Can you please provide you complete php-fpm.conf ?

#
# php-fpm.conf
#

; FPM Configuration ;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

; All relative paths in this configuration file are relative to PHP's install
; prefix.

; Include one or more files. If glob(3) exists, it is used to include a bunch of
; files from a glob(3) pattern. This directive can be used everywhere in the
; file.
include=/usr/local/etc/fpm.d/*.conf

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; Global Options ;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

[global]
; Pid file
; Default Value: none
pid = /var/run/php-fpm.pid

; Error log file
; Default Value: /usr/local/var/log/php-fpm.log
error_log = /var/log/php-fpm.log

; Log level
; Possible Values: alert, error, warning, notice, debug
; Default Value: notice
log_level = notice

; If this number of child processes exit with SIGSEGV or SIGBUS within the time
; interval set by emergency_restart_interval then FPM will restart. A value
; of '0' means 'Off'.
; Default Value: 0
;emergency_restart_threshold = 1

; Interval of time used by emergency_restart_interval to determine when
; a graceful restart will be initiated.  This can be useful to work around
; accidental corruptions in an accelerator's shared memory.
; Available Units: s(econds), m(inutes), h(ours), or d(ays)
; Default Unit: seconds
; Default Value: 0
;emergency_restart_interval = 1

; Time limit for child processes to wait for a reaction on signals from master.
; Available units: s(econds), m(inutes), h(ours), or d(ays)
; Default Unit: seconds
; Default Value: 0
;process_control_timeout = 1

; Send FPM to background. Set to 'no' to keep FPM in foreground for debugging.
; Default Value: yes
daemonize = no


#
# admin.conf (included by php-fpm.conf)
#

[admin]
listen = /tmp/fcgi_ipc/php-fpm.sock
listen.backlog = -1
listen.owner = apache
listen.group = apache
listen.mode = 0777
user = admin
group = admin
pm = dynamic
pm.max_children = 1
pm.start_servers = 1
pm.min_spare_servers = 1
pm.max_spare_servers = 1
pm.max_requests = 500
catch_workers_output = no

#
# Notes
#

I attempted to change the values of the servers thinking perhaps it had something to do with that but no luck. As for php.ini they are default values which comes packaged with PHP 5.3.3 just for sanity tests.

As an additional test a moment ago I switched back to FastCGI/CGI mode without FPM support and as expected I did not encounter this situation. If this is a configuration issue, I appologize for the bug report.

HUm well I'm using a quite similar configuration and it works without any 
problems.

Can you strace the child process when the problem occurs and report the returned 
result please ?

strace -p PID -s 1024 -o /tmp/strace.fpm.log

Closing, not related with FPM. This was bad timing the issue presented itself once FPM was compiled and used.