FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH

Take my life for what it's worth
for the sinew and blood of it
for the veins and tears of it
for the legs and love of it
for the regrets and arms of it
for the joy and tongue of it
for the pain and heart of it
for the lungs and words of it
for the years and experience of it
for the power and the teeth of it
for the moments and the memories of it
for the fingers and the touch of it
for the toes and the travel of it
for the belly and the laughter of it
for the kind and the eyes of it
for the brain and the generosity of it
for the grace and the knees of it
for what its worth
its all I have to offer

© Valerie Bridgeman
May 31, 2013

FOOD

I love the look of pleasure 

when someone eats what I've cooked

that moan and the linger at the edge

of a fork, that head back wonder

trying to figure out what a particular

taste is; what is that spice?

I love the way food can say

what I never can with words

how I love you can taste so

good; how you don't need

extra salt to say it.

© Valerie Bridgeman
May 30, 2013

GOOD LONG TIME

We talk for a good, long time
about how our soul aches
when we read news
or see names of people
killed, brutal
and we know nothing
we write will fix it
we talk about how we bleed
internally and how we wish
we didn't feel it all so much
and about how we descend
into a hell of depression
the moment after we
read it and we were so
happy just a moment before
and how we can't STAND
the letters "K" and "P"
and how we know we're
the only two people 
who will get that
disdain for alphabets
we listen close
breath soft
worry together
because we need
each other to be
okay and in this moment
neither of us are convinced
that we are
but we stay on the phone
until we can believe
we will be

© Valerie Bridgeman
May 29, 2013

POSTED ON May 30, late, but still got it written #beingkindtome

JOYCE ADEJUMO

For Joyce Adejumo proprietor of Mitchie's and just all around great Human Being. Rest in peace, great mother/great friend/great advocate. RISE in Power, great Ancestor, venerable elder/ancestor of the human race.

The first time she smiled at me, I melted from the sheer welcome
of her grin; she was like that--able to melt you, make you feel welcome
give you space to create--on the spot, or in your life--
because she was more than a patron or art dealer
she was art herself, flowing like dance/rhyming like poem
she made everywhere she ever was more beautiful
it reflected her and her generosity and the way she
mediated God/conjured joy/made life seem possible
no matter how hard--she was, after all the mother of a
son paralyzed because a drunk driver was behind a wheel
she figured out faith on the fly; taught us all how to
step into our skin, take our place; she demanded by her
own life that we change what part of the world we could
even if it were just the corner in your living room, the
thinking in your own mind. She was like that--able to
challenge your ideas about limits, about what you could
or could not do. And then, she demanded it show up
in your life as art. I miss her already

© Valerie Bridgeman
May 28, 2013

AT DAWN

I shun sleep
afraid of the dreams
that press against
my heart
of the memories
folded over like
pants just washed
I know the dreams
will mock my
longing
and tears
will be
the bread
I eat at dawn

© Valerie Bridgeman
May 28, 2013

LESSONS

the dip into despair
like a dive off
high boards
and nothing good
to say after
a season, a day
of sheer joy
the change is sudden
and real
and I miss you
and the love
that kept me
afloat

not your problem
first lesson
not your concern
second lesson
not your care
third lesson
and while we're learning
I figured out that I'm 
hopelessly hopeful
in the face of evidence
to the contrary
that makes me
crazy or stupid
or both
problem and lesson
number four

© Valerie Bridgeman
May 27, 2013

THANK YOU

For all the ways your laughter
fills my ears
for the way you rest
your hand on my
neck, the way you
listen to my stories
even if they are on repeat
the way you look
at me and your eyes
say, "I love you."
for the way you
think about 
what we're going
to eat because
neither of us
feels like cooking
for the way you 
beckon me to cuddle
and the way you
smile when I
count out the three minutes
for the way you
enjoy my lime chicken
and say thank you
when I clean
for the way you
believe in me,
in us
for the way you
keep coming
back
even when 
you're afraid
or I am
thank you
for these things
and so much
more

© Valerie Bridgeman
May 26, 2013

FEEL YOU

I feel the way
you hold me
tight against
your body
feel your breath
your soul
stir like eagle
like wind
like rain
on dry ground
feel you wet
soak me
through
feel you
come
all
the
way
in

© Valerie Bridgeman
May 25, 2013

STRANGER

I stare at her the way no one
should look at a stranger
I see the way her nose seems
always turned up
the pug of it
the way she grows
mustache
in spite of desire
the bags under her eyes
the tired that is more
than lack of sleep
I stare at her hair
gray, black, brown
some stray strands of
red and gold even
the nappiness of it
the way it dries out
and the hair on the floor
on her shoulder from
the combing
I stare at the darkened
places on her face, scars
from plucked hairs
keloids in the way black
skin keloids, the freckles
that sprinkle across
her face
I stare at her stomach
poking out even when she tries
to hold it in, the rivers of veins
that never laid back down
after the children she
carried in her womb
the moles on her arms
on her leg
I stare at her when I can
bear it; she does not
look like I imagined she would
at this age. I do not think 
she's beautiful no matter
how many times her
lover says she is
I stare looking for
something to love
anything to love
not just the mirror image
but the woman inside
and wonder why I am
such a stranger 
to myself

© Valerie Bridgeman
May 24, 2013

TRY

We laugh
about love
and its complications
the maddening ways
we both reject
and accept being
cherished--you still
don't know if it's possible
you say, living through 
my life makes you
want to try; I say
life is too short
not to at least
try

© Valerie Bridgeman
May 23, 2013

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DARIUS

Darius, when you were born
the pains just kept coming
as you tried to push past pelvic bones
that would not move
I was a mother struggling
you, a son trying to arrive
unharmed

I wanted you
but not like a woman who planned
to be pregnant--
I wanted you like a mother
wants to protect her child
because he is in danger,
because sometimes death
watches as a child is born
because you were on the brink
and I was, the doctor said,
"incompetent" in my
pushing, my pelvis bones
that would not budge

For years that word dogged
me, invaded my dreams
pushed me to try to save you
from me, from my inability
to be what you needed
in a parent, a mom
someone who's love 
is supposed to propel you
into a future

I wanted you
to survive my brand of crazy
your own planned trips to fool's hill
the tendency to choose
the wrong partners
and the wrong path
we have these things
in common

I want you
to be the man in your own dreams
to travel the world the way you 
told me you would when you were
10 and not yet disappointed
in the way the world works
I want you to love like
you've never had your heart
broken, like the woman you
married was not broken
and therefore able to 
laugh at your jokes
and dance with you
well into the night

I want you to carry
your burdens light, to 
hand them over to someone
more competent than you
to choose life when death
tries to forget the price
you've paid to survive

I love you
but these are not merely
the words of a woman who struggled
to bring you into the world, whose body
could not do the "natural" thing
who wonders what would have
happened to her own soul
had you not been
born

These words: I love you--
are the words of a woman
who admires you, who knows
she had only to breathe
and push and relax under
the anesthesia as your
spirit embraced this
world beyond amniotic
fluid and prayers
I am your mother
for that
I give
thanks

© Valerie Bridgeman
May 22, 2013

TAMMY

I'm taller than Tammy Gomez
which is a feat in itself
but she is a giant as an artist
she lives in from her pores
it pours out like morning coffee
like sun spilling over rooftops
like the Mississippi runs muddy
toward the gulf
she poet like some
breathe, just takes it in
and offers it back to the world
one tear, one scene
one poetic line at a time
Tammy writes to live
sings to breathe
acts to be
speaks to make a difference
she is 
and that's
enough

© Valerie Bridgeman
May 21, 2013

AN HONEST PLACE

Some days it's just hard to be an empath
to feel what are not your feelings but
are at the same time ... I wish I could figure out how to not take it into my bones
it's just too much today... and that feels selfish to say

© Valerie Bridgeman

May 20, 2013

UNANIMOUS

I shrunk at the root of the problem
measuring my life and achievement
by the pursuit of happiness
by a phantom definition of me
someone else's plot for my life
but coming into my own now
for where else would I come but
strong. strong is beautiful, 
as is confident

quieter than ever before
the roar inside me is persistent
simplify your choices to what
matters, remember community. 
explore your world in light of it; 
the problem never lies beyond your soul
look deeper; feel the magic unfold. 
widen your vision.
deconstruct the drama inside

wake up to wonder, notice
the problem is cooking its
solution in its own juices
you have to hear it to believe it
things are actually getting better
welcome to your future
you've come this far by faith
You are your own home makeover 
every day; a single plan 
yet to be revealed
a unanimous 
vote of one
to thrive

© Valerie Bridgeman

May 19, 2013

LEAVING WELL

Leave well, she says

means that "people may remember

how you came but they'll

never forget how you leave"

I stand on the brink of leaving

and know that "well" is in the eye 

of the beholder, that people judge

choices they would not make

in the midst of storm

and angst, that sometimes

people define "leaving well"

as slinking away into the night

silent, leaving the story of it

to the spinsters

but I decided that Audre Lorde was right:

Your silence will not protect you

people will believe ill and mark

your intentions in nasty ways

accuse you of bad behavior

bad motives and actions you never took

tell the truth, my inner voice

demands of me, tell the truth

and do not weigh the consequences

of controversy and tension that

make people uneasy, make them defensive

truth telling always stirs up

gunk from the bottom

and saying the emperor has no clothes

won't get you an award for observation skills

it will only get you scape-goated

it will only make people circle the wagons

and suddenly, you who've endured

hostility for years, are called the hostile one

but "regrets" are luxuries we can't afford

and leaving is necessary medicine

I wait on reparative love

messy chocolate kisses

hands dirty from mud pies

stories that never end

I wait for the brewing 'next'

with no regrets for what was or what will be

I've learned Oriah Mountain Dreamer's lesson:
to be faithless to someone else's version of me, 
in order to be faithful to myself

I'm going out in dignity and grace,
no matter how anyone  else interprets it, 
because saving one's life

is always a good leave-taking.

 © Valerie Bridgeman

May 18, 2013

FOR MARISSA ALEXANDER

Stand your ground
Florida says
but only to wanna-be cops
who shoot black teenagers with a hoodie
skittles, tea, and a phone call to his girl friend
but not you Marissa, not you.
the law doesn't mean you
even if he choked and beat
and slapped you many, many times
before; any if he said he was going
to kill you; not you
not you

The law doesn't mean you
to shoot your gun to warn him away
the gun you never once pointed at him
the gun you ran to get when you couldn't
find the keys to the car; stand your ground
your knees shaking, your voice quivering
I will kill you, he said

you only said, leave me alone
don't hurt me anymore
and shot a warning shot
to say, "I mean it this time"

Did you get one year for every punch
every kick every slap every rape

Twenty years for begging him not to hurt you
for shooting in the air
I know... children were present, but how many
times were they present when he beat
you? did they whimper in corners
cover their eyes and ears, wait for 
him to stop, for the blood not to trickle
from your lip, for you to makeover 
the black-and-blue of his punches

Twenty years... a warning shot
to women: there's no defending yourself
in this country

Did you think it might be different if you
were white, if you were rich, male
anything but scared and black and woman
anything but that

but you are not the first
or the last woman we will have
to give an account for, we will have to explain
the equations that make his scared
more punishable than yours

What do you imagine
we will tell your children about why
we locked you up, why we allowed it
about how you deserved it because
you WARNED him... You. Warned. Him.
stand your ground, Marissa.
but you had no ground that belonged
to you. not even the saving of
your life.

© Valerie Bridgeman

May 17, 2013

MEANT TO BE

Some things are meant to be
some things are constant
even when they hurt
we fall some times from the sheer weight
of our lives, too heavy to handle
too much to know--
overly sensitive, like uranium
dangerous when exposed
some things can never be normal--
whatever 'normal' is--
some things can not be easy
or simple or to the point
some things are meant
to be complicated, tenuous
a road overlaid with
detours and dead ends
but we retrace our steps
and start over in another direction
trying to find the path to our
truth and final selves
knowing some things are just
meant to be

© Valerie Bridgeman

May 16, 2013

THE JOURNEY THIS FAR

FOR JAHA ZAINABU

January 1, just a promise to myself
afraid to say it out loud since I
have broken so many before
a poem. a day. every day. 2013.
this time. do it. no matter what
I thought it would be hard,
but not painful, difficult but not
gut wrenching--new and used
poems, some reworked, revisited
I didn't know I would be staring
into my own soul every day
checking in, wondering
what I would/could possibly
say out loud, what truth I 
would dare to put on paper,
tap into the screen--whether I would
be brave or bold or stupid enough
to keep writing. everyday. one poem.
just. one. every. day.
and there are these days when
so much of the world makes me
want to crawl backwards into
the beginning of chaos, it's so crazy
the news so horrific it eats at me 
and I'm supposed to write
about it, to call the names that will 
be lost if I don't
and the names haunt
my dreams, and my waking hours
and I can think of nothing else
even when I'd rather write
of tender kisses and strong hugs
and laying vulnerable with
my lover, the news. everyday.
and when it's not the news, it's my life
crawling from the ooze of strangle
the struggle to be human
to get up when I'd rather sleep
the sorrows away, when I'm so
damned depressed, I don't want to talk
not even to the two or three people I know
gets me. but that poem is calling. everyday.
and I write. because Jaha will read it,
if no one else. because she's the only person
I've told that I'd do it. every. day.
but it's May 15 now.
one hun-dred-thir-ty-five days in
and I've run out of ways to cry on paper
or to make love to the world, or to advise
my children or chide my own fool self
and I think--365 days is a long time
to try to figure out how to tell a story. every day.
I want to stop writing. every. day. but
there's at least one person who gets it.
and she's writing too. so even when I
want to just stop the world. just get off.
just cut every piece of life out of me so the pain will stop
I don't. every. day. I consider it--quit.
and then I don't. I write.
the crap. the joy. the stuff that would
embarrass my mother, make my last lover
ashamed that I knew these stories now
I write because I'm a woman
and women are being raped
slaughtered. found in captivity 10 years later.
girls who are gorgeous can't get reporters 
to pronounce their 10-letter first name
and the poet in my is enraged at the carnage
from drive-bys and bombs at marathons
and women on fire. every day.
and seasons change in 365 days; it was cold
when I started. we've seen the rainy season
and summer is peaking at us from behind
May's dress. and so much changes with the seasons
lovers I loved and still do
friends who gave up on me
another friend's adopted baby. someone's marriage
I resigned a job without another to go to.
my Elder said: you don't have to know now what you
will do; you just have to know what you won't.
so I quit. not the poetry. but the job.
decisions. every day. 
to give away a whole house of furniture
to keep at it. to teach. to preach.
even when the last thing left is to believe.
and sometimes. I don't believe.
but you're there. reading. and making me
think about it. we are brave, you and I.
to write. even with all this pain outside
and within us. I like that we talk about it
even when we hate our own writing.
how we help each other believe.
keep writing. every. day. we say it
to each other, even when we don't talk.
just. keep. writing. every. day.
so we have no regrets. 
we will celebrate this on December 31.
That's what we say to each other on May 15. 
we know it. because we hold each other in 
the craft. in the art. in the writing.
when the news is bad.
and good. when lovers are gone.
or plentiful. when we are happy.
or so sad we cannot speak.
tomorrow will come.
and we will be writing.
because this journey.
this far. is not alone.

© Valerie Bridgeman

May 15, 2013

NOTE: On May 15, Jaha and I spoke for over an hour about the process we'd entered--to write a poem a day every day in 365. We agreed to each write a poem, "The Journey This Far." Here is hers: The Journey This Far.

INCONVENIENT

Death is inconvenient
for the dying and the living
unspoken words
undone plans
unfinished heart work
we cry because of these unfinished memories
we cry for ourselves
and for what we imagine our loved one left, wanting

sometimes we laugh
for some bittersweet memory--a sudden recalling
of a funny story can easily be followed
by a flood of tears
and the inconvenience of death surfaces again

we wanted them
to see us graduate
see our weddings, our children
our new car, our business

and yet, somehow, mysteriously
death can be so timely
the cessation of struggle, of pain
the reality that rips our facades
and forces us to the truth

The catalyst to redemption
and reconciliation
The force that makes us count every moment
preacious, every word sacred, 
in its luminous presence

death is timely and convenient--

forcing us from our mortal lives,
toward the divine impulse
that makes us hope for a future 
even in the finality of its presence


but we give death its due regard, but that is all.
For in our hearts we testify--by our memories
and our tenacious love for our friends gone on---
that death is not the final force, nor the final word.

© Valerie Bridgeman

May 14, 2013

Tuesday poem posted on Wednesday (late... sigh)

MOMMY

Sometimes I can hear your voice
clear as day in my ear
can remember your soft snort
when you thought something 
was beneath you or not worth
the breath to comment
can see your intense stare
into the cornfields as you
pondered life in general
and your own in particular
and smell the hint of musty
at the end of day when you came
to direct the after-school chores:
you: cook; you: clean; you: set the table
you: bring me some new knowledge
and I can hear your laughter
head thrown back the way you
let go belly shake good for
moments at a time, the way
it seemed like you'd never stop
laughing, and the way that
made us all laugh with you
I can see you bent over
sewing machine or lesson plan
or shelling peas or scaling fish
all with the same care
every switch every word
every hull every scale
given detailed attention
I can feel your body warm
sank into the couch as you
listen to me tell you what's important
today for me, watch your mouth
tighten at its corners, proof that 
you're solving the problem in your head
even if you don't intend to tell me
what's best--see you deciding I have
to figure it out for myself, but still
listening, really listening

Sometimes I can still hear your voice.

© Valerie Bridgeman

May 13, 2013

(POSTED LATE/NEXT DAY)

EYES

Sam rolls his eyes at me
can't take the way 
I don't believe
in me, he says... 
if you only knew
what we all know 
about you...

I don't want to know what
that is, because right now
it sounds like one more
thing to live up to. 

© Valerie Bridgeman

May 12, 2013
Mother's Day

DEAR VALERIE, AGAIN

You have a lot of years left in you
You can cry about it, but you can't
change the past
You can lament
but you can't get anything back
not the words
not the kisses
not the hugs
that lingered on your shoulder
You can lay it down
every now and then
choose not to carry
the heavy of it
choose not to pick
at the scab of it
choose not to brood
the details of it
but you can't change the past
you can't change the past
you can't change anything
You can lay it down, though
every now and then
you can; I know you can

© Valerie Bridgeman

May 11, 2013

DIRECTIONS

She looked lost
it's the only explanation
I have for trying to give 
directions to an old woman--
stout and ruffled, dressed in
red dress with black jacket
signs of years on its cuffs--
directions to a place
I'd never heard of,
in a city I barely know

she smiled a kindness
at my attempt because
that is what we do with
the clueless among us--
we smile at them
recognize our own desire
to help, even when impossible

I pull out the GPS 
start coordinates while
she tells me she lived
on this very street when
it was jeweled with houses
instead of quaint shops
that she recognized one 
of the galleries as the home
of her best friend when she
was ten, that they had run
up and down these streets

chasing each other and their
own dreams, that she didn't 
know now where her best friend lived
For this moment I was glad
for how long it can take for
satellites to line up with
a smart phone--how else
would I have had the time
for her stories?

© Valerie Bridgeman

May 10, 2013

BEEN HERE BEFORE

the gadgets have had my attention
all night; and the un-social media
that glues me to screen, tethers
me to bluetooth, phone, iPod
IPad, Facebook, Twitter,
all things technological
don't touch me in the deepest place
can't make my skin scream joy as
touch light and subtle
overcome my heart... but
I have been here before.

© Valerie Bridgeman

May 9, 2013