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
______________