century dangling but the culmination of ten. There's even a word for it. Millenium, I'll say it again. Better yet, a mere two millenia since Christ's departure, we are poised again on the threshold. Half & half. Like a party twelve pack -- six of one, half dozen of the other. ”

“ Time machines are old hat and another invasion in Newark is too much to absorb. With NYC across the river, they've already got all the action they can handle. We like our extraterrestial life tailormade and preferably in our own image. ”

“ Backstreets a la seduction this demimonde, a whole continent as intrigue do twin fists pounding on a door resemble gunfire especially at dawn or is that just the mule so obstinate in you-- the poor creatures pressed into service, litter the landscape bedbugs thrown from cars. ”

“ One hears myriad tokens falling into a collection box, then the twitter of bells before the trolley steps round winds near Russian Hill The night sky is a reservoir, a cistern stored with disturbing elements prickling the unknown in a man. ”

“ Tha land of the Rising Sun is broader than a battleship listing in heavy seas -- it's the New world Order. Is North America being prepared as hewers of grain and drawers of petroleum? Alas, co-existence brings dilemmas: the Toyota outwits even a "K" car. And them outpacing our GNP at 6% per annum. It's enough to rethink the whole scheme of things. They're obviously in the forefront of the New Economic Policy. ”

“ Poor lovers of the elegant, the late Victorians, belle epoquers. A penny for their thoughts when confronting a Picasso without the vantage of hindsight. If Europe and its child bride, America, grew uneasy in the declining years of the past century. ”

“ The East is Red and ready. The Chinese have been told by Mao 300 million or their number cremated is a small price for global supremacy. A human dung hill is being set in motion for another generation of poppies. Marx lends credibility to this, but with a different opiate for the masses. The lumpenproletariat can hack it. Such clever playing with facts, now I understand genius. For a young physicist, a 100 megaton blast is the culmination of the creative spirit. ”

“ People are perturbed (or so we are told) because the century's getting old. Time's rushing by. There's an alarm clock set to buzz at eternity's gate, Midnight 1900. In probing the malaise that hit Europe circa 1881, psychologists would have us believe the world grew despondent. ”

“ He's not interested in sex. Too many other myriad problems are floating in his adorable, gelatin head. Surely earth women can relate to that. Surely, if the universe is expanding, then it's because of intrigue in high places. ”

“ GUADALQUIVIR In a pleasureless world, pure pleasure exists. Particles of sunlight, exquisite with nightdrops & leaves stringent with dew, persuade tributaries with inset eyes to depart down foible breast, sticky fingers up delightful steps. ”

“ Lennon won't survive the Elvis Beatle syndrome. The lights are going out on the sixties, The eighties are austere. Cherry cokes are the memory of a laugh. The Purple Onion only causes perplexion like Charlie Brown's Great Pumpkin. ”

“ Coral Gardens is a real and legitimate extension of the Rice Factory idea. Cipangu. As you like, what you will. No race has undergone a swifter transformation in the world's eye. They deserve more than groping admiration. ”

“ Break out the electric cattle prods. They may be common as blades of grass in a meadow but it's our show. Orange Pekoe intellects will naturally be suspect. Benign intelligence better be the order of the day. Earth is a "closed shop". ”

“ Money could be added to Kissinger's aphorism power is the ultimate aphrodisiac, Certainly, the jaded or those otherwise afflicted with ennui and creeping malaise have a whole city as their ripe oyster. ”

“ Meanwhile, in ensuing preparations for war, no aspect of the psychological preparedness should be overlooked. We don't have to be told there is no substitute for victory. "The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of a King." ”

“ Such things are no longer "relatable". Every school kid can fathom "aliens" even if he can't decline a Latin noun or understand the causes of the Renaissance. Unveiling the first spaceship would cap the evolutionary quest for Enlightenment or realization of a greater Oneness. The universal thirst for knowledge would be satisfied. ”

“ Rubber and fibre sanctions will do it every time. The Arizona and Oklahoma will testify to that. Feudal Japan would never have tolerated it, either. Who's to say the Samurai are caught up in splitting hairs? Admiral Perry should have stayed out of Tokyo Bay. The Earthquake of 1923 just made things worse. Land's End means more than Manchuria and resources. Industry and wily opportunism have broader vistas. The Kuril Islands are a No Man's Land but so are the Ainus, a primordial white race of Asia. ”

“ In this world anything is possible. We have finally created a mutant of people who eccept anything. And God just another man, albeit a tricky devil at that. Imagine fooling everyone for 2,000 years! Next, we'll be told we're actually dead. ”

“ We'll survive or at least part of us will. We really are "malleable". It will be a "transitional stage", a step upwards on the evolutionary ladder. Radioactivity and genetics are at work with one another. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The National Enquirer predicts Australia will break into the sea. Californians will be upstaged. The futurists will all need waterwings. The Club of Rome hints the next years auger more chilling holocausts. Everywhere, survival scenarios proliferate. ”

“ Of course there would have to be "preparations". (If you have "to prepare" to be a hairdresser, it stands to reason you would have to ready yourself for this.) Confronting, facts you can die only once. ”

“ Workaholics and their polar opposites, the dead lazy. effortlessly come around. When realization hits home all distinctions blur. No difference. Sharp laughter unceremoniously greets even the self-composed. ”

“ Are silk worms interlopers, too? Shogun is too realistic for the narrow orchestration of facts. The difference? They play to win. Hands down, Kirin makes a wonderful beer. Sushi bars are all the rage. ”

“ Will they want to throw in their lot with mankind or "take over"? After all, it's our Arc. No one seriously wants reminders of Von Daniken's chariots riding again or the genetic mumble about intergalactic breeding. ”