Fabrice Poussin

Desserts des Fêtes

 

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How many times…

 

By the altar they shed a tear

wondering how many times they must

throw their knees to the stone

as their hungry eyes cry to the storm. 

 

Voices would delight in another scream

speaking words a hundred times rehearsed 

beneath the sweet colors of millennial

stained glass made for the dreams of the meek. 

 

Recalling verses of childhood’s grand prayers 

those pleading orbs raise to infinity

and ask why it must be so that they 

return to the empty palace alone. 

 

Their thoughts drift to other queries

as dreamy humanoid shapes waltz nearby

oblivious to the soft whispers of the souls

abandoned in a desert land of no one’s making. 

 

How many times must they hope for just a moment 

for the smile of a might be stranger

a should be lover lost in a painful kingdom

safe in the realm of absolute loneliness.

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I will miss this place.

Every moment vanishes into infinite memories

particles of glee scattered across the galaxies

a handful of minute grains of sand

to continue their eternal journey.

 

I gathered images like visions of colors

waiting for the storm to wrap its arms around me

so many little souls dancing to the ether

safe above the arid draught of the great Sahara

 

Will I be able to share these passions

with the departed in their calm repose

what will remain of the great sorrows

the overwhelming experience of earthly decades?

 

I hold your hand now through an imagined saunter

there is so little we could desire now

filled with the immense gift of these forests

until we vanish so suddenly into the bright path.

 

What will remain of these solitary communions

temporary spikes in an otherwise uneventful century?

with each step infinities are perturbed by my gentle presence

will they long recall the imprints of these dreams?

 

Immortal dandies

 

It is 1920 in the city of dimming lights

fog has settled over a river thick with dark minds

slowing time to keep the little men safe

in the suits of old wealth, a cigarette burning

the fake delicateness between the stained digits.

 

A century has expired in the curb of false delights

the olive skin dandies continue to dream of

selves within the smoky clouds of their pretense

years others have died for a swirl in the air

as they remain frozen in their waxen bodies.

 

They yet have to change the world

grow into meaningful entities

if only they had the courage to exist

but they lie in the comfort of a daze

prefabricated by idle generations.

 

They might be models on the cover of glory

thin as the glossy paper made for fairy tales

hollow behind every word they once imagined

making revolutions by the hearth of a palace

now the laughingstock of the multitudes they once mocked.  

 

Outsider

 

At the appointed time the light shone on

a shadow moved through its daily motions

to a door a window a dark corridor

and the same silence echoed through the alleys.

 

A weary night butterfly passed by the screen

gently brushing against the deep grooves on the face

of the abandoned carcass a ghost living on a gasp

his head bowed at the foot of his universal master.

 

It would be another stretch on the dark horizon

of what he may once have considered a life

a long tunnel to another dawn empty of mysteries

he knows far too well what awaits in the sun.

 

He stumbled yet again and screamed with the agony

common to the one who suffers in silence

his soul searching for an escape in this heavy prison

solid with the walls eternal loneliness has imposed.

 

His eyes flooded in crystalized tears he pleads

tackled within the mangled fibers of weary bones

if only a helping hand would extend her unconditional love

instead forgotten always he dies in the icy embrace of the abyss

 

Student of None

 

Must be nice to know everything 

when one sits across from the scholar

to shake one’s puffy cheeks in disapproval.

 

Why remain in disbelief of the master

persist in spreading darkness over the joy

when you are just a child in knowledge.

 

Did you walk away in pride

believing the sunset was yours

when the door closed behind your hate?

 

They do wonder now that you are 

perhaps in the days of maturity

how you fare with such a narrow mind?

 

Would-be lady of an invisible kingdom

you never ruled though your tried

carrying an image too faint to be noted.

 

They saw your substance melt to the curb

mixing with molasses of decayed dominions

thankful that at last you were shown your true realm.

 

When I hear the Ninth

 

I have taken ten million steps trough a wilderness

in the savage land of a city I know too well

listening to the notes Wolfgang left behind.

 

The playful rascal waltzes in my brain

as I fly through the rugged land of my backyard.

I hear him giggle, impressed by the wit of his own obscenities.

 

He lives near Ludwig, Frederick, and Arthur

surrounded by Salvador, Claude, and Mary 

all rejoicing in the paradise they were gifted. 

 

There too I find a simple father smiling

who never had a moment for the arts 

blossoming in a world his for all time. 

 

I see Amadeus, his wand in hand 

dying of a rapid youth his soul afire

alive in every bar with every stroke. 

 

Heaven in my head dances with infinite minds

Mozart full of joy will never die

as he awards the mayhem of his existence to all.

 

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

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