GAGGLE/POSSE/PRIDE

There's strength in numbers
in company we gather like a 
murder of crows and plot
our lives like a generation of vipers
who consult with a troop of monkeys
while a convocation of eagles
meet across the river from the 
parliament of owls
there is strength in numbers
there is safety when we pool our
strength against the headwinds
like a wedge of swans, when we
stalk the Serengeti like a pride
of lions fresh from considering
the words of those wise like a 
quiver of cobras who know
what it is to stand between
a herd of deer and a pod of whales
But gently speaking like
a kindle of kittens
who speak in the language
of a cry of hounds

© Valerie Bridgeman

April 30, 2013

Playing with what different animals are called when they are in groups....

DECISION

You may never understand
my decision any more
than I can explain it
but I hope one day you
will believe it came
from a place of deep
love--for me, for you
for us. I hope one day
you will believe
I was thinking about you,
about your good, that I wasn't
being selfish, that I care/d
about how your heart
would fare, how you
would feel...
in hindsight I would
have talked with you first
but I hope one day
you'll believe that--even
though I didn't--I cared
deeply about you
all the way

© Valerie Bridgeman
April 29, 2013

ON THIS PLANET

What do we share
except the wind/our breath
the dirt/our feet
the fire/our change
the water/our release

© Valerie Bridgeman
April 28, 2013

BECAUSE YOU READ IT

Because you read my words
I write tonight with no particular
thing in mind
should I tell you about
this day 
the meeting that
reminded me how far
I've come from what
I once believed
how grateful I am
for a religion based in love
instead of fear, how
holiness no longer means
to me a list of mostly
don'ts how I dance
in reverence to God
and in my youth
those very words would 
have been called sacrilegious
let alone the act
of moving my body
to the music in
some carnal pleasure
how I listened to people
want rules that made
life small, how I heard
how fearful they were of
crossing some border
of no return
and how I felt sorry
for them--
maybe they felt the same
for me, heathen-believer
that I am

© Valerie Bridgeman
April 27, 2013

THE PIECES

You feel the shattering
of heart into shards
splintered by grief
and the aftermath of death
and loss, but you
survive in this
dark night
journeying 
into the flame

© Valerie Bridgeman
April 26, 2013

SUNIL TRIPATHI

Because you were near the finish line*
because you were dark and running for your life
in the middle of the chaos, because you wore
a baseball cap and looked suspect, like the suspect
because you dared to have a name
"regular Americans" can't pronounce
because you have teeth
and dental records and
live near a river where your body
could be found/swollen and pulled
from the banks off Indian Point Park
in Rhode Island, because you
were a brown Brown University student
because bombings are done by
your kind, because you were trending
on Twitter, because an apology 
from Reddit won't bring you back
from the edge of the river, from the lower
parts of death, because we will want
answers and you're not here to make
us feel safe, feel comfortable
because you deserved to be safe
from the consequences of social
media that indicted and convicted
you with no evidence because
you are dead now and the only pain
left is that your father had to release
a statement defending your good name
your good good good name that
was sullied in the frenzy, a pursuit
for truth that does not hang
you on the altar of american living
because you were human
human, just a young boy growing
into a man, full chested
living with friends on the edge
of the river, on the edge of your life
because you deserve to be 
remembered
Sunil Tripathi
Sunil Tripathi
because you didn't deserve
to be profiled
Sunil Tripathi
Sunil Tripathi
because this was
bullshit and your death
the evil consequences
of a vigilante world
gone mad

© Valerie Bridgeman
April 25, 2013

*Details from an Associated Press story about Sunil Tripathi pulled from the river after having been falsely accused of being the Boston Marathon bomber and having been harassed and threatened to death. An evil we must name....

KICKSTART

You will ask me one day
what took me so long 
to recognize my own worth
how it was that I let so many
other people define my life
why I worked myself to the bones
to be acceptable and normal
only to find out that I was neither
 accepted nor normal

You will want to know how
my dreams lay asleep on 
desktops while I labored
over another's hopes and how it
was that I considered
my own pursuits trivial
or why I listened to naysayers
and agreed with them
to my own harm

You will wonder whether
I gave up too soon or
why I never started, how 
fear taunted me and called
me names, and made 
me stop in my tracks
why I didn't just backtalk
and claim my own voice

You will ask me if I know 
what I could be, could have been
if I had not given over to
a world splashed in gray
why I didn't just pull the colors
out and paint outside the lines
why I gave up painting
altogether to be responsible

You will tell me that
responsible is overrated
that gray is not really a color
that fear is a bully and if
I just take one friend with me
it will back down
that my pursuits deserve
me, that I should awaken
from dreaming and put
on my shoes and start
walking, one step two step
dancing if necessary
that normal is a tyrant
and acceptable is a lie
and that it's not too late
to kickstart my real life

© Valerie Bridgeman
April 24, 2013

PASSION 2

See this river run swift
like deer, run steady like cheetah
see it full, banks overflowing
see the bed covered in rocks
foundation strong
see the passion pillow
this comforter, see it
capture limb and leaf
in the passing, see it wash
away dammed up struggle
see it flow free flow fast
watch the passion rise
like tide, like swollen breasts
waiting, watch it heave
and sigh intense
watch it call lover's name
at climax, see the river
mouth wide open to 
ocean, run long, run deep
run, see this passion
grow ancient

© Valerie Bridgeman
April 23, 2013

POSTED LATE ON early morning April 24

PASSION

Passion runs like rivers; 
it finds the bed that will hold it
Love is its own reward
no matter what happens after
the initial encounter
you can never regret
love; it never dies
and doesn't go away
stronger than death
more powerful than
betrayal; even if you walk
away, love leaves its
tracks on your heart
mementos carved
into your DNA
you are changed
forever

© Valerie Bridgeman
April 22, 2013
POST LATE on April 23, 2013

KNOW

Sit and listen
listen and learn
learn and change
change and grow
grow and become
become and choose
choose and believe
believe and know

© Valerie Bridgeman
April 21, 2013

DEAR VALERIE

Dear Valerie

Stop beating up on yourself.

You made a mistake.

You did not turn the world on its axis.

You made a grave mistake.

But no one died.

What mattered to you died.

But people (including you) go on.

Stop beating up on yourself.

Stop blaming yourself for everything

that's wrong in your life and in 

the life of people you love.

Stop holding your breath.

It doesn't help.

It's not helpful.

Besides, it won't fix

anything for you beat up

on yourself.

Stop it. Stop beating up

on yourself.

Stop telling yourself it

can't get better.

Let it go. Let go of beating up

on yourself. Stop.

© Valerie Bridgeman

April 20, 2013

TURNING IT OFF

Today's sanity requires
turning it off--the TV, the radio
the internet, Facebook
the non-stop drivel about
Boston, about bombs
about dead people
about evil and terror
and people who bring
their bigotry to the conversation
who think bomb-for-bomb
is a reasoned response

I care that they are dead
I do; my eyes are leaking
about all these deaths
and the world where
they are common
like red light-green light
where it's on a timer
regular consistent
where we barely flinch
anymore, where we are
reduced to sighs
and going on about
our business
as if this violence
is not our business

but if I'm going to be worth
the revolution, I have to turn
it off today so as not to
go numb, sigh myself
into despair, make myself
crazy from the helplessness
of it all, wild and crazy
from the lack of answers
turning it off
so I can be on when I 
need to be.

© Valerie Bridgeman
April 19, 2013

WAKING UP

We wake up to wonderful world
wrapped in warzone like fear
the terror and the trauma
seeping into the open wounds
of our souls--

pray they are not fatal, these
wounds blown open by bombs
and hateful words, by the way
we cannot trust the world
to be safe--we have evidence
to support this suspicion
this wonderful world
sleep to its wonderful Self
and now, only now, wrapped
in warzone like fear
I wonder if we will ever
wake up

© Valerie Bridgeman
April 18, 2013
POSTED LATE on April 19, 2013

THE NOT POET--POST OF AN OLD POEM

I have stared at blank

pieces of paper

waiting on the ink of my tears

to fill pages with wisdom,

with memory, with love

and nothing

the muse has refused

me at every turn,

she silent in the way

a toddler pitches a fit of silence

angry that I have neglected her,

or at least not cooed over

her accomplishments

and she is accomplished

having brought trophies

before, turns of phrases

pretty in sunlight

metaphors so sound

they still reverberate

in space

she knows I wasn't paying attention

that I was caught up in the business

of making a living

and refusing to live

so, she went silent

and said--in effect--

let me know when you're ready

to know the truth again,

when you're ready

to rhyme it into existence

when the wastelands

of economics cease to fascinate

you and I'll be back

just let me know

so now, I--the not-poet--

pine for her,

looking out the window

for the dust that trails

the coming car on a country road

long for her,

straining for some hint of her

and if you get any glimpse of her, friend,

well

just let me know.

© Valerie Bridgeman

July 20, 2011

KEEP GOING

"Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me..." Psalm 23:4

Just keep going

darkness creeps you out

and you want to turn around 
but you're closer 

to where you want to be 

than from where you started

eventually you'll have to make the trip anyway... 
this is the way life is. Full of deep

dank valleys with overgrowth and you can't

see your way out; just keep going

push back the branches, swat away gnats

watch for snakes, don't swallow mosquitos

and don't stop... just don't stop...
the path has rocks and twigs
turns down and up and twists into what looks

like dead ends until you're up on them

and there, just when it seems like there's no

where to go, it opens up and there's another step

to take and another, and the road widens

for a moment and a little light from the moon

shines in the dark and you can make out

some distant horizon 
imagine jackals along the way, 
and hear mountain lions

low growl announce their presence

you learn that mountain lions are not evil--

they are just predators and you are natural food; 

this knowledge is necessary as you watch in the dark; 

it is the way of life that big cats hunt humans, 

that danger lurks while you make your way to safety

that death stalks us all, makes a mockery of our bravery, 

bares its fangs in the density shrouding the night

but don't stop walking through the darkness

past the overgrowth, don't stop even when fear

grabs you by the throat, strangles you into 

submission, claws at your skin; just don't stop

because fear will fade with the steps

and song will come up in your throat

and you will believe that you are not alone

that this journey is never solitary, that your

companions are more than jackal and lion

that you can trust the company

just keep going

© Valerie Bridgeman

April 17, 2013

DRAFT/DOES NOT FEEL FINISHED

DAY AFTER BEANTOWN MARATHON BOMB

I have no poem for the blood that flowed in Copley Square

23,000 marathoners

a half a million spectators

cheer them on

on Boylston Street
near the movie theater
across from Old South Church
and the Boston Public Library
just a block from the painted
finish line
runners while business folk
walk looking down at iPad
or iPhone texting or talking
and looking up now and then
at runners in this annual ritual
with homeless people
selling Street Papers
for a dollar and a smile
and here on this street
in this city where runners
meet pavement and goal
and a chance to make
history

here blood stained ground
banner of hands de-fingered
palm down press detached
from arm, eyes shocked
and legs turned in opposite
directions--like they don't 
know each other

and why do we say "innocent"
when we speak of dead children
as if all the adults now blown
into pieces that will never
be puzzled together again
are somehow--in this moment--
deserving of pellet riddled
bombs bursting in air
laced with nails
for maximum damage
on Patriot's Day
suspended between
12 seconds--one boom!
and smoke surrender
to panic
while people wonder
what the hell just happened
buckling legs
missing foot
chest open
back flayed
across yellow painted
lines at mile 26
with point 2 left
to run for the little
girl running for 26 people
dead in Newtown
and the 8-year-old boy
the first sacrifice on
this altar of hate

© Valerie Bridgeman
April 16, 2013
The Day After
DRAFT
Because I had to write something about the bombing at the Boston Marathon

PUNISHMENT

silence is a weapon, sharper than knife

quicker than silver bullet
will make a vampire stop in her
tracks, remind her she is bloodsucker
undead not worth life

silence can punish better than
40 lashes than water boarding
can make agent orange
seem like red Koolaid
like watermelon dripping down
chins down arms; silence
can make electric chair
look like chaise lounge
like rocking chair to rock
to eternal sleep


silence can accuse and prosecute
for not being perfect, for making
grossest mistakes that ends
relationships 

silence can say
you no longer exist to me
better than a text message
than note to self 
than note to
ex-everything-you-ever-thought-you-were-to-me

silence shouts I don't care 
what happens to you 
why don't you do us all a favor and die


silence makes the voices in your head
loud insistent true
say you are no good 
 are not worth forgiving
committed unpardonable sin

silence whispers
you take up too much 
room on the planet
why don't you yield your space 
to someone who matters

silence can beat
the very breath soul
out of you 
make you feel like
what's the use of going on
it can manipulate
you into the truth that
anything is better than you

© Valerie Bridgeman
March 28, 2013
EDITED April 15, 2013

TEXT BACK TO A SUICIDAL FRIEND

*After receiving a text that says, "please pray for me"...(and so much more)...

Oh baby, please. 
Yes. I will pray  
as you ask
as you want
as you wait for answer
whether to keep trying
to live
I love you
live
please
live

I pray the shooting pain
through heart and lung
will stop will leave you be 
will not consume
Oh, friend
my friend
dear One
I love you
as I pray
as you ask

Stay on this planet
get to the doctor
stay on this planet
take the medication
stay on this planet
live
drink water
lots of it
breathe
take another breath
breathe some more
don't stop love
don't stop breathing
and some more
breathe

stay with us
believe the love
around you
get to the doctor
take your medication
breathe
feel hug and tight grip
feel me try to keep 
you here on planet
in your skin uncut
by razor 
in your head
in tact
to be 
to hug
to hold
to love
to hug
and laugh

oh sister-friend
I pray for the pain
to stop hurting you
my love
breathe
take another breath
breathe some more
don't stop
don't stop
just don't stop
breathing
living
being

answer your phone now
I'm breathing with you

© Valerie Bridgeman
April 15, 2013

PLAYING CHURCH

We line up march in to We are Soldiers
one hand fist ball in the small of back
the other swing in rhythm to the march
of organ and head nod musician
direct our song our steps point
to where we stand
enough cousins to make us look like
Junior Usher Board #2

We sang and swoon and pretend faint
under pretend Spirit in pretend pews
made of rusted cans and fallen trees
use pretend fans to cool our brow
as pretend preacher takes pulpit
by storm recite James Weldon Johnson
Sinner oh Sinner where will YOU
be in that Great Gittin' up Mornin'
and We Come This Morning Knee Bowed
and Body Bent Before Thy Throne of Grace
Come Give the Preacher your Hand
and God your Heart
and hoop and sing the close
Come to Jesus Just Now

we lay on grass for Mourner's Bench
Cry for God to Come by Here
and take me Just As I Am
we buck and shout and wave our hands like
Mother's Boards and Women tired
of looking for husbands on Saturday
like Men who Strut Come Sunday
we put leaves in buckets for offerings
sing You Can't Beat God Giving
No Matter How Hard You Try

© Valerie Bridgeman
April 14, 2013

(FEELS LIKE DRAFT)

72 DAYS

I know enough about God
to know not to count the days
not to wait with an expectation
of a specific thing--only to hold
the spoken word close to chest
heart in prayer, remember 
what the bishop said in the heat
of the Spirit with the challenge
hanging in the the air--72 DAYS

I know that wrapped in the plain sense 
of sound is a mystery waiting to unfold, 
to show me something
about my life my future my now
and that 72 is a signal of something
more than days than seconds 
flipping away on clocks

I know God enough to know it
will happen under the cover of
dark of skin of soil
that it will germinate seed of deliverance
that this 2 months and 11 days--
give or take an hour or three--
will change me because I expect it to
wrap me in its soulful arms
tap me on my shoulder when
I am sleep, wake me to its possibilities
shake me into action, make
me know the way things ought to be

and that I will pray my way
to a whole new way of believing
of living of loving of hoping
that in 72 DAYS--just having to 
write it this often, my world
will be new and strange
and I won't count down
to it because 72 is a magic
number until you get to 1

© Valerie Bridgeman
April 13, 2013

THAT MOMENT

That moment when the door

closes behind you and you

realize you left a part of your heart

and the key to it is on the table

next to it and you don't have 

a spare key or anyone inside

willing to let you back in

© Valerie Bridgeman

April 12, 2013

ONLY I CAN

I'm down to the part that only I can do
papers that need sorting/shredding
old letters and faded notes from people
I barely remember
business cards from people
I've never done business with
and won't because we have
no business between us
tissues and expired medicine bottles
empty viles of god knows what

blank journals and some so full
of words they ooze like
sores barely scabbed over
nail polish I have never used
lipstick colors I would never wear
misplaced keys now in view
mocking my long past need of them
jewelry bought because it is cute
worked with some dress but
never worn--Goodwill bound
with the shoes that were just as cute
and just as not worn

and why do I have so many
brushes and hair oil with
mango and tea tree and
cocoa butter and perfume
I've been allergic to for years
where were these pictures
with worn edges and faded
faces and stories of Labor Day
barbecue and dominoes
pinochle and spades
and the music bumping
in the background as 
laughter spilled over the rooms

and these clothes I can no longer
wear and shouldn't even if I could
since they are from another 
era/some part of a life now gone
I've enter my third life now
and these pants this dress
have nothing to do with my present
But only I can know these things
as I sort and throw things away
Only I can make decisions
of go and stay
except for the decisions
made for me that I just
have to accept

© Valerie Bridgeman
April 11, 2013

DO NOTHING

"Sometimes the most courageous thing to do is to do nothing." ~ Toby D. Sanders, Pastor of The Beloved Community

Don't just stand there
Do nothing
make no sudden move
don't call write 
even think
about what you should
could do to fix it
make it better
Be courageous
and let it shake out 
however 
it will

trust Universe to 
do what it do
and be who you 
are and try
your best not 
to mess it up
Stand still like
Mother May I
and never hear
the magic words

"some times the most courageous thing
to do is to do nothing"

© Valerie Bridgeman
April 10, 2013

CONSUMMATE

You can mean EVERY promise 
you make and work to keep them
and still fail miserably

Does that make you 
a consummate liar? 
Or a consummate human being 
who failed miserably? 
Or a miserable consummate failure 
of a lying human being? 

There are unforgivable sins
only if love is limited to the
consummate perfect 
human being
who never ever
breaks a promise
never ever lies
never ever fails

Consummately... Unforgivable .... Yeah....

© Valerie Bridgeman
April 9, 2013

SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED (RE-POST)

I hear you are a master puzzler,

able to put jigsaw pieces into place in record time.

I wonder, as I hand you the scraps of my heart,

whether you need thimble and needle instead.

Or if you can lock the pieces 
that have been blown asunder by life,

one by one, into their respective places—

or better yet, if you are an alchemist

who can mix new concoctions from old pain 
and turn it into wisdom

I trust you for no apparent reason except you stayed

for the end of a long story one night.

We sat in a cracked-leather booth in an old diner, dimly lit,

and reeking of bacon, which neither one of us eats.

You nodded in all the appropriate ways and places

while you rested your index finger on my palm.

I thought you were trying to read my lifeline.

Instead, you were throwing me one.

And my heart, unsteady as it was in that moment,

knew it was not a good time to skip a beat.

Music needs consistency. You proved to be a metronome.

And it sounds dramatic, I know, but you saved my life

between French fries and laughter

I sat cross-legged wrapped in a coat, with a scarf covering my head,

shielding myself from the cold and the general onslaught of truth.

I leaned into your every word

as your eyes did most of the talking.

Our knees, barely touching, spoke in tongues

making us believe we could decode languages from other worlds.

You measured your words like ingredients for a pound cake—carefully.

Then you dumped them slowly while you stirred with intensity

matched only by the roaring flames hungry

for the wood crackling underneath it.

And I know it sounds trite, but in that moment,

I could have believed anything.

Over spanakopita, coffee more sugar and cream than ground caffeine,

and music switching between Michael Jackson’s Man in the Mirror

and some 1950s tune without the words, I offer you my heart.

I say, be careful. Others have left dents and dings

where there should have been kisses. Lift the pieces gingerly,

or sew with abandon as you intone your incantations.

And it sounds like no small thing, I know, to be given a heart—

with some assembly required.

© Valerie Bridgeman

April 7, 2012

RE-POSTED April 9, 2013