Broken Pinocchio by Fabrice Poussin

They make sounds like bags of marbles

moving along on certain paths

seeking evasive grooves filled with blood.

Their dislocated hearts houses of cards

fragile under the breeze of heaven

resonate with the echoes of distant ruins.

Waltzing a mad dance between a death and a dream

they may reach to an unseen evil in the blue

swatting at invincible blades of a hazy glow.

Mounted on the strings of a blind executioner

they are puppets flowing with a black potion

ready to fall prisoners of a master atop a great mount.

Mechanical engines born of a passionate spark

juicy robots on their quest for an anchor

they fail in becoming the image of a father.

Jerking through dubious paths of unfinished lives

they stumble on infinite particles of forfeited futures

never quite living, icy with death in a blaring sun.

Ragged dolls at the hands of their vengeful gods

condemned to pursue the dance of shattered shadows

as many Sisyphus desperate for a safe exit. 

Broken sorrows of a toy named Pinocchio 

they will forever roam the deadly roads of destinies

leading into a thickening darkness into oblivion. 

Fabrice 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.