Fabrice B. Poussin

Where Have all the Fishes Gone?

Sitting atop the cliff overlooking
the ocean vast
we hold one another
in awe of its innumerable mysteries.

The sun sets calmly for us
rises with deft determination
on the other side
of a blue horizon.

Not a sound
emerges from the deep waters
clean of all lives that once were
ancestors some say to our kin.

Where have they all gone
why extinct so soon into fossils
imprints per chance left in the stone
that tell of so distant an evolution.


Welcome to the World of Nice

The world nearly came to an absolute stop when
the wizard suddenly halted his incantations
the fires he had set ablaze reflecting upon his pale brow.

For centuries he had roamed the planet
a weathered wand in his mummified grip
his face oozing with the harm he could cause.

Another in a glorious evening grace
ambled like royalty among the populace
sizing each one of her kin as a victim.

Tall above armies of humble servants
she made them dependent of every whim
she might have dreamed up in her solitary chambers.

She too paused when the child cried
for this Amazon who had never known pain
her frame near collapse she let go of her aim.

The thousands assembled for what they expected
was to be yet a list of grievances and threats
looked in amazement at these meek creatures.

Never had a soul caught a glimpse of pain
in the eyes of those unforgiving executioners
until the tear of a child fell upon their feet.

The giants stepped down from the pedestal
greeted by embraces never imagined of those
who still bore the scars of their millennial tortures.

While the poor wake in a pool of chagrin
no one knew the few in satin and pearl
could weep and fall to the yoke of a babe.


Suffering to Rest

She can tell the throb will persist
Into a night of pleasant slumber
feeling a tug at her secret fibers.

Contemplating the past hours
when glee echoed through the halls
attempts to calm still fail.

Into a slanted mirror an image
seeks to smile at this solemn reflection
subdued by the numbing liquid of her pain.

Docile as with every passing dawn
something has changed in the blood
shed again upon the dusk of a precious hour.

Soon again she will share her pleasure
when the day’s memories turn to dust
and her flesh finds rest in the thin night.

Hard to Be 

Merely standing hands upon the wooden rails
staring into a background of dense forest
he might find rest on a Sunday’s morn’ when

his thoughts quickly move to the millions
like him who contemplate the world
considering how little they can see he holds 

a cup of a dark brew in hand, early smoke in the other
his desperation grows as he longs
for the visions others cannot share and

he imagines so many there with him
gazing into the same surroundings 
their perception so different from his he

considers the one who inspires him 
if only he could be within her as she takes all in
become an intimate part of who she is for

he feels so much missing from his being
lost smaller than a speck of minute dust
while an infinity of interpretations exists yet

only this microcosm of the infinite belongs to him
so insignificant as he must remain until at last
he might be freed from this temporary prison and

become like all those before him
a piece of the universal puzzle
the matter of all that is the cosmos. 


Feeling the sounds.

Upon a saunter as is his common dominion
he pushes through the brush of a dense forest
after the storm left its gentle coat
on every living thing like a shroud of life.

Nothing speaks, everything rests yet
awaiting reassurance that it is safe again to be
and he continues, puzzled by the uncanny silence
looking for a sign that all is well still.

And there it is, a murmur brushes against his flesh
an eerie sensation of sound, of sight
of scent, touch and even taste
from whence it is born he cannot tell.

It must be her at last in the late hour
since darkness will soon prevail
and she always visits him in his sleep
when his dreams become real as the present.

She surrounds him with an infinite coat
made with all a soul can endure
he hears the voice of her wholeness speak
without a word, but it is to be eternal. 

 
 

 
 
Fabrice B. Poussin teaches French and English at Shorter University. Author of novels and poetry, his work has appeared in Kestrel, Symposium, The Chimes, and many other magazines. His photography has been published in The Front Porch Review, the San Pedro River Review as well as other publications. Most recently, his collection “In Absentia,” was published in August 2021 with Silver Bow Publishing.
 
 
 

(i.)
 
Trying to Exist
 
There was once a little universe
crowded with abandoned worlds
dimming planets and wandering sparks.
 
In the midst of this quiet chaos
particles swirled aimless in a dark substance
chasing lives dreamed up in an unknow realm.
 
Seeking a likeness in the mysterious substance
two would slow, pulled by an eternal force
that brought them close as to begin life.
 
Devoid of human features
they may have been giants or midgets
yet older than this odd mixture of all origins.
 
Their presence could be sensed
as if two lovers holding in a tight embrace
in the intimacy of their wedding dress.
 
 
(ii.)
 
Scarred faces
 
Faces float, menacing nearby;
they grin, they scream, they decay.
 
Loves, and friendships melted away,
only to return in Halloween masks.
 
Their appeal worn away, faded,
overtaken by the inner ugliness of souls.
 
Roses wilted, gentleness turned to ash,
of features stolen from forgotten corpses.
 
Little remains of those gleeful memories,
while a cruel stench hovers, relentless.
 
The joy twists in an agonizing query;
there is no return after death’s frigid kiss.
 
 
(iii.)
 
Smell of younger days
 
Flavor of absent memories
into one snapshot of forgone years
scent of mysterious objects
unattached.
 
Listening to the forest singing
brushes paint images of broad strokes
alive with energies of millennia
in unison.
 
His eyes closed onto a landscape
only he, can distinguish
overwhelmed by a past never really
forgotten.
 
Sensations are many beyond the self
merging within to another birth
where he can rest a weary soul
a little while longer.
 
 

 
 
Fabrice B. Poussin is the advisor for The Chimes, the Shorter University award winning poetry and arts publication. His writing and photography have been published in print in the United States and abroad. He teaches French and English at Shorter University. Author of novels and poetry, his work has appeared in Kestrel, Symposium, The Chimes, La Pensee Universelle, Paris, and other art and literature magazines, where he has also featured here at Poetry Life and Times & Artvilla.com. His photography has been published in The Front Porch Review, the San Pedro River Review as well as other publications.
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author & https://poetrylifeandtimes.com See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

 
The veil is thin perhaps unreal, somewhat untrue,
distance it is, in faint tone, he faces the apparition,
a step and she is not nearer, a step and she seems… gone…
He may despair as a hand reaches out aimlessly.
 
Into the lightness of the night, tending the darkness of a morn’,
undefined as others, she sings of assured forms;
he can not know for certain in the ruins of the fortress,
ghost of the lady of middle times or mistress of his soul.
 
She may sit on a cornerstone, birther of life eternal,
disappear into the dungeon wall, or hold in her hand
the statue of a powerful lord almighty, in her feebleness
yet she desires, she wants, she yearns for a life hers.
 
Take courage young squire, the mist is traitorous,
when fearing the treasure that lies beyond the image,
she is, she exists for the one who braves, unknown,
reward awesome, you will live in paradise.
 
Misty, undefined, unreal to the outsider,
yet she is, no doubt, remains of her existence;
have faith, believe, as you walk toward the apparition,
the embrace tightens; she will crush your heart into hers so.
 
 

 
 
Fabrice B. Poussin is advisor for The Chimes, the Shorter University award winning poetry and arts publication. His writing and photography have been published in print, including Kestrel, Symposium, La Pensee Universelle, Paris, and other art and literature magazines in the United States and abroad. He teaches French and English at Shorter University. Author of novels and poetry, his work has appeared in many other magazines. His photography has been published in The Front Porch Review, the San Pedro River Review as well as other publications.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times ; his publications include
 
All the Babble of the Souk , Cartoon Molecules and Next Arrivals, collected poems, as well as translation of Guadalupe Grande´s La llave de niebla, as Key of Mist and the recently published Tesserae , a translation of Carmen Crespo´s Teselas.
 
You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

Mystery is grand in the old barn,
seeking your way through lost treasures,
misplaced identities of days long gone.

A forgotten window remains hidden
below corrugated panes, half rotten boards,
between darkness and obscurity.

Eyes to the two sides of a complete tale.
in slumber of deep decades under the dust
of lives only it keeps in its memories.

The mirror of two souls in a-temporal gaze
speaks only to the accomplice of the one
who once sealed its fate in an unlikely safe.

Time capsule in paragraphs of broken dreams,
in cobb webs, as in a shady shroud,
its fractures will never heal, signatures of the past.

I carry the remains to light, as if to resuscitate a pal,
another self in the stories frozen, immobile,
and to chance upon images of those now lost.

Fabrice B. Poussin

Fabrice Poussin teaches French and English at Shorter University. Author of novels and poetry,
his work has appeared in Kestrel, Symposium, The Chimes, and dozens of other magazines. His photography
has been published in The Front Porch Review, the San Pedro River Review as well as other publications.

Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times his publications include All the Babble of the Souk and Cartoon Molecules collected poems and Key of Mist the recently published Tesserae translations from Spanish poets Guadalupe Grande and Carmen Crespo visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)