in parentheses

Fabrice B. Poussin is a professor of English and French. His work in poetry and photography has appeared in Kestrel, Symposium, The Chimes, and hundreds of other publications worldwide. Most recently, his collections “In Absentia,” and “If I Had a Gun,” were published in 2021 and 2022 by Silver Bow Publishing.

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Ice in the blood

The author spoke of a brother
with ice in the blood.

Addicted to temporary death
he often injected with a poison.

I wonder what the icy jolt feels like
when the liquid numbs the veins.

Perhaps a little taste of eternity
as the body faints to the senses.

Why in such a rush I ask the poet
as he slips further into the trance.

Perhaps this frigid feeling is truer
than the decades we spend roaming this world.

Friends in Heaven

Who will your friends be in heaven
you who try to survive in the park
your belongings in a found leather carriage
hoping every day to find the rusty bench
under the oak that remembers antebellum days?

How will you get by with those who cared little
for your antics when you had a little too much
proper as they were during the suit-bearing hours
too eager themselves to walk the old haunts
in mahogany and thirty-year-old bottles?

A girl loved you once, now living with assistance
children visit her from time to time in the sterility
of a realm made for those whose dreams are in the past
little ones follow them in fear of the deep wrinkles
the tubes and orange bottles near a strange green bed.

No one has seen your thoughts in so long behind the hair
uncut for those abandoned decades without aim
and you sit it seems absent behind the glare
the paper bag and a borrowed lunch in Styrofoam
the only treasure you savor in days of nothing.

Soon it will be your time to march onward
to cross that threshold so many times recounted
and you ponder what awaits you there
an old photograph in your hand, of a smiling gang
will they be there for you to feel home again?

In her Words

She reaches through the ether
a thought jigsawed into a gentle puzzle
warm with the delicate dew of spring.

Space carries each beat of her chest
upon those magical words
she passionately crafted.

Her content smile comes to life
upon the wall of his deepest visions
and he too lives with renewed fire.

She might be holding him tight
as he senses the warmth of her breath
when she whispers another rhyme.

Living beyond dimensions of flesh
they embrace in an eternal sharing
the revelation of what moves her in his soul.

Remains

It collapsed, bricks dust timber and slate
to a shapeless form of a life not yet begun.

The azure stubborn still bathes the ruins
in a disrespectful shower of golden blades.

Living roots too attack from all fronts unforgiving
to reconquer a space not quickly enough fertilized.

Fungus of jolly hats brown and spotted whites
welcome the newborns of the butterflies and slimy slugs.

It has fallen to burry in a deep grave the last hope
white, pure, made of heavenly flour and sweet spices
unseen now, still with death cooling to the icy waters
below between the burn of the fiery wounds.

The immoveable seizure of the bluish crystals
the tomb large for a million, may yet be vanquished
when the hand from above brings the celestial clouds
to repel the deadly gazes, create the cozy womb.

The throne under fall tonalities must not remain ghostly
winter may not yet toll the bells of the kind-hearted
for it is too soon, for it must relive to soothe the one
who on the bench awaits to appear upon a single call.

On the desolate amalgam of an ancient dynasty
the Kingdom will be built, the palace secret invincible
as hope rises his name whispered through the fibers
two on the bench of eternity will sit one at last under the tree.

Tasting Time

The waiter came by to grab an order of ice and cream
in tones of soft flashy reds and nuggets of cocoa and nut
he attempted a snippet at the girl buried in the in-folio
in return to receive but a hesitant acknowledgement of his mere life.

Walking the steps of stone and cement gray as the grave
under a boiling sky, she advances against a heavy crowd
seen, she gazes at naught, fearing even the instant of a contact,
the flesh shivers with the dolor of gates left a-gaping before.

In the dark room where the pen barely ceases for slumber
she keeps her eyes to the ink as it flows freely, endlessly
risking a brief distraction to the outside, quickly again
it is in her selfish privacy that she burns with life.

Only the home of solid walls of another time in history
provides the safety for a soul weakened among strangers
there, danger is set aside in unconditional reward
with the kin she made, the nest remains safe in the heights.

Like a flash she vanishes behind the drapes of another land
bars on the windows of her days unbreakable
will she once again unlock the chains of her domain
expose every cell to a slower pace, a taste of the instant!

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