Poetry: Fabrice B. Poussin

Another eternity

If I were to live another eternity my love

how many times I would lay beside you

caress your hair, whisper dreams and

pretend to sleep as you dream of us.

To see mountains arise as you sigh

holding your waist within my breath

I can only imagine your thoughts

behind your beloved blues.

I may lose count of the days

touch your heart in ways 

I never thought a soul could

my dear, my self, my same.

I will be here with you for all time

watching stars being born of pure energy

dying in the blink of an eye 

through infinite dimensions.

If I were to live another eternity

I can only imagine you in common essence

your broad spiritual smile hovering 

as God has from time immemorial.

***

If I had no phone

If I had no phone, handheld treasure of so many

falsehoods, what would I do with my days?

Perhaps I would dream of something to watch

on the flat screen not yet invented. 

Or bury my fancies in the last recoding

of Beethoven’s ninth on the far distant CD. 

I might take a stroll to the opera house and

partake in the experience of the latest symphony. 

Perhaps I would take the beloved to enjoy

the comedy stage at the century-old theater. 

I can only consider the endless afternoon

in the art houses abandoned in the inner cities

But who minds anymore that we know a neighbor 

as he dies tethered to a plethora of life monitors. 

So many friends alive in their private dungeons

perish without having truly been. 

silenced 

***

 

Knocking at my door

When you come knocking at my door

I may not always be there

when you come knocking at my life

I may have stepped out for a moment.

When you reach palm up for a gift

as you merely seek to help me

when you change your pose in the light

forgive my ignorance of your language.

If you attempt a peer into my soul

as I look away without a hint

if you take another step closer to my shadow

forgive me if I feel the invader of your world.

The day you open your gates wide

you might see me bowing before you

for the scars of decades do not vanish so fast

and I will remain in disbelief of my fortune.

Please come back and knock again upon this door

too solid made to survive many battles

for the warrior inside is weary and longs

to tear down the fortress he never meant to erect there. 

***

 

Law breakers

Bearded as the first Vikings on these shores

running rushing boats into the ground

they seem focused on a purpose only they

can fathom somewhere in obscure distances.

No rule may stand in their way

since after all no one exists but them

as they break every law of the road

laughing with ferocious yellow teeth at the children.

Love killers they spit a gooey tar into a cup of styrofoam

as artificial as the so-called heart, hidden

in a cage of rusty steel and putrescent flesh

they hate everyone in a sea of self-loathing.

Carrying the weight of decade-long indulgences

they appear as if ducks on land

proud of the greasy stains upon dead skin

a 38 balancing uncomfortably around vanishing waists.

Children once they played at smiling

gorging themselves in their kin’s hate

for everything not entitled to their miserable greed

please with the monstrous ugliness in the glass.

Law breakers they wait, hyenas in the brush

near city avenues and crowded highways

to pounce and destroy the joy of the meek

so they may reign over a realm of the collapsed gentle.

***

 

When the Wrinkles Fade

Age is a funny thing

when you live together for a hundred years.

He looks to the outside

and sees marks of the years on their faces.

Recalling the decades

he still owns visions of what the world seemed.

It appears easy when you are eighteen

to picture elders as if they were dust already.

Things change if time does not really fly

trees die, glaciers melt, and mountains too erode.

The universe bears the signs of time in its own way

black holes, supernovas, and newborn worlds.

Sauntering at the pace of a young lad

he laughs at those who would rather sleep.

She follows him in the trace of many a day

ignored by those who look to another century to come. 

Loving as he was five decades before he knew her

all he can see is the beautiful girl of eighteen again and ever. 

***

Bio: Poussin is a professor of French and World Literature. 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, Half Past Lifewere published in 2021, 2022, and 2023 by Silver Bow Publishing.

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Setu, March 2024