Title: Point Spread Poems
Author: Paul Cameron Brown
Release date: March 2, 2010 [eBook #31477]
Most recently updated: April 20, 2010
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Sorour Imani
9 WINDFALL 11 TURNCOAT 13 GANGLAND 15 NIGHT FISHING AT ANTIBES 17 SABBAT 19 SHIVAREE 21 POINT SPREAD 24 (THE TORONTO STAR, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 30,1985) 25 READING THE TIDES: PETROGLYPH PARK 27 FABULIST 28 ACE OF SPADES 29 WILD CARD 30 1920'S FLICKER 31 CANDLELIGHT IN BLACK 32 HIGHGATE 34 CAPE OF GOOD HOPE 35 PICPUS 37 ILLUMINAIRE 38 CARNIVAL AND LENT 40 TERMINAL LIVING 45 MIDPOINT 46 TWINKLING OF AN EYE 47 SERENADE 49 HIDDEN AGENDA 50 ADVENTURER 51 SLIPPER 52 HELLULAND 53 TRINKETS 54 A THIEF'S NOTEBOOK 55 WARHORSE 57 TEETER-TOTTER 58 CHEMIN DE FER 60 WITHIN REACH 62 COUNTESS 63 COUNTESS II 64 PALEFACE 65 CUD 67 CURRENCY 68 REFRESHER COURSE 69 GHOST TALES 70 WANDERLUST 73 PASTICHE 76 BOCA 84 WORK IN PROGRESS 88 HARDCASES |
"In the five and dime store where I first fell in love with unreality." Lawrence Ferrenghetti
Photos along a soft-centred wall like assorted chocolates with prized centres, tiny miniatures-- full portraits the young army major, for one, in battle fatigues come full family regalia. Mounting the staircase (tearing back the chocolate paper) shroud hand on the railing, pressuring the cherry liquid into oozing burst of memory, the nectarine orange of a summer's day. Swing & garden loom into view, the mind plays thoughtscapes, a tag ensemble, along the wall. Old colours (or lack of them) abound-- the antiquated dress & hairdos of grandparents that speak lavishly, into taste buds, across the fallen years. Ivy & ivory fan, kitten on a rocker, cradled baby that amounts to me, the sun coming home to roost on this plaintiff, pleading wall. Passage of thought into this chocolate box-- the lid off stern memory prying forth a directory of mouth-watering choice, or so the advertisers' claim. Yet do we ever thought over what we taut (in our heads) we are? My dad in Kenya (a time and age from this perspective like the peanut brittle) or grandfather, about eight, from the dreamy, dark cream & nougat reaches of layered black space that speaks the aeons ago-- his manner and distance a smoky haze from the twilight "special occasion" Black Magic chocolate box.
[9]
Sitting in the spendthrift dark lilting pennies away, deciphering fate ... . The bed, a warm reach past the pillow like personal mortality in the incest breath of life. Warm stuff of dreams-- the calender with its days mesh & march like soldiers dearly departed (cindered and bludgeoned) or the old sea-faring chest where all men are sailors past light's corner. Sturdy trudgeons, clock bursts thru the room mindful of time and aching, decaying things. Hallow's Eve in movements of the curtains-- a remembered Rembrandt, self-portrait of the old man standing alone in a clammy room, idling the seconds, with drab browns and grays; that sea-faring chest, again, speaking of depleted journeys. Mystic and occult moods, worlds caught in a single glance off the wall paper standing abreast the lamp and the mirror, back from the pace of a single thought.
[11]
A sailor, "tatoo you," the cigarette Players with tape-deck playing a jaundiced "Yellow Bird", Cerveza, Dos Equiis, the two horses, in red flame, across the label. Trolling in a deep sea-trench (spinners and chubb), the dark night a religious procession, acolyte stars in hymnal to the wind. Across the channel a Party Boat --the words almost demand capitals with actions so diminutive-- creased laughter "to go" cross the waves flicker of lights, siren call then a lemon shark strikes the bait on anchor reel, Horse-Eyed Jack perhaps borrowing the name from the Outback-- think pantomime, enter Wahoo and the aesthetic of fear crazed fish jack-knifing the boat. Someone produces a cheese tray, warm wine the small shark caught in a role reversal lies bludgeoned under the seat, even there a halo glow surrounds the eye and cobalt snout, but it is the grin that takes the edge off antics of the Party Boat some bedraggled hundred yards away this Death's Head cocktail, "What's your poison" leer teeth like naked light bulbs against tenement stairs protean hoodlum a millenia away.
[13]
A beach back of bric à brac, wine goblet of sky .... the horizon beginning somewhere between Nod & nigh unto forever with only the sigh of a Casuarina pine or sea-grape to force a smile. It was entering into twilight --our minds were sailing ships, mere vagaries upon the waves, mine more a clippership on the Frisco to China run. Soirèe intimée, apèrtif, digestif? A bottle of rum with Eleuthera for a name --the prettiest coves have steadfast winds dark about portside. Silvery light of stars, the stars like black hansom cabs with livried footmen before shark-toothed clouds, a shark-faced moon, the sight of a shark breaking water, lemon-white its gullet with the Big Dipper stuck in a shark tooth. Diamondhead or Copperback? Carpetbaggers ... the moon's silver tea-set giving birth to wonderment flooding in affection a Raouel Dufy lithograph, some decrepit Neapolitan fisherman zoning his epic life to human proportions.
[15]
Picturesque Tituba, steeped in Obeah, in a hairball swoon leads a harangue about witches with some of Salem's more delicate women, obedient children. In verdant outcrops of the imagination fuelled by a beldame's winter fire amid sparks that prance with devils thru tempest gloom covens are conjured so they implicate other pretties with raven hair, arm curled, in desperation, about the moon. With supernatural hands extended the sea is a wretch's bitter vinegar pounding the little, eggshell homes where, at twilight, a dozen village Elders with bell and taper, candlelight and prayer bind parchment oaths to envisage clandestine pacts, sabbats, obscene sojourns. Peculiar cat-- straw hat, thatch and loft a drop of blood sputtering then drawn over piddling flame, the well-intentioned righteous demask the pain-fed frightened. Gibbet, arm's length of braided rope-- gang-plank, gallow stairs that smirk off into Eternity --a lucky few strangled, the adamant burned, fickle apostates swum on a ducking stool. Ice-fire hearths-- bonfire sheaths ravishing the strong carnival veil along pebble-strewn trail.
[17]
These kettle bells. Is it the axe-murderer, with green garbage bag in the shadows? No. Green trees so thick their tops are folded hands or knotted knuckles to make perilous shrubbery by the garden wall. Yet this is a state of mind and shards of multi-coloured glass dot the top of stones. Interesting. Should a sociopath put out his shingle, come calling, a much under-estimated, rude uttering would take place. Still bees are active in the night air, not swarms, but a hum. Pleasant odours waft thru stiller air. There is no charged electricity to things, no tautness or leathery tightness to individual seconds. Still and stricken still. Yet "what ifs" come slithering as if serpents along a pasture floor. The diabolical. Rich desire to impregnate with evil, To embarcation upon conquests. To embolden and make one's mark, however ridiculous to the sane and balanced mind. Horrible. The dirty laundry of just one over-flowering and too abundant mind gone wrong. One single blossom out of place and "killer". Off-kilter. Out of whack. The pickle short of a jar syndrome. Then there's the hoots and shrill cat-calls withered by horse laughs. Guffaws with tattoos and rifle-butts. Laid back "good ole boys" type of humour going wrong soured by too many visits and skunky beers from the Orchid Lounge. Rinky-dink, honky-tonk. Dotting the landscape with worn, thin cars, trouser legs piled up, the "f" and "s" words. Charivari. A timely entry. A buzz set to sound, a faint blinking button with no sound. Suckers in the creek breaking water to catch flies, churning mud bottom by their too turbulent tails; a bird hitting the window only its night. The echo of moths lost to the stars with each jarring knock.
[19]
The skull in the box is that of Cornelius A. Burleigh, the first man to be hanged in London, Ontario, August 19, 1830. The public hanging attracted an audience of over 3,000 when the village of London numbered only a few hundred. Because the rope broke, he was hanged twice! The top of the skull was taken on a world tour by Dr. O.S. Fowler, a phrenologist. This part of the skull was presented to the Harris family. (Eldon House brochure) Off memory & a dare, the grave man coming to a bitter end. Burleigh, top of his skull reminiscent of a laundry cup (or toothpaste cap) separated from its yellowing, rightful owner. No jaws of life here-- rather vengeance beyond death, shellac & varnish twist shoved to the withering bone. Phrenology, sinister "fin de siecle" fingering of the intellect's character through guru-dimensions of the head, (pseudo-savant/skulduggery clairvoyant). Thimble-full thinker, sleight of hand smoke'n mirror trophy hunters boisterous crowd in a "hanging mood". Coins flip on the outcome while town drunks reel; The village idiot getting into the "swing" of things. Point spread across the yawn of death ... brittle behaviour, the sharp edge of beetles clicking in the dark. And I thought of institutionalized evil & rabid passion for revenge pursued beyond the final resting place-- most private skeletal remains held up as curios. Medieval burning of a heretic's bones, manure pile for those decried damned; the cross-roads drive your cart over the bones of the dead, the remembered suicide's end. Not so strange given human nature, Lord Byron's silver drinking cup runaway Ethiopian slave (twisted paean to romance) or Hand of Glory, corpse-fresh from the gibbet & famed forges of France. Hair strands as in under a magnifying glass, then shards of clothing/clods of earth covering a shovel. The autopsy-necromancy Nazi intrigue, playing polo with your opponent's skull --Carl Sagan's Broca's Brain red-bearded decapitation floating in a cloud of formaldehyde; sale of skeletons/white slavery filthy lucre all in one utilitarian lust for cadavers .... Robber-birds pinioning their prey ... Mania to collect mania to re-collect, shadow-boxing logic rattle his bones he's only a pauper whom nobody owns.
[21]
Bare bones future Medical schools may be facing a bare bones future, thanks to a shortage of skeletons. According to an article in The Medical Post, most anatomy skeletons come from India and the Indian government has placed a ban on the export of human skulls and skeletons. At Queen's University, 500 students share 300 skeletons, four or five of which have to be replaced every year although the head of the anatomy department says the students take good care of them. Anatomists say it would be extremely hard to duplicate the surface details with plastic skeletons but the option may have to be considered.
[24]
" ... A universe of ineffable gaudiness spun itself out in his brain ... a promise that the rock of the world was founded securely on a faery's wing." THE GREAT GATSBY Perceiving the universe as an orchid stem, wild hibiscus crane & heron breaking water --voyage of elliptical, pea-shaped canoe down dancing images of the underworld. This temperature charged, climate-controlled glass geode designed to war on moss and stone munching aphid lichens seems everybit as fanciful as any animal totem. Grim crevice in the rock (animistic female orifice) fertility turtle swollen with eggs carrying Earth thru gorged labours of darting salamander & the spaceman snake. And coming to that rushing sound, (subterranean, evocative stream) or so Algonkians, pensive & puzzled, paused for a thought encased in deep, riverine bowels. Glass slipper, blue guitar --Silent Lake with something of wild dimensions in Warsas Caves (Cyclopean boulders), Serpent Mounds, this runic enchantment with glyphs & a cabalistic moon of May.
[25]
Riel veritably in a cockpit-- Gabriel Dumont with his buffalo robe peeking from behind a blind at Duck Lake all ingredients intact, a gallow's walk inevitable given a series of probable givens. Given Riel is an illusionist figuring 3 days back from the grave --that an early prototype of the Gatling gun is in effect, that a Ghost Dance cannot stop bullets. Superior numbers & discipline' mandate the West will cringe to the Queen's Red Coats; what's more, the iron horse icon "talking leaves" & the superficiality of running a plow over the land's back all take their calculated toll. By some obscure, parboiled magic Riel is transformed to a living room of today: heir apparent to the French Canadian empire (nightmare) or yuppie visionary illuminaire? In the Dominion soup kitchen, the rest of the country acts as a beggar clutching another pot.
[27]
Parable as metaphor-- profile in hard glint of light, buckskin garb merging from shadow & buckboards-- sandwiching of memory being elbowed thru a Deadwood City saloon door. Noneother. Dead Man's Hand. Cards strewn, last tumbler ... chamber on empty. Yancy Derringer modelling the latest revolver of his namesake, in pit & the palm bullet in the back for Wild Bill, just for a keepsake. Treasure-trove for the funeral parlour: "they done him up well". Peccadillo as provocation.
[28]
Clayton brothers at the corral, its Earp City today tumbleweed junction for numerous lives, not to mention lies swift-draw artists encased in a memory of stone boots up ... with all the forlorn grace of being pushed in front of a train.
[29]
John Dillinger and Baby-Faced Nelson in a dream together --one shooting holes thru theories of his untimely death, the other frying in an old-time (e) Electric Chair with balloons waving, bonbons going off, the crowd in a joyous, boisterous mood. The marquee reads: "Public Enemy Number One laid to rest in a shallow grave as gravelly as the heart that beat in his stoney chest." An adjacent sign noted, crime does pay the undertaker but other, good-hearted folks need look no further than the Dempsey-Tunney fight to see which has the bigger box office draw.
[30]
The ghosts are marmalade thin as rinds across toast or the Weeping Willow, whose green beard leans, crane-like, into a child's backyard. A Morning Cloak butterfly, maroon wet with the paint of morning, cat paws thin filament leaves astride a larder of memories. Dalliance with the past, smoke grey these architects of memory the privet hedge, lone pine tree, jet black caterpillar poised about a green carrot top trigger laced in emperor's gold like fathoms of the sea held ... in quiet repose.
[31]
Angel Inn, come off a sign blown sideways in the sugar and ices night. Old St. Joseph's Cathedral, bottom of the hill, here Andrew Marvell of "coy mistress" fame sports a plaque remembering "time's winged chariot" and farther (further!) up a quaint pub gives accolades (Kudos, too) to the fact, 1666 nefariously was the plague year in London--Parliament Hill, a brief arm stretch away, posited strangled chickens and other assorted heirlooms in vain attempt for poesy to thwart poxy. A stone's throw off in Hampstead Heath guns (Big Berthas) could be heard from the Somme, German dirigibles dropped incendiaries, the wounded entrained at Charing Cross and a rascallion (John Keats by name) drained a draught at Jack Straw's Castle near the Spaniards while Turpin's hanged corpse was soon to resemble good English oaker casks at the Flask.
[32]
Poltergeist activity --the sun winding like a staircase onto the pavement, rickety afternoon shooting back thru shawls of the city. Tippy-toe. Curtains ajar, a face at the cross-roads looking, looking for all the world as pavement stones, greasy & black, a thin oiled compliment to Mrs. Blight registered at Old Inn Road.
[34]
The day I went to LaFayette's grave, the concierge became our tour guide amid an old ruin of tombstones including bedraggled de Tocqueville's crypt (and he, heir apparant of America, too). There, too, the odd City of St. Louis tribute Fayettevilles after yet another "Saint" Louis, despoiler of the Jews--both sitting, squat and apparant, in summer dust, so shingle-flat, mindful of Place De La Nation, more blood-letting blocks away (so the aristocracy might be healed). A chapel nun then reached in loud silence for our Lord, her black habit / upraised hands forming a brilliant crucifix against sky and altar. Some francs exchanged hands (Monsieur le keeper, after all, obliged us by opening a private cemetery, après heures), the graves looked so wretched-- death stylized in military formation, row on row, every private carrying a field marshall's baton only this time of mortality's making, crestfallen, no Agile Lapin/Moulin Rouge here, in the joyless, little garden (not a bird sang), our old Frenchman narrating/marching on in The Old Guard, Grand Armée fashion a little Napoleonic his cemetery, his brandy like his suspender buttons lost to recent antiquity. Place des Vosges, Place des Vendomes. A dish of plaice at the palais and a royal hippodrome.
[35]
Elfin & gold bug, genie in the twilight of a cave. Virgin On The Rocks --Da Vinci's painting-- aura light seeping toward sun-lit crack of day, the Master's Mona Lisa in the Louvre raptured, luminescence amid aging pigment steeping about rapt multitude. Betwixt pit & pendulum, another canvas-- Da Vinci in a beatific pose (warm light of the room), gentle finger pointing upward, a puzzled crowd with nowhere to see.
[37]
Jungle, the cave human reservoir & cistern .... quagmire and bog, but no alpine meadow, fairest glance of goodness in soiled wildflower under winter snows. Pebbles into a cesspool, our sometime passions alive in the outback where honey-fuelled ants soothe enemy bones. My blood, tempest-whipped, ardour drawn to the surface fathom marks the depths sees a spectacle on the roads queues/Carnival & Lent, unbridled raw and raging. Jesus would have nails. Poison darts, liana and mangrove sounds with footsteps in the distance the blow-gun or bolo knife attache case / cellular phone ... "I'll kick your teeth down your throat, professionally speaking." Nine to five fecal beings perform the toilet-bowl flush. Tsetse fly with design-- sapient, sand paper rough along the edge, dry rot to the core. Plague rats cluster in a feeding frenzy sampling tidbits. Swirl of the bull fight, colour and scope, only its a supermarket, freeway. Wide angle, wild angel, Umbrage of the uppercut. Tough-mindedness, singleness of purpose, the glacial speed of fairness along the sorted, sordid circles of Spitsbergen. Our species' jailbait reason firing up the flashlight in the dark for a circumspect peek in the woods sleeping. Tell me your adventures in living. Another hour spent strangling a reindeer on the taiga, boreally-speaking.
[38]
"Everybody in the world is frightened of getting cut." Charles Manson I The image complete --collapsing corpses, rag dolls with skulls shot away ... ruby-red blood spurting slipstick/eyeshadow/mascara all so reptilian replete. II The long fingers of the pianist playing rifle fire to a captive audience, stiletto tones; the trance effect, precedes a cobra's strike, summer without smoke. III A glass of absinthe --the Degas painting, Marc Lepine measuring out his vial, measuring the worth of a single woman and finding her long on the call, cartridge shells exploding filaments of smoke (long and blue) like a woman's fingers up from his death gun. IV Existential longing-- vision far ago, a lost world of virile primates where a man's worth transcended his tie-clip (suspenders ready, binoculars steady), letting the stiff upper lip quiver. Then his face the colour of rainwater, shoe leather in that same rain. V "I am not a wallet," but he was someone's son. VI Mystery (wretched Marc, so unfathomable inside your debâcle, mélée that the French so forlornly cloak, enfant perdu). VII Marc, you are not confined to "why", rather representative of a long line of predecessors dead certain they are nobley right. Gender knows no restraint. Male crazies? I see the cloaks and shawls of spectres breaking saloon bottles with an axe cursing demon rum, hear "red alert" at maternity wards after the shootings --boy babies, at risk, from estrogen cranks. VIII Strange, women speak of it, Lepine died for it--his ersatz, clouded vision, no milktoast he, yet so much egg on the face this dirty thing "Justice". Naughty boy taking one too many reprimands from Father, think of Madonna's spankie. IX All the same, Saddam Hussein, Pedro the Cruel (Butcher of Baghdad, Montreal or writhing throes of medieval pillage). Getting one's own lid pried off-- the shaking indignation of Il Duce, Der Fuehrer, the sanctimonious hard-shell pose of Henry, Anne Bolyn in the cell block for being a witch (the reputed third breast was a dead give away). X Little ripple, then blip on a sonar screen trailing off terminal living. Frame of reference like a gyroscope breading free. XI History is a motherlode of fanatics by virtue of association. Wrong-minded'? Why not, I never met anyone who was wrong. No joy in loveland, everybody revelling in certain certitude this balkanization of the sexes, Holy Crusade, Jihad of the gender. XII Save us from people who are right, the "firm but fair" rabid feminists, rapid virilism crescendo intellects with egos to stop a train. Humility of purpose is decidedly inferior to quiet perseverance in the truth. XIII Inner light taken outside is fiery and blinding. Quietism. Pietism. Everything is a calling or, in the religious sense, vocation. What is not a longing'? Craving? Itch before the scratch? XIV The last, inner spike of saintly sanity snapping to "calling", that siren song persuasion Lorelei made vision. So watch their faces--lips set, eyes aglow giving us all "an offer we cannot refuse". Silver or lead, red hot poker up the innards in the name of Self-Determination. Columbian drug-lord, hat off cleaning her glasses after The Hit. There is no substitute for victory. Conviction has its price. Its a funny, old world if only Maggie Thatcher knew.
[40]
The thin, feathery blue egg-shell curtains gently tossing, the tin smile of the roof armada its metal armour flashing to inch their shingle way into escalade-escadrille formation and leathery sky.
[45]
On twin tails of a comet penguin men polka dot the night------ waddle white suits past pale the white Empress Night, flickering graveyard stars ---a pitcher of inky black upended in a choir and manger II. Lowing of the clouds lowering overhead like bombardiers rifling the Firmament, black braying back. III. Millpond, satin and creamy, then buttercup crush of waves
[46]
A green flotilla, verdant armada stone hand encased in an arm of ocean off blue-grotto bay. Something avuncular where land meets sea --underdog, whipped cur, adult "son" posturing to the elder, pontificating man. Melaque after dark or was it Aguascalientes'? Monterrey at sunset prior to "the" pop festival or Morelia, on eve of feasts to that native patriot'? Vera Cruz, 1915, at the height of American occupation with Pershing tailing the hirsute Pancho Villa in Sinaloa outdated rock & gunboat diplomacy --no longer exotic fare plate of frivoles, fried banana Mahi-Mahi. On the palette, dreams are fickle, subject to "drunk and disorderly resisting arrest," outmoded and fuzzy with age. Policeman of the Olmec intellect, you dance late on feather boas this Mariachis of the soul with glittering purse and yellow, travelling nectar Tequila.
[47]
Mariachis, almost a Spanish temperament within those stars, --a screen peppered to black, pebbles as pinholes bright in the night air. Winged bats, moist velvet foot-pads that spring from ink spots onto an El Greco canvas where Garcia Lorca's green, Andalusian hills find the wind a gypsy bandit sage, red flower of the cacti, ballad to rakish cloud. A ship shamelessly at sea-- the scorpion cloth of open wounds, dark implants, sturdy oak constellations, English yew spouts tremulous shafts across weather-burnt sky. A dock in a prison of rose-petal harbour. Piers along deep, inner space. Our planet, rockface. Sheer plummet. Accordion of white light. Up green ache of mountain the muffled sound Goya's Colossus, the head of the giant voyaging thru embroidery and stellar, black space; tombstone lock on a pulsating world.
[49]
How desert islands in a cartoonist's imagination invariably are flat, palm-studded peopled by a solitary, abject yet humorous man. In real time, no delight; such islets are razor hot, rock sharp treeless, barren slabs ... examples of art shirking, but not shrinking life. Three days growth of beard, bottle with note on the incoming tide comic survivor swimming up (tramp steamer in the distance), shirts waved in unison predictable disappointment et al, glum hands to face then the inevitable credulity splitting retort amid plaything for the crabs.
[50]
When I was very young onto school, a slick of water curled under a behemoth, silver poplar tree ... there, white underbacks of leaves waved in showy pride the dead underbellies of bass ... as tall boys, big with rakish, probing, anthracite eyes, stooped in the creek their red, exposed flesh colour of school brick.
[51]
We built bottlecaps off ship's sides (soft, cedar bough), Viking masts shining thru imagined Norse seas. Sporting logs, (sweet, cedar-wood shavings) piercing beer hats/silver foil, grey wraps & burlap, Atlantic capes, our twin peaks soared. New Found Land (a child's faery shrimp logistics aide-de-camp simplistics) marvelled tale of warm, butter moon with outpourings around penknife's blade. To tame Sutton Hoo, (I am very close to myself tonight) bronze copper, cruising wintery water, Anse aux Meadows, occasional dirt shack skraelings, jagged blade & arrow backward into time for Helluland, yet marooned in the Land God gave Cain.
[52]
My mind a buzz saw, wood chips in decapitated thought soil chilblained hands II Cleansing wood, the keen smell of sawdust --good, raw earth drenching the nostril, clean odour of nature like my brain, a broomstick sweeping the coffee pot speaking ... bubbles massed in steam inchoate in their pensive rivulets.
[53]
Baggage. Banal brigands, turn-coats, stiletto to dirk appraise warm flesh upraised over a pie-shaped sky, bread crust moon. On oyster rock, with grinning, red hibiscus, jute and henequin smother the lavender caress of stars.
[54]
Taken as metaphor ... Ophelia's funeral oration, derogatory snout of the Morning Glory breathing pollened fire overladen steps of the church. II Limestone rock caulking in grey limpid cracks ... doublet and hose then gold doubloons down sunlit honey where a smear of red lichen onto brown-yellow moss colonizes rock. III Poor Ophelia, dicing for a sedentary-free Hamlet, duty-free of fissures + frost. IV Elusiveness, water rushing over stone torrent of words (Ophelia receiving these), red hand of the berry swollen shut, prisoner in the dock bird of quarry, pit & gunny sack. V Night plummets to quarry, sky to earth in brazen glory. Magic of the palm spans an upturned hand ... "To each his own nothing's known."
[55]
He was Popeye the Sailor Man --at least in Picture book and poem the mind falling from a drooping ledge, thrust of twilight though working up to the bargaining edge of words ... Then, synchronicity and cuteness aside, the all too old pretending became the gaping edge of Popeye's spinach can, a soul lost not to Sweet Pea or Olive Oil, but barnacle and rip-tides of a brain slipping its moorings free.
[57]
Had I been a gambling man, eschewing the "shoe" of chemin de fer ... perpetually perched upon that throne ... effete kingdom of the dice. II I am that gambling man ... taking free access to many a natural habitat, lure of the open road, contents under a bottle cap, the riverine delicacies of female flesh. Svelte, like the croupier's green vision of cloth, tingley-trigger smooth yet addictive to the touch. III Or the pleasures of Ovaltine (not necessarily the brand name) ... by the handful or cup ... upon a summer's day, the mind blur of expensive art. IV Blackjack. Three card stud. The poker-faced look of many opponents peeling cards from the bottom of the deck, some ear-marked for success with time-honoured stratagems (& doctored hands) that leave me reeling (or is it nursing) patent-made regrets. V Something primeval about wanting to trade up your fortune at the expense of the House. Ambuscades. Indecision. VI Games of chance the apt metaphor of our daily roulettes.
[58]
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. lii A kerchief folded on a fence a man wearing an overcoat living there in white satin swooning to the pianist's expert touch down magic chambers soothing, soothing there to fold and tear the pileated moonlit edge of her skin.
[60]
The pig's head omelette-- something akin to a tatoo buried squarely on the upper torso of the man wielding an axe, chopping wood. Shoulders drooped, the bizarre rendition had a female counterpart --a snake, fitted like a fish-net stocking coating the upper leg of the dancer writhing to music, so soporific, near the copper shield of the table, ever-molten ash, air-borne with the foetid smear & puff of cigarette smoke.
[62]
Imagining the smoke burnt imprint of a tatoo with tapers flickering, the bejewelled gaze a dragon's snout must bring or the serpent coil, crimson flame curl of dashing cobra, its very fangs drawing lifeblood from the fleshy perch in smooth, red scarifications. On the pectorals of a sailor. Perhaps whiplash of the granite waves, grim trucker with a "Mother" grasping chains that see burly sandbags in place-- hirsute biker, cords of hair lashing his tattooed lady the lavender caress of scar with implant that of the chopper itself, her fleshy buttocks careening off the road.
[63]
Old Sawbones, pale as a sheet, white sand, whispering edge of the sea. II The mind tarries not one place long, (longitudinal wanderings off a map). Is shiftless, both a shirker (and army deserter) devours like larvae, a bullet ledge for leaves. III I saw in a rusty tankard a gallon drum (ghostly galleon at that), a tin can floating for all the world shores of its alkaline prison, pirating salinity with anchoring sounds, brackish bench-pressed sound of waves wedged between far-off distant gulls and mezzanine, dimly-lit funeral parlour of the sun.
[64]
There were a series of three animals --wise men I propose-- interchangeably looking (throwing off their guises' as non-sentient brutes), scrounging the grass (eyes foddering me) chewing on looks, cud-like, -one a black goat shorn of his devil look and a burro, mood entranced, in armour of mangey velvet. II Swinging bells, making me believe the twilight caper that morning lay more in reindeer's breath than any solidarity with oat or hoove. III A strange lot, they'd ramrod their gaze with blare of lightning, peering into some primordial instinct one normally tucks onto a sleeve or cranny when thunder strikes. IV Pelting rain, the white mare, streaked more like a camel with her own dung and manure, (shadings differ) the sun a tingling dew refreshing cantaloupes; the sparkle of their walk investigating me in solid cacophony of faith. V A form of worship, to be exact, the Christ-child in a manger we four in shared trance a growing sluggishness to their fear building by prospect of food and inter-species bond.
[65]
One of the cows was Belladonna, another Nightshade still a third, Witch's Butter-- the farmer in question responded with an eel in tow that resembled a hoe & a Raggedy-Ann calf with an elixir for a tail & a spendthrift tongue spreading its way thru the emptied grass.
[67]
And he told them "the universe is a ripe apple in heavenly consummation with Newtonian physics". Comparisons grew rife with planets in the cosmos measured against all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the world. Sobering stuff, this astronomical speculation. Each sun a star fathering an impressive roster, its "family" in the earthy scheme of things. So one kid spat on his shoe and asked if a gob, hypothetically speaking of course, could be likened to a solitary ocean.
[68]
With leaves twitching the autumn air and the burnt almond breath of landscape heaving relief, the afternoon heavy-footedly walks across evening's threshold. II A garment is held high as adrenalin in the marble glow of wintery air. Mud puddles reflect the faery shrimp of clouds while cone-shaped coniferous trees perch on lawns like starlings. III High above to skating and sugar-icing rinks in misty hues, a ginger-bread man manoeuvres past the ghost tails of a dead luna moth.
[69]
Who administers to my needs? Is it the dandelion, so ant-encrusted, that yellow pollen dangles from a shiny abdomen suggestive of some actor's smeared and garish make-up? Or the cicada's song, difficult to describe, laundering thick summer heat? Perhaps, then, the Red Admiral butterfly especially active at the close of day and drawn to wooden lawn-furniture or the exposed human limb? If none of these breathes vigour or tonic through my nostrils, what of tubs of fresh water? Take pea-pods for crude, rudimentary boats and children as make-shift sailors, then they both shall spy the secrets of seas. Bold harbours will be their cues, astrolabes their hatchets in which to chart many a perilous adventure. A volume of Tom Swift and his Motorboat tames the haggard breast, soothes the savage beast. A trip to the fruit-cellar beaded with moisture and clammy with imaginary threat, chastens the cobweb from the dusty ledge and sees a privet-hedge hawk-moth trapped against the window-pane (a dark spot pressed much like a pirate's patch against both time & space). If meandering and nearing journey's end, think twice. Better red than dead. Brooding MacIntosh apples stain a slippery floor but the door to the orchard is always ajar. By night, an "I And The Village" Chagall painting draws a lad (and landscape) to stare and stare. Thickets of wild-grape, strawberry tendrils, two hares boxing in the meadow, a Winterspoon Whip-Poor-Will towering above groves of walnut, lilac. Night air is fragrant (and lush) through a peep-hole and gate-way to the stars. Barns with ricks contain pitchforks like a mis-shapen mask protruding ever so faintly sinister in silhouette through a visionary sky. Remnants of ferret skin, lie interrupted, upon entering the chicken-coop. The soldier drinks, his tea and egg-cup abandoned. I don't have to go anywhere. Dark and moody, there is an arsenal of thought with stout marshal batons in my knapsack. The power to be led (and lead) stiff memory in rum kegs and wine casks. The brooding entrance to another world, if not in the palm of my hand, then very nearly a shout and stone's throw away.
[70]
These shell-queens, too, are blithely catpaws, shorn & musky acorns with indexed fingers erect at manicured attention. II ... Showboats with green faces far as swallows fly, a lilac in oasis ... scarlet bream ... blue ointment where the ocean is periwinkle patches, a robin's egg clarity pressed between blue-nosed tavern wall & bottles clinking. III See plush cords, the suede interior svelte & slinky an upholstery simonized with natural springs where bubbles encounter founts in apertures, the rich measure of open ground or mezzanine curtain slit along a riverine walk & jungle clearing. IV Twilight. Golden tulip. Golden olive, "Fool's Gold", a lithesome snake-girl gyrates her dragon-flared, limb-length tattoo with red-eye dots itching in emerald waiting; footpaths overhanging serpentine curves or laser beam dancer legs, paddle white, under angel tint of stage-light. V The cut off jeans compete with campfire glow ... slipping a musket-width, nostril breadth around turbans, bonnets, bubbles. Murex. VI ... Elegant white ibises and egrets stand like sentinels; herons flying in their wide wings braking and their long legs dragging ... and the snaky-necked anhingas flapping and sailing into spread their big wings to dry in the sun.
"Nature abhors a vacuum", theorists of both philosophy and
politics assure us.
What's more, the phenomena is not confined to mere
physical science given the nature of human opportunism.
Glance a map of central Europe for further insights. One
side always replaced the other when a "common," enemy
expired.
Boca might well have studied such eventualities.
Boca was a writer. More accurately, a "touch-dancer" with
the written phrase, deftly painting the catchy one-liner with
effortless ease and grace. Boca knew his craft, be it the
arena of story, poem, drama, (it didn't matter the genre).
Unfortunately, his oeuvre remained fixed and static. Boca
never progressed beyond titles.
"A right, jolly good thing, too", said Boca in his own
defense.
The short burst counted most, whether in thought, sport or
field of battle. The utterance of a single breath. That was
it! It all lay in the aside, the pun, a retort, the récit. If this
were all to the story, there would be no doubt whatsoever;
Boca excelled.
"In the briefest expression, perhaps", said the critics. But,
as they were quick to point out, it didn't lead "anywhere".
"Where is the larger, more important fruit? His finished
verbal passion?", intoned one.
Still, this chance fortune led to the inspiration (and success)
of unusually vivid titles.
But ... titles? Just "titles", said others nervously? Yes,
proclaimed Boca. Titles. Not epithets, or rejoinders,
cat-calls even repartee.
Not even wit in the normal understanding of the term. Just
mere titles. Bushel-baskets of them. Worried looks crept
onto the onlookers' faces.
Encyclopaedic came the flowering. Ad factories should
have tapped such a larder. Any creative department could
have done worse than with Boca's dripping imagery and gift
for the keynote phrase.
"There is majesty here", said one, "and more than a little
Blake. I am reminded of the great symbolists."
"One has to be practical", cautioned still another. "What's
here is hardly epigrammatic or even purely an aphorism in
any truer sense of the word."
"I'm simply perplexed", said the man finally to his
colleague and both left without further ado or thought to
Boca's work.
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 perturbed, this same man hurried away
to the utter indifference of Boca who kept a steady
pounding in spite of the interruption.
On they came. More and more titles. By the hundreds--
for scripts, larger dramas, treatises, epistles, monologues.
All. And all without a scarce concern for their ultimate use.
Are we to believe each one came to naught as the sceptics
predicted? After all, in this practical world who has use for
dreamers? We already know Boca was stymied at the title
level. Nothing ever graced his newborn creation beyond
that first utterance. It was like sending a baby into the
world without proper bedding or clothes.
One nastier commentator even alluded to Boca's work as
the equivalent of premature ejaculation. All buildup with
no satisfaction. "The promise", he chuckled, "without the
delivery".
And that is what came to pass.
Each of Boca's titles, true to prediction, came to "naught"
or, rather, nothing much. Blank. A zero. With each "title"
one ran aground on the larger abyss of its central problem.
That being, as Boca had been warned by his legion of
critics, "one of size".
What good are titles without textual description, chapters,
scenes, the "overview?" said one literary agent gruffly.
Boca, taking a respite from his typewriter, had had the
temerity to approach one such man in the comfort of his
office with reams of suggestions.
Indeed.
People shook their heads at Boca always scribbling
furiously. Always working but apparently accomplishing
precious next to nothing. "Something" was evidently being
done in the strictest sense of the word, but what? What?
"Could his ... well, problem be explained?" one vocal
opponent of Boca urged.
"What the hell is he up to?"
Strangely enough, for the seemingly longest time this did
not deter Boca. He was his own universe. His feet were
on solid ground. The air about him teemed with ideas. He
was too busy fishing for the "mot juste", he explained in
a moment of clarification.
"One man in the right is a majority", proclaimed Boca,
remembering a snippet of John Stuart Mill.
Too busy was Boca replanning the structure of the
Colosseum so it might better accommodate his label, his
notion, his re-christened version of the ideal verbal escort
to accompany that ancient edifice.
And write Boca did. Titles fell increasingly from his pen.
"The Barking Tree."
"The Leaking River."
These were but two. Boca thought he would improve on
Tolkein's efforts, at least in the direction of title. After all,
to send a work into the reader's lap without proper
introduction was like trying to get acquainted without the
proper introduction.
Maybe Boca had a point.
"Assembly without Hope" and "Nirvana without End"
touched on his mystical stage. He dropped this and
proceeded into the area of historiography. And afterwards,
dry epistemology would see him concentrate his efforts.
These forums were indeed worthy of his attention. Too
long had they been neglected. All were in need of good,
metaphoric dusting by title.
At last word, Boca was inching toward Kant's, "Critique of
Pure Reason".
"That one, in particular, has a poor ring", he was heard to
say.
On they came. Precise. Hard-hitting, or so he thought.
They made the mind's eye swell with the promise of more
and more. Indeed, that "eye" could get bloodshot reading
all of Boca's interception.
But the "more" in the sense of the follow-up, the "delivery"
or accompaniment of pages never came.
Nowhere was there to be found the Hemingway to follow
the "Moveable Feast".
Or "The Edible Woman".
Even the promise of thrillers for a scary submarine epic like
"Three Eggs on my Plate" never materialized.
Nothing. Just titles. More, then more and increasingly
more of them. Annoyingly so. Scraps of paper decorating
a table without an intended victim ever coming close.
It was as if so many salesgirls had left price tags off
matching merchandise. That's all that remained. Just the
stickers forlornly, white and detached, staring up from their
adhesiveness.
More than just a little tacky.
A woman given to comparison confronted Boca.
"Imagine a zoo where the curators had all the animal
names, but they were not paired with their owners. That's
your stuff. Everything in a weird isolation."
Boca could not be Borca and not even Carl Sagan could
rescue him. No large bottles floating in formaldehyde with
the decapitated heads from Belle Epoque sailors were
possible here.
Boca was more obscure than Gaspirilla Island. More so.
And a final verdict, if there is need for one, can be seen in
Boca's last will and testimony.
He let it be known of his intention to chisel the "ultimate"
one-liner. One to grace his own tombstone. On this he set
to work with a last burst of frenzy.
"To mirror my tragic-comic fate", as he would have said.
Perhaps Boca is still at work, either on the snappy final
wording ("the right elasticity") or in the mechanics of the
engraving itself.
Only a stone-cutter could estimate the probable expenditure
in time for the latter.
Novelists in dire need of fresh insights should enlist Boca.
He's definitely available, if difficult to reach.
Boca might have rescued many a masterpiece from the
dustbin, if not the Box Office, had his specialty been
known.
I look at Boca and hear fire bells. His plight remains the
very stuff of tragedy. By epic standards, how many Bocas
are there worthy of a balladeer and myth maker? Credible
Boca may be, but understandable?
Boca, the metaphoric equivalent of a Sisyphus chained to
his rock of obsession.
"This horrible rock", (or pebble depending on your
viewpoint), wailed Boca.
"I've become my own obstacle, my work is the
personification of my own limitation."
Worse, imprisoned in an inescapable logic and the narrow
confines of a blink of talent.
[76]
Two Chinese fellows approached me in a London suburb. They were eager for talk. "Karl Marx's tomb," they implored, "directions to the tomb, please." They were pronouncing "tomb" as if it rhymed with home. Suited up in their Mao jackets and identically dressed without hint to rank or station, they struck me as strangely odd even on the thoroughfares of a metropolitan city. I had noticed they wore no green armband common to other Communist dignitaries. The smaller of the two became insistent. I nodded and smiled at the mention of Marx's name for it was Highgate and, yes, he was interred in the rambling cemetery near by. Yes, I had visited the grave but was no means clear it was a grave they had come all this way to visit. They were shy but puzzled at my redirection of their query. I pointed out there was no "home" as they were pronouncing it, but, only a "grave". It was then that their enunciation and the silent murder of the letter "T" came back to me. Like the Cockney unable to say "h" in elocution class, their confusion was furthered by knowing only one word for "final resting place." My own use of grave was causing them grave concern. They were looking curiously at one another. I doubt if they had ever heard North American accented English. I might have been their first authentic "American," short of a simulated war games exercise. Certainly, though all cities are polyglots, I had never seen two so authentically attired citizens of "The People's Republic." It was an amusing moment, life with the sang-froid of the unspoken. I gave them their dues. They had their directions. They pranced off smartly and melted into the morning traffic. And I thought of trying to explain that Marx, at least in unofficial circles here, is not considered with their same deference. "I'm sorry if this jars with what you've been told, Wu." "And no, this is not counter-revolutionary lies. The truth is, Mr. Han, Marx was ... a chiseler. He died owing nearly every wage earner in The Village." Talk of irony and final verdicts. How one who numbers among the age's savants could so brazenly ignore such hard economic fact seemed incredible to me. Skulduggery aside, such a thing, even if only partially true, would be scant tribute to the fabled man. I thought of the British Museum's collection of his writings, then remembered it mentioned nothing of this fact. Glowing tributes, of course, but no unofficial flack. And I thought of the possibility of a third world war being, in part, based on this development. Marx's embitterment, that is his inability to pay even the most modest debt through his writing. And should there ever come another global catastrophe, I imagined how Marx would extend his wrath. At the doctrine of dialectic materialism's doorstep. Between the incompatibility of work and her governing classes. Exportable revolution. The decadent bourgeoisie struggling to maintain their stranglehold on comfort. The Gospel completely according to Karl. That would be without considering the question of Marx's alleged incest with his daughter. But, then, most everything in the Marx story is "alleged." The alleged politics of confrontation. The alleged incompatibility of those who toil with their rulers. The alleged inertia of labourers even to the degree of their exploitation. And, yes, the alleged superiority of any one system over another. Of course reference would be made to the irony of Marx being buried and remaining interred throughout the years in one of the most class conscious nations on earth. Where every accent and syllable decrees one's station in life. Where every utterance labels the speaker according to rank and social standing by rigid calling. I thought of myself discussing such things with the perturbed, yet unmovable ideologues of the People's Democratic Republic of China. Did they know Marx's friend and colleague, Engels, kept a mistress? Did they care that Marx disapproved? Imagine using the word "grave" in the same breath as "grave offence" to discuss incest. Glib moralizing, the trumpet of the bourgeoisie! I seem to remember Lenin's disdainful "no omelettes with first cracking the eggs." Perhaps all communication is claptrap. All these fellows wanted were directions. Their minds were made up. They were attending a secular church, walking in the footsteps of an earthbound saint. No amount of revisionist thinking could deflect, in their eyes, Marxian achievement. And you had to give Marx certain dues. That before people are capable of aspiring to work, they must first be fed. And all contacts, within life, must inevitably come through and be restricted by, how one has chosen to make that daily bread. Or, in Marx's words, how one is prevented from advancing by artificial class barriers. Precisely. Poles apart. Worlds away. The two Chinese chaps and I were living proof of that. I wondered if they would have been interested in seeing the Dicken's plaque nearby. The novelist, too, had stayed only a street away. Little Dorritt would have been pleased even if the jury is still out on which thinker alerted the world most to the evils of uncontrolled profit. I for one, care little for the revolutionary proletariat or repudiated communist dogma but I do like to eat. Marx made his point.
[84]
I dreamed my toenails
were ivory
and elephants came to trade for tusks
... Then went conveniently off to die
("shed this mortal coil") in a
cutter-shed stacked high
like firewood.
II
I dreamed Landover, Maryland
was the site near the
Pentagon. People got wind of
the scheme and grew intrigued.
Twigs shattered in the moonlight
as curious onlookers tried
to peek-a-boo into the shed.
III
Raisins were left out
to dry as
token offerings.
IV
Mafioso members and other hardcases
wanted to elbow in
but stiff military types
eminently incorruptible, said
"no dice" made, naturally,
of ivory turned a
deadly nightshade of
twilight toenail blue.
V
Umber became my colour
(and trademark) along with the mandatory ebony.
VI
Out-of-work seasonal elves,
dwarfs and the occasional
circus midget shoe-horned in.
VII
Nothing remained of the earlier raisins as
a variety of greedy misfits
pocketed the tributes.
VIII
The North Pole beckoned,
heightened consciousness and
sensitivity groups against
demeaning and negative stereotypes
routed the Barnum and Baileys'
dwarfs and midgets.
IX
A pile of cinders and
grey-glow embers
paused to remain
after boycotting
exposed the great
toe-nail giveaway sham.
X
Reportedly, the Devil has a toe-nail
chair in Hell.
This common, medieval belief
lingers into macumba, voodoo and
loa-spirit trees.
XI
Who wants,
after all,
discarded body parts
brought to such an ignoble
end? The intriguing thing
is in the witchery, smoke 'n mirrors
world of Obeah, toenails are
prized much like the greying
Information Age values
organ transplants for an
aging population.
XII
Medieval really.
Nothing the body profuses
is really evil,
only our intent.
XIII
Should a fly symbolizing
havoc, despair and filth
fall into Holy Water,
the detested fly not
does pollute the sacred vessel.
XIV
Modern fitness buffs full-circle
with gleaming sweat-stained temples
"glistening" with, what else,
moisture.
[88]
... Unrestrained, imaginative writing. 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. THE TORONTO STAR ... The poetry is fine ... rewarding reading ... 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 où Paul Cameron Brown envoute par les mots et les images. DIPLOMATIC OBSERVER Third eye ISBN 0-919581-80-3 The End