Toy Soldier
© Lori Lubeski


There is a toy soldier
inside each of us
saluting the commander
whose bravery leads us
among the ruins
of our loss –
strewn with
gravestones
and wild horses.

              In that abandon

love is not eternal
but relentless,
a gash across the forehead—
walls in the
morning of the soul


like they who have been baptized
and wrapped with white towels

                a candle in one hand
                yours in the other

singing a song to the river,
the water,

return
return
return



_____




Star without Sky
© Lori Lubeski


I am delayed in accepting
the blow which has hammered me down

                                                                Where have you been, grace-
while the forest burns around me?


we are told only
that the dead
dream
without difficulty


will surely arrive
in a fleeting night of exhaustion
to console those
who have been abandoned


                    yet I’ve traveled back
                    so far into the night
                    to feel you



that morning has arrived
as wounded stars which have hit the ground
melt,
and tremble


as they disappear


into the mouth
of a dog



                this is a broken morning
                without you-




star with no sky


light with no grace



_______________




Pale song
© Lori Lubeski


After the night has become
pale with cricket songs
(and I wish for you to surround me)


the unbearable mark of theft has arrived
and upon me now it heaves
the force of a storm within it
turbulent waters amass
against my bones, skin
orange thyroid

I am ill equipped to manage
such breaking porcelain inside of me,
cell upon trembling cell—

left only
with the difficult words
in extinction-

brought out for such
occasions
yet continuously fail


as each impaneled juror
desperately wants to come home--
yet the days linger,
the epidemic endures

and to substantiate the immensity
is inconceivable with description


footfalls and footfalls
which had been silently pleading
now erupt stampeding
buffalo across the great plains


and I am sorry
to not have been so gentle
as you were with me


it has been 3 months now
unpaid bills in stacks upon
the dining room table

around the child’s grave
moss had grown
in the shape of a heart


these are the first songs
to arrive
in the glow of loneliness—



                    kite without wind






star without night






______________