Fabrice Poussin - Issue 35

Poussin’s poetry and photography work has appeared in hundreds of magazines worldwide. His collections In Absentia, If I Had a Gun, Half Past Life, The Temptation of Silence, and Forgive Me for Dreaming, were published in 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025 by Silver Bow Publishing.

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Reading in the Cold

Darkness like never before

a shroud envelopes the saunterer

with layers of artificial warmth.

The trail is long under the trees

life goes on in the shadows

furry friends fight with their winged pals.

Leaves scream beneath the heavy boot

feeble branches die too

as he reads on about another world.

Lighted monsters race by

but he goes on unaware, it appears,

of the war that continues on the asphalt.

He has already mastered great distances

but he has not left home, with

a library in his pocket.

Once it was bright and it was balmy

summer days are long gone

and the frost penetrates the heavy mittens.

No matter, he keeps his eyes on the words

of those who have vanished

forever, ageless learner.

No one sees him in their rush

a stranger to so many lives

he may not matter, still he is.

Alone When She Came

Why would he leave when the world

is gifted with the arrival of a new daughter

his child of endless love?

How could he leave her

between the icy walls of the clinic

to grow his family by herself?

How does a man lose all his love

in the midst of so great a miracle

and walks away in full consciousness?

What makes him a dad when he finds

the convenience of distant fatherhood

a name sealed on a mere parchment?

Does he now think of the event he missed

so far in another bed, merry

in the arms of a traitor?

How sad for the little girl to first cry

in the palms of a woman in distress

abandoned by the cruelty of man.

Souls of All Things

I killed again today and

it may not be my last act of

murder before night falls.

The life left a red streak on a page

Russian literature of horrific abandonment;

it took but an instant to eradicate all purpose.

In this creature in search of a haven,

perhaps; or another meal as it thought

of its kin safely waiting for him at home.

A minute red mass, it crawled around

the letters printed in black on white

alone, and then lost in oblivion

Did it see the thumb crush its hope,

did it fear a premature end without mercy

as it simply went about its day?

What goes on in these tiny minds

that may exist in those of mastodons

as they endure, to merely survive another dawn.

What if they too knew love

dreamed of their next holiday

with their family in a swarm or a flock?

Will humanity one day face the victims of

so many genocides through their history,

the deaths of so many innocents at their hands?

Is there a tribunal in heaven

to send us all to eternal peril because

we valued mostly human lives?

Poor minute six-legged partner

made of flesh, blood, and bone like me

I plead guilty; it is your turn now.