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Title: Coming to Grips with White Knuckles

Author: Paul Cameron Brown

Release date: January 13, 2010 [eBook #30948]

Most recently updated: January 28, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30948

Credits: Produced by Sorour Imani

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COMING TO GRIPS WITH WHITE KNUCKLES ***

COMING TO GRIPS WITH WHITE KNUCKLES

By

Paul Cameron Brown

Published in 1982 by Williams-Wallace

229 College Street, Toronto M5T 1R4, Canada

©1982 Paul Cameron Brown

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced,

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,

photocopying, recording or otherwise or stored in a retrieval system

without prior consent of the publisher is an infringement of the

copyright law.

Published with the generous assistance of The Canada Council and the

Ontario Arts Council.

ISBN 0-88795-018-3

Printed and Bound in Canada.

Credits

Many of these poems have been published in:

Bogg (USA)

Wyrd (USA)

Germination

The Antigonish Review

Writers' News Manitoba

Pierian Spring

South Western Ontario Poetry

Repository

Poetic Licence

Writers' Quarterly

Poetry North Review (USA)

Minor Offences

Gut

Sepia (UK)

When Is A Poem (companion issue, League of Canadian Poets)

Konkrete

Wot

Jimson Weed (USA)

The Camrose Review

Interior Voice

The Atlanta Creative Alliance (USA)

Yellow Silk (USA)

Earthwise Poetry Journal (USA)

Authors

The Pegasus Review (USA)

Toute est dangereuse, tout est necéssaire.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

7 King and John Streets (For Isabella Valancy Crawford)

8 Colette

9 Chinatown I

10 Toronto

12 The Draper's Cloth

13 Poet's Are Magic Beings

14 Casha

15 The Jolly Tupper

16 Vertigo

19 Bedroom Glass

21 Ahoy

23 The Poetry Pond

24 What Became of the Sixties?

25 Sixties Hangover

26 Dash Into Realism: Escape Pad From The Sixties

27 What Colour Is Love?

28 Chain Letter

29 Slaughterhouse

30 Lavender

32 The Necklace Garden

33 Pillage

34 Desire

35 Preening

36 Chance Upon

37 Leaf Doctor

38 Tussaud's

39 Vulcans

40 Dry Guillotine

41 Mangroves

42 Pondicherry

43 The Clearing That Is The Trees

44 Humboldt's Current

45 The Gingham Dream Utterance

46 Juniper Trees

47 Distemper

48 Night Winds

49 Amherst Island

50 Ancient of Days

51 Constantly Deliberation

52 The Drunken Boat

KING AND JOHN STREETS

(FOR ISABELLA VACANCY CRAWFORD)

When the shadows are hungry

animals on walls

and theatre goers are

parliamentarians engaged

in a repast or feast

of words.

the lone house stands

as a stone shard or sliver

about to disengage itself

from the eye.

For behind boulders of tenement

walls and vines creeping

to match the red brick of

sumac and the parrot bill of fire escape stairs,

I watch the building

cylindrical in the darkness

crouching thin air

as if an awkward child

were about to make strange

for the dozenth time.

There are few things to duplicate

plaster held by the bite of wind,

open poverty like lesions

refusing to move.

neglect that festers

to pop the endless seams

of the mind like burning

radiator caps,

scalding water to lighten

the lanced up eyes of vermin who

lather these swollen rooms.

[7]

COLETTE

The waitress mainlines

the cup under the saucer

balancing it on the

waistband of her arm

much as a junkie

might tie a tourniquet.

Wiping the glass edge

of the table

clear of croissant crumbs

& watching the barely dry

reflection of her own

image going thru the emotions.

the California chic

pothouse & gardenia

bloom effect of

her work is enough

to leave a dirty smear.

[8]

CHINATOWN I

And a little farther

the Fu Manchu mustache

curved in mock epic proportions

of a scimitar un-sheaved for action,

perhaps the executioner's progress

his victims entombed to their skulls

in rolls of quivering earth--

the parting of the ways

coming as your coin drops

to the rasp of his

tin cup chuckle.

[9]

TORONTO

Quennelles. Lady of the Gold Horse with Diamond Eyes.

A bottle of Napoleon brandy for the Count and two Persian

lions carved in wood.

Salads Nicoise.

Dinners at Pré Catalan in the Bois, a Toronto equivalent.

A girl named Chantilly burning charcoal in the forest.

I drank a cocktail with the girl of the white polo coat.

Or as the cynic said, my pipe is the tent, the tobacco

the days of my life.

[10]

THE DRAPER'S CLOTH

I imagine stars at the dragon's tail,

eyelids ringing with butter.

I want to brush palms as

lightly as two sparks.

take the wand of your waist

in two plush hands

with the pitiless gesture

of a sparrow

We part the leaves in breath,

arouse trees in envy.

I sense colours more vivid

than your tongue

after wine,

explosions to cap the wind.

To enter you in argument--

a bough creeking in underbrush,

svelte panthers hiding.

And afterwards, sheets are open galleys,

oarsmen ploughing breakers

across both sea and night.

[12]

POETS ARE MAGIC BEINGS

She sits within the Magic Lantern

--that facsimile for pleasure,

decor of wineskins where

at $2.50 a garment

extravagance comes extra;

skin like rosy flames

the whisk of smoke

at hearthside

sunlight about her face.

Cherubs arise from those lips

and battle lines are drawn

about the sweet curvature of her breasts.

A tight cashmere sweater rides

comfortably two of the finest King's

deer headstrong thru Sherwood Forest.

And, Merry Man,

firmly planted in Lincoln Green,

the plodding turf growing at odds within my soul--

give this brief to the Sheriff at Buckingham;

I cool my heels, the soft doe lies prostrate at my feet.

She's loveliness,

hair drawn as curtains

signalling the clouds,

eyes that beckon twin doves

to flight, in swift passage, like the arrows.

[13]

CASHA

A child-like fawn

moistened nudging &

joyous breath,

an allowance for leave

as her gentle hand

budges my sibling cupping.

And walking in a field of gardens

--our Jardin des Plantes--

a molecule in depth

flowery pennons

near Picardy wet.

Casha tendrils here pinion the eye,

little Annabel Lee

with the sunshine wet in her parting hand

that all the birds in grace sigh

at Saint Francis breathless.

[14]

THE JOLLY TUPPER

Sun on the eiderdown

breaks tiny corners off the bedspread,

declares green plants its bidding

before summoning Fragonard's maiden

off her swing--so richly dressed

in picture from the sunlit wall.

Expensive tabac from an imported humidor

etches tiny leaves

their stems as faces against the glass,

rich aroma, trèsor, like the Jolly Tupper print

preparing his bowl,

drawing on the clay stem

as if from a height watching ships come in.

Smoke cold as blue fungus over outside buildings

follows horses with hooves to split cobblestones

stuck in the city's eye,

more than mountains around

the stone filled ravines

of the rich man's heart.

[15]

VERTIGO

We're travelling down a carnival road, are met at intersections by

varying faces: poets as eyes in collapsed black holes, even the

universe as extension of the stellar poet. Then, they are transformed,

become worm-pickers, masons, longshoremen who subsidize their

poetry with the real task at hand: making waste, laying trestles

instead of women to prove a point.

This is necessary. I'm defending it, find it both believable and

interesting. Meanwhile, troubadours and wandering minstrels eke

out a living on storybook memories, join Marco Polo if he ever

lived. Seek out the Great Khan in a box of cookies or within a

magnum of champagne depending on circumstances.

The Grand  Lunar is watching. Her pallor commands true poets to

roll over, gaze at silver buttocks make a commitment to the art

beyond spray painting, ghost watching, navel gazing.

The sky is the final home of the soul, the Sage himself a wanderer

announced.

It was a warm spring evening. Lilac bounded from antler brown

twigs only recently inert. Everything dissolved at once into crying.

The world itself became a tear.

[16]

BEDROOM GLASS

Counted three white pigeons

on a roof, near a gable

silhouetting a barn;

as an afterthought

killed as many nervy bluebottles

on the bedroom glass as

warnings to myself, perhaps,

or the elements pelting the window

with ice beads, tiny crystalline

versions of those distant elephantine birds.

[19]

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

in quickening escape thru the

maw of an Arctic sea.

Expiry. Dry rot. Sunken astrolobe

and an armada of feelings drifting alone.

[21]

THE POETRY POND

Everyone is a poet, or so the philosopher said. 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.

Sherpas tightly drawn amidst depths of a Himalayan winter

weather a torrent of words. Groggy, I search for breath, am given

oxygen but see writing materials.

In the future, everyone will be famous for five minutes.

We have been promised this by Andy Warhol.

In the present, a day in the life of the poet is within reach of each of

you, my peers.

Barnum and Bailey's fresh from the publishing scene comes to

town, will train talent or so the sign read. 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.

Bushel and a peck, common as gravestones.

My mind was a tabla rosa and the poets could not pick it clean.

And me within reach of this uncontrolled mitosis, arspoetica. I

dread "have a nice day," is already a populist poem. Think my

grade 13 biology is hazy but not my ability to count the poets.

I am holding hands with the poets lest we foam too perilously

at the crest.

Sentenced in absentia to torturing words, pulling wings off

proverbial flies, attacking motherhood.

Worse, performing illegal abortions on the craft.

[23]

WHAT BECAME OF THE SIXTIES?

The "Haight," in Ashbury lived up to its name.

Sexual pioneers became commonplace.

Agribusiness consolidated the back to the land movement.

Joni Mitchell remortgaged all the tree museums.

Flower power became a snivelling joke.

Groovy and way out once again were associated with corduroy

pants & fire exits.

Fascism was taken over and made respectable by Ronald Reagan.

Jewish mothers and landladies outguessed the War on Poverty.

Strobe lights were said to cause cultural myopia.

The Just Society lost another Vietnam.

Rock music recycled itself in "meaningful dialogue."

Innocence learned a lot from experience.

Contemplation of one's navel was resurrected by phenomena

of the eager and job hunting corporate executive.

Long hair became a symbol of displacement.

Au pair girls received a new lease on life.

Tofu and herbal teas survived even the commune experience.

Primal scream, therapy, in the crunch, outdistanced everything else.

[24]

SIXTIES HANGOVER

"We have all been here before.

almost cut my hair;"

the refrain from Crosby, Stills. Nash & Young

reading more like a law firm letterhead than

any invocation for real social change.

Respectability, that first casualty of the eighties.

What, exactly, was a true child of the sixties?

Here's a few safe bets:

Valedictorians were few and difficult to find for their "irrelevant,"

high school peers. Are you listening Paul and Paula?

Cutoffs. Hitchhiking to California?

All is beautiful. Laid back. Beads.

The sixties were a jukebox that came of age.

Ponderosa shirts were destined to outlive their owners.

Thirty-three is perilously close to being afraid.

Elvis Presley, a blimp at forty, missed the sixties or rather

failed to live them down.

The hullabaloo of freedom was taken for granted, then shelved.

Amid a crescendo of killing only a year and one half of the present

decade duplicates the assassinations of the "violent sixties."

Even the cop troupe withered, crooned Eric Burton at Monterrey.

I think not.

[25]

DASH INTO REALISM: ESCAPE PAD FROM THE SIXTIES

For one, street argot became tougher.

You had to distinguish between what you meant by calling someone

a mother.

The Black Panther influence, no doubt, but a rejuvenation of the

language. Street fighting man. Butchery at My Lai.

House arrest for Lieutenant Calley so strangely appropriate for the times.

So middle class and a tribute to "doing one's own thing":

Rampant, militant individualism, the hallmarks of expression.

Sit-ins, love-ins, peace-ins. The Electric Acid Kool-Aid Test,

anyone? The sixties were the highwater meritocracy from the

foremost "me decade".

Getting right on target for the narcissism of the seventies.

Or so it was rumoured.

What's next in the social roller derby?

Cutbacks, retrenchments, accountability.

Even uglier, this new argot of the eighties.

[26]

WHAT COLOUR IS LOVE?

Sixties idols were built to last.

A 70's idol is shoddy and throwaway by comparison.

Whatever became of Carnaby Street or bell bottoms?

The mentality is alive and well (another dreadful anachronism) in

smart up-town boutiques.

The proprietors, though, don't sell little bells to freaks anymore.

Luxurious Persian rugs, instead, are all the vogue.

And bail money for vendors hawking copies of Guerrilla on the

streets of Toronto or Black Panther leaflets in US cities isn't

needed anymore.

Who was Bobby Seale? Who remembers?

The first generation in history, a new consciousness...

Remember the Greening of America?

Escape From Freedom?

The futuristic think tankers?

consciousness III?

Bombers turning into butterflies?

Today's B-52's are punk rockers.

I like my memories, retreat-like, hazy in myopic seclusion.

I suspect social historians for the pleasant dribble they write about

the age.

The age, like it spanned a thousand years, opened new epochs.

More like Adolf's remark about his millennial Reich.

Some doubt the authenticity of the Holocaust. I doubt the sixties.

It, too, lasted what seemed twelve years.

[27]

CHAIN LETTER

I'm sitting in a "sixties bar." No put-on.

All around old Rolling Stones music is playing.

I can tell it's a sixties bar by the spiffy waiter recycling sheets for

tablecloths. The sixties was "into," environment.

It's the eighties now as Heineken was unobtainable in 1969.

Someone reminds me in order to run a tab a credit card is needed.

This seems logical but very out of sorts with the people power

complex I'm nurturing.

Even the jokes above the bar are old hat.

This confirms with certainty that Madcaps is Nostalgia.

It's too built up for Sha-Na-Na, fintails or Nancy Sinatra's,

These Boots Are Made For Walking.

In my sensible decade that tune is considered sadistic. Obviously,

the effect is too sophisticated to imagine I'm even a temporary

time traveller. Still, poetry is a communicable disease

invented in the 1920's by a snooty degenerate named Pound.

I bide my time. It's an oasis for waiting. Old time experiences seem

strangely current in this campy pub.

Occasionally, someone in a zoot suit comes in but realizes he's

missed the last act of Grease.

Old Blue Eyes might make it here if he looked like Bogart in drag.

Like them, Presley was by-passed by the theme of this decade.

There's a fleshy table and chairs with a knock out chick that looks

like my Bridge Over Troubled Waters.

The waiter scowls like vintage Ben Casey.

Beehive hairdos mingle casually with early "Mod."

Rockers wishing Cherry Reds are served drinks instead.

Comfortable sleaze.

The window is up on the future now and New Wave is out to

spray paint graffiti artists all the way.

"Either you are part of the solution or you are part of the

problem." Now there's a sixties homily that still delivers.

Nice to think the social history of three decades is indistinguishable

and that silence comes as its own reward.

[28]

SLAUGHTERHOUSE

You're the aggressor

and your passion exceeds mine

but we're in this slaughterhouse together

and it's near closing.

Vats of prickly ointment

destined to repattern animal skin

and tubs of steaming formaldehyde

rest casually with the more antiseptic

thrill of green sawdust.

Blood is a chameleon, here, changing colours

en route to sausage and Pram but

my hotdogs and donuts are

holding better to the cuttlefish

in this unnatural forest.

The stars are a jangle of planets

in a world where wood became noise;

each ceiling beam, incidentally,

is the wrenched out spine

of a Longhorn steer,

doorknobs pig knuckles

bound for Octoberfest fear.

Even the kindly attendant is an

ogre spying out porkers' throats;

will sit under a bridge

then capsize crates

of young chickens

knife ready at hand.

The squeal of this bovine camp

is recycled on 40 watt amps

through more than decibels of rage;

is a fishly contest designed

to trade off gruel

for fresher prospects.

One armed forklift drivers, for instance,

with realistic Captain Hook hands

jab instructions to

lifeless walls where

underlings the colour of grey slate

form a human paste.

Sound is the monetary exchange,

rabbit dung the troll's own currency--

each scrawl of the pen

confirmed by the work order

upends living things bent over in pain.

[29]

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.

I have seen a mind enclosed above fresh air and sunshine,

frolicking on its own strength, the elasticity of its thought lassoing

all the stars assembled.

Golden points of light caught in this sand with an oval sun

marching blue legions across the sky bring more harmony than

all the stars assembled.

Admiral. Fakir. Harem. They are all here as is batik, geisha,

sarong, teak and gingham. I have seen them in quiet pools near

the atolls.

Rapture is a word to be eaten with persimmon and pears.

The closed wood. Copse and fragrant bush. White mare alone in

a green-studded pasture aback groves and groves of pleasant

trees. Bright insects making a curry of the forest floor with leaves

as trinkets bartered to the wind.

And the endless sky overturned like a bowl across the horizon.

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.

Strands among weeds, wine bottles as ferrymen ready for

circumnavigation around islands crisscrossing bucolic charts.

And everywhere reefs and coral and sugarbush fish darting

between the sieve of land breaking bread with sea; exchanging

colours from many coloured coats.

Kangaroo, koala, tepee, bayou hula, lei.

Sights which gallop against the senses, act as brigands to mature

reason. Faraway in the mountain fastness of the mind, alpine

meadows look out upon further marvels, exchange cocoa for

quinine, adjust the mind as a stirrup before a long, night ride.

The shaman with a hammock in his catamaran dolefully accepts

the waves as the skin must a tatoo.

The lovely collision of sound with twilight on fragrant sea-grape,

the hush of storm clouds preparing to administer their own

bromide of fire before the appearance of a band-aid patch of

lightning streaks against the divide.

Perhaps lavender is a language here, the juxtaposition of mind

with energy coming to a halt from a brisk canter, then proceeding

to nibble a currant from my hand.

[30]

THE NECKLACE GARDEN

For my part, I spied red berries

on a currant bush

lush in August;

the canopy of leaves

a nesting place for hornets

clocking one hundred

in & out of their ice-castle hive.

Birds had fled in horror,

there was a pallor

around the sun

and nearby a Hubbard squash

grew like Topsy

already several baskets in size.

I threatened suicide

in this herbivorous garden

amid wild canaries and butternuts;

my jangled nerves a lobster colour

only calmed by more grievously

afflicted tobacco hornworms,

their skins pierced by the radar alum

of wasps.

Transformed into insect angels

strumming away the afterlife,

they arrived as ghosts to comfort me.

Fresh, spring potatoes grew like serendipity

under a pleasant summer sky.

The smell of good earth

revived above

the saltpetre muddle

of the humanoid puzzle.

Later, the night became a lavender cloak,

her folds sweet orifices

of a pleasure bound woman.

[32]

PILLAGE

It's chess of sorts but

reeks of you--

the hand carved emerald rook, for one,

and so many Black & White squares

that tiptoe like many a patio stone

between our warring minds.

I think of rollaway mats

lepers use to beg on,

habitually to die on

or marked cards that

outside castle walls

dicers' oaths

must originate from.

I am having trouble

keeping the pieces straight.

I mean, you're White

& concluded the beginning of the end

with first move; still, I'm prepared

for nothing short of winning.

Should we discuss this

growing stalemate near

the Bishop's mitre

and exploding gun

or against hungry faces of expendable pawns

raging, as they say, across Seas of Galilee

on that first night of Storms?

And, when pressed during attack,

is it proper logistics

to prepare the drawbridge,

fondle another dart

for a King's crossbow,

then advance at parapets

with scalding liquid,

the oily spillage

of our tongues?

[33]

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.

[34]

PREENING

The sky is red and comes

from Montreal--

you lied to me

the hemlock of the wind

is not this January's

but is ringed with

steel laughter of

another winter.

I saw you wringing sweat

from the eyes of the road,

lie down take the season's

wetness in your mouth,

push apart moist dampness

'til one cavity was

felled and another opened

[35]

CHANCE UPON

As she's lying there in sherbet panties

looking somewhat disaffected, a nez perce

expression bordered by sleep,

think of the Sultan's regalia

his entourage of kings

chance upon dark laughter from Saladein's[1] concubines,

Nell's[2] white turn of the knee

or the pretty bosom of a Confederate

officer's belle . . . all satin & lace ...

perhaps, again, the splendid neck

of Titian's choicest nude.

To further turn the phrase,

ponder a basket of fruit--

the sexual omnipotence

of its texture a dreamy sensuality

thickened by red Emperor grapes

ripened against the elongated nails

of a Pompadour's[3] milk white hand.

[1] Richard the Lion Hearted's adversary

[2] The Merrie Monarch's favourite mistress

[3] Louis xv's courtesan and adviser

[36]

LEAF DOCTOR

You said happiness was a bird

--a hand extended

could bend its perch.

span the perfect wings.

I spoke of swallows.

lived off flies

ebbed when flying.

seldom came to rest.

[37]

TUSSAUD'S

In the wax museum with Attila and Genghis and Tamerlane all so

close in spirit with our century.

At Madame Tussaud's in London: Neill Cream. Burke and Hare. It's

hard to keep the legitimate heroes straight from the villains. I expect

Houdini to make this Niagara Falls and appear at midnight

Halloween.

With so many real and picturesque notables in abundance, I plan

the idea of creating my own arch criminal wax museum assembled

from the hallways and stairwells of my own life.

I imagine employment counsellors from across the years with sardonic

laughs and strings tripping off records to make them authentic.

Then busts of fiendish ex-teachers and hatchet fanatics that

pass as librarians giving me advanced nausea because my card

has technically expired. Think the occasional gesture at remembering

a swine or two from freeway driving might not be entirely out of

place or that mindless clerks administering my life from afar and

costing a future deserve an enshrining.

"A nickel short," droned the bureaucrat, "no transfer," secures him

passage to my waxworks.

"Sorry," and "we'll certainly keep you in mind," as a litany of woe

with its users made to memorize and make good all promises ever

made.

Wish the mind and her memories could be enlarged; I would recreate

my own historic scenes to stand alongside Nelson's Death,

the Little Princes in the Tower. Detail Israeli Nazi-hunters to

track down my Adolf Eichmanns.

Instead of samples from Jack the Ripper's handwriting in the waxworks,

rejection slips and the stylized, flowery "we'll keep your

application on file," would be served up as horror epics.

Dunces that compose form letters made to live out the threadbare

future promises. Each human roadblock making decisions out of

ignorance would have his statement dutifully recorded before entering

a world of his own design.

Ad agency types made to explain in effortless detail to packed

houses why their ketchup commercial should stand up.

Crooked garage operators made to oil and grease the chassis of

every car owner hoodwinked since the automobile began.

Football made a crime punishable by fate.

Shyster store owners too cheap to bag my newspaper made to

launder all the soiled white pants across a lifetime.

Tailors that mistakenly think they are being shortchanged

and become vocal made to attend Sartre courses where "hell is other

people," doctrines predominate.

The huckster, the con-man, those who prey on the multitude

transposed from whatever city of origin then made to tramp the

streets of Toronto where every wrong syllable or misbegotten

accent costs them a dollar of their savings.

My whole museum a living aviary, a subway at rush hour where

snotty, telephone receptionists are fed a steady diet of the Biblical

injunction "by words they shall be known."

Well meaning but ignorant people endlessly poking with the "you

should smile more," placed in a house of mirrors with durable

cassettes of Laugh-In.

Belligerent restaurant owners telling kids they can't use the

washroom then made to mop up the waste they helped create.

The world, a stand-up comic throwing away his happy face then

coming to sit in disgust at the unchronicled petty evil of our times.

[38]

VULCANS

Adder toothed flowers snake

the broken ground where

molten tongues cremated

the twisted, bunker forms--

a Latin cross of

green jubilation

lies matted atop a

sweating road, calligraphy in broken stone.

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.

[1] An earthquake destroyed in the seventeenth century not only the

stronghold of Jamaica's pirates but also changed the topography of

the North Shore creating Fern Gully.

[39]

DRY GUILLOTINE

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.

Delightful euphemisms, the names reminiscent of sonorous rivers,

tree lined groves, peach blossoms across Georgia springs. Or

Ophelia's funeral oration wherein Polonius rightfully alludes to her

sudden falling away amid laughing brooks.

I am reminded of Charrière's desperate attempt to stay sane on Ile

du Diâble, the cutting edge of his dry guillotine--his mind's fabric

giving way to the slightest irritation. In the present, the chant of

a crowd's "jump, jump," to the would be suicide. Then there is the

most foreboding type of all dementia, the collective sort. A strength

through joy movement of the Hitler camp with society's many

institutions set up along the spit and polish order of the Reich.

Indeed, if we think of it, we all have a deep knowledge of madness;

days when the centre is about to break alongside the pit. Days when

wars on the periphery take hold, colours appear different.

As a child, madness was watching Ichabod Crane in cartoon form

outrace the Headless Horseman. In Sleepy Hollow trying to put

down the panic in himself. Ichabod, the peaceful school master,

driven to the edge. At war with himself but trying to reassure that

same self the plodding sound of approaching hooves was only dried,

bullrush stems hitting against his head.

Madness is more than Van Gogh offering an ear; Druid priests

garnishing oak trees in a British forest or plaintive Gauguin

abandoning his family at 34, mid-stream in a successful career. It

probably stands behind half the men on skid row, beckons like a

welcome friend before turning fiend and consuming impulse to a

bag lady.

The close relation between the creative impulse and "letting go."

Between the arts and wide eyed eccentricity. Between wanting to be

free. And knowing. Hearing if you go on like that you'll end up on

the Lakeshore. Another pretty euphemism. A dangerous truth left

like an upturned rock for someone to trip on in another garden.

The farthest away anyone can be.

[40]

MANGROVES

How do you survive

in the mangrove swamps--

amid the twitchings of fetid water

& water lice thick as baby tears?

How, with all the wallow of thick muck

making suction noises and the teams in relays

searching nightly with baited hounds, do you pull free?

Your bamboo pole knows every ploy

but is a slender craft ill-equipped

to sparring blows from every quarter,

the undergrowth necessitates.

The closeness of the clammy night

heaved about like so much rotting fruit will draw

the ants . . . devouring like that abundance of cold, yellow eyes--

the firefly swarms that mock your heavy steel machete arm.

Across the drift of darkness

and the insect life

you bat in swarms,

the ultimate danger is not in the cayman giant

or his reptilian cousin named of copper wire,

the Anaconda; or even mindless holes, thick black

ooze that throttles a victim . . . but the two legged form coming,

searching . . . a spectre on hind quarters with a bolo knife stepping

free of that beaded circle, the inner camp.

[41]

PONDICHERRY

Chess pieces resting upon the jade mantle piece

see sampans move quietly

thru warm night,

rich bundles of bougainvillaea crowd market squares

where deck chairs extend

to the Persian Gulf.

Leisured gentlemen

finger walking canes,

hold eyelids thick as goblets,

sharp tridents beside private lairs.

Skin in puffy whiteness bulges under

lamp's white glare, becomes copra gathered

miles from Pondicherry, sesame

oil in rotting casks.

And the Indian heat, closing with certitude

akin to the trance of the snake charmer,

holds his flute poised with the Bengali lancer

riding a slow crop over the prostrate polo ball.

[42]

THE CLEARING THAT IS THE TREES

"They know they are going to the filth of numbers and laws,

to the games anyone can play, and the work without fruit."

Lorca

I want to go walking in troubled marshes

where cold gray coves leave off the mind

and the scent of rushes twist the wind

as fall covers dungeons of angry sparrows.

I want to go quickly to troubled marshes,

hear the squeak of brackish waters

over crocks of sponge bubbles crabbing

their surface.

I desire stands of dead brush

to wave in grave solemnity,

whimpering little houses

off forest glades to flicker

out lamps with

large dogs poised on verandahs

like stone gargoyles.

I want to handle anguish as if

it were an interesting bauble

plucked from the shallows,

a curious snail with ritual markings

or a mauve shellfish

caught in swift eddies

as the tide goes out.

I want to examine canker introspection

as a peevish child might

faint tracings on an old stone

lodged in the most forgotten

corner of a graveyard;

sample its wonders

fingering the many indentations

with more than slight awe

or hear the crashing of waves

far off from the physical restraint

of the marsh or this forgotten

burial plot so near an angry sea.

Then, awaken as if from a dream,

rub troubled memories from my eyes

but never the brain

for on winter nights just before

retiring as the wind stirs packets

of snow or the moon is chased

by skeletal hounds along Gretal trees,

there will come the realization

another day is thru

with another night to pilot away

fresh brush & rubble

before emerging, at night's end,

from the clearing that is

the trees.

[43]

HUMBOLDT'S CURRENT

Cresta roja wine

--colour of

arterial blood,

vena cava of

the alcoholic soul.

And seeing bottles bob

in mainstreams of men's blood

to pistol whip their reddened eyes,

Humboldt's current becomes a rash of drinking,

a map that charts more bloody lies.

The thirst that passeth

all human understanding,

(an alternate Biblical rendering)

certainly body heat surpasses

Vulcan's bellows

adding new faces to Delirium Tremens.

[44]

THE GINGHAM DREAM UTTERANCE

As I watch the clouds assemble, steam-ship fashion, with funnels to

alert passersby, I realize the Romanovs tore silk & riches from

every bazaar leaving the bright spot of this evening studded with

emerald marks.

A dot in the ocean is a spark upon which minnows play, their silver

bellies upturned to imitate the moon's white shawl.

I am wanting in the delights of the reef narrowly hauled from

rambunctious depths, the tiniest splashes of green, yellow, blue darting

in an upturned fish's tail.

An octopus rock commands squadrons of fingerlings while the eisel

fish decorates a steeper, coral garden.

Jet black sand crowns the lagoon volcanic ages' past the innocence

of this spurting palm while mounds of pitch dark ants deposit slivers

of rich eggs.

After a fashion, onyx enamours pearl and pearl ivory as cays and

atolls are swept to the wiggle of sun's dance on white sand. Eel-like

islands are only pomegranates undigested by the moon.

The amber breath of growing leaves is rich dark coffee stolen as in

a smile.

Almond drink is refreshing as the tips of cloven hooves to the dried

earth.

One might hesitate to watch firm nipples being given as broaches to

a king but the sandpiper is a river barge commanding slow access to

the next water.

Near barely lit lamps alongside make-shift beds, a woman with olive

skin prepares her toilet.

Hatchet brown birds beseech her with brittle songs stolen from

one wing.

A cathedral bowl lies overturned in the warm twilight of lovers

kneeling before the growing strength of day.

Stone stars are flattened by the glare of sun and shell encrusted

beaches bear a passing resemblance to chalices strung around an

avuncular stretch of land.

Perhaps in the hunted meadow near red spined caterpillars feeding

near the larvae of the elephant hawkmoth, a cistern will open the

earth and drink as a thirsty spoon.

[45]

JUNIPER TREES

Sitting as Buddha on a chocolate juniper

--the theme of madness

thirty cinnamon centres

Ophelia squares;

Brunelleschi floating down a fallen river

on nougats, perhaps onyx pears.

The sleek eyes of a cat stare floodlit topaz,

ocelot rings round her burning mask.

And sipping dry wine

Beaujolais, decantered Anjou

with iron doors not Ghiberti's fashioning but sweet meadows waving

fresh, summer grass.

And I at the garnet Buddha box--

a cold winter day pledging choices

pale, juniper tree

the carnival log egging up thick cordial;

the inlaid satin box hovering about silent, apple wedge

a child's fantasy, orgeat or bordeaux,

lactose fudge, bon appétit

syrupy taste of Burgundy cherry.

The axe ring of squirting tissue

with drone of passing feet

up finger stairs

until the rustle of cloth

crosses the turquoise box,

clamours almond clusters

into the courtyard cafe.

[46]

DISTEMPER

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.

[47]

NIGHT WINDS

They made us sit alphabetically in rows.

Green oranges are sprayed systematically

in volcanic soil near pummelled surf.

One stood to answer questions,

was called after the surname,

requested permission for trivials.

Outrigger canoes with barnacles in tow splash

menacingly near coral reefs. Under a lazy orange-ripple

moon halfing itself between stages of growth,

night winds taunt puffish clouds.

[48]

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,

stranded drumfish, sage,

and tubercular ragwort

[49]

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 transversing the waters.

The ivy calls to mind all these things,

just a sprig held tightly yet aromatic beyond imagining,

my timorous English settlers seen thru a spate of leaves

clutching their holly on Roanoke island.

[50]

Constantly Deliberation

[51]

The Drunken Boat

[52]

Biography

Previous titles by Paul Cameron Brown include fiction, poetry,

chapbooks, illustrations and broadsheets by a number of Canadian

and American presses.

". . . A master at evoking mood and atmosphere" The London

Free Press

". . . Beguiling writing indeed" The Canadian Author and Bookman

The End

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Table of Contents

COMING TO GRIPS WITH WHITE KNUCKLES By Paul Cameron Brown

Credits

TABLE OF CONTENTS

KING AND JOHN STREETS

(FOR ISABELLA VACANCY CRAWFORD)

COLETTE

CHINATOWN I

TORONTO

THE DRAPER'S CLOTH

POETS ARE MAGIC BEINGS

CASHA

THE JOLLY TUPPER

VERTIGO

BEDROOM GLASS

AHOY

THE POETRY POND

WHAT BECAME OF THE SIXTIES?

SIXTIES HANGOVER

DASH INTO REALISM: ESCAPE PAD FROM THE SIXTIES

WHAT COLOUR IS LOVE?

CHAIN LETTER

SLAUGHTERHOUSE

LAVENDER

THE NECKLACE GARDEN

PILLAGE

DESIRE

PREENING

CHANCE UPON

LEAF DOCTOR

TUSSAUD'S

VULCANS

DRY GUILLOTINE

MANGROVES

PONDICHERRY

THE CLEARING THAT IS THE TREES

HUMBOLDT'S CURRENT

THE GINGHAM DREAM UTTERANCE

JUNIPER TREES

DISTEMPER

NIGHT WINDS

AMHERST ISLAND

ANCIENT OF DAYS

Constantly Deliberation

The Drunken Boat

Biography

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