On Discovery

For a dear friend; your love feeds me

You said, “You’re beautiful”
And my body opened toward your words
Like morning glories toward the sun
Your words pulled me away
From the campfire where ugliness
Had begun to reflect on me, leave me
Shriveled and stunted in life and in love

On discovery: I am freefalling like skydiving
Into love’s gravity, the beauty of it
Pulling me closer, farther
‘In love, in place, in season, in here”
Changing the very nature of
Space because I share it with Love

On discovery: I know how large the human heart can be—
What capacity for hate, for envy, for fear, for hubris
And for love, for joy, for hope, for strength
I am learning what it takes to feed the inner
Self so as to lessen the power of the first list
In order for the second list to increase

I know how capable the heart is
Of massive love strokes
How willing to share—if invited;
When healed, how generous
the heart can be

On discovery: you were expected, long awaited
Like the sure return of Halley’s Comet
You have entered my atmosphere
Leaving a trailing witness of
Cosmic fire across this sky
A blaze that landed
Burned a hole in the stratospheric
Graces of my heart, leaving it
Gaping, enlarged


© Valerie Bridgeman
October 1, 2011

Unfinished Poem

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Unfinished Poem

Today, I am the poem I finally have the courage to finish/each line more interesting than the next. (Joe Brundidge)

(this 2^nd poem is a re-write/edit of the first one inspired by the lines (above) off the post on Joe Brundidge’s page, December 8, 2011, and uses the lines as a prompt into the poem)

Courage has finally found me

On mark/get set/ready on the line

Stretching to finish a poem

I am becoming

Each line more interesting than the next

None more important than the last

In this rhythmic moment

I am verse/ink-filled method

And madness/water tumbling

Over rough places

Sounds thundering over

Smoothed out similes

I am metaphor

Sunshine bright/sharp light

Breaking into dark spaces

Pushing myself to see

This world for all its worth

I am an uneven line of rhythm

No rhyme—an underscore

And exclamation point

Syncopated beauty, chaotic

Italicized truth

—Life turns on a dime and still I see your face in every cloud—

I am an emphatic mess of an ode

a range of meanings

a double entendre

triple indemnity/your best bet

strong verb modified intensity

a ‘what did she say’ glance backward

question mark in the middle

of a sentence not yet written

worth reading more than once

words worth rolling over tongue

spoken out loud in the rain

screamed in delight in every season

and I am the poem I finally have the courage

to finish—on mark/get set/ready…

© Valerie Bridgeman

Taking Back My Yesterdays

One of the best ways to remember you're a poet and to provoke the muse within, is to read those initial pieces that made other people say, "hey! You're a POET!!!" This piece is one of those for me and 15 years later, I feel provoked. These thoughts were provoked by Jaha Zainabu, one of my FAVORITE poets.

Taking Back My Yesterdays

I am no longer innocent

But I am not guilty of the wrong

You’ve done to me

The sacred shadows of yesterday

Rise like specters of injustice

Like Banshee, they sound an alarm

Meant to cower me,

But I will not.

Cower as others may,

I am not captive to your forever-sins,

Nor victim of your momentary whims

I am colorizing my memories,

Sanctifying them for my future.

Stubbornness has taken hold of me

And I am staring down the sorrow,

Factoring in the pain,

And becoming Today and Tomorrow Strong.

The non-memories I have blocked,

I am filling with faith in a God

Who moves forward and leads

I want to take my medicine bag—

Those healing stones

That helped me survive your cruelty

I will need them

In the not-too-far successes

I will encounter

You may not keep them.

And my tears are reserved

In a heavenly bottle numbered by Wisdom.

They belong to me again,

And are on account

Testifying against you.

You may no longer name yourself

My judge or my destiny.

All you stole, I now reclaim with force.

The violence you used against me—

That whirlwind that wrecked my life—

Well, I’ve learned to harness winds and thunder.

The violence, I have turned to my own power.

And yes, I am here to take everything you kept:

Pieces of my soul,

Parts of my heart,

And my destiny.

The future is ahead, and I need them.

I am taking back my yesterdays

© Valerie J. Bridgeman [Davis]

1997
Written at the request of my friend Linda H. Hollies, who used it as the title of her book
Taking Back My Yesterdays 

Beauty Deeper than Scar

(Follow the link over Dr. Weems' name to learn about this incredible scholar-wise-woman-survivor-thriver)

For Dr. Renita Weems

Camouflaged by quick wit and wise sayings

Clothed in tears powered by anger—

You were never supposed to suffer

Smart as you are…

You lead with your mind—

Do not confuse this reality with the knowledge

That we who love you know:

Your nimble genius works in Amazon body/

Sharpshooter skilled tongue

Made sharper through the years

Woman/warrior, battles carved signs

On limbs/torso/organs that have borne wounds more ragged

Than some/you have knife-lined consequences

That scar—harbinger of wounds so much

More than cancer/cut deep/run more ragged

Than blunt-edged knife

And yet the years have folded over on to weary bones/

Marking the way the body betrays even the most

Brilliant among us/your breasts, too, weeping

From the folly of it all

Everyone who has ever had to come

By way of razor’s edge needs a witness/

Offer the scapel-lined path to lover’s eyes/

Needs beloved friend’s fingers to run tenderly along

keloid ridges of war theaters/

the body beautiful its staging area

No one fights nonstop

You get to pause/remember your mind

Just as beautiful needs your body/

Battled scarred as it is

You have a beauty deeper than any scar

In skin/bone/soul/a beauty that shines

Through cracks/strains/breaches—

And this scar that invades your body

Will ease its way

Into a beautiful place

© Valerie Bridgeman 

September 17, 2011

FINAL

My Nearest Companion

(An Ode to LOVE)

"You sound like you're in love! Who is it!? Spill, friend!!!" ~ someone trying to figure out why Love is my nearest companion these days

Too many days slipped away

into mourning that left me weak, closed off and small

wilted and withered into a woman I did not want to be

unable, unwilling to Love

unable, unwilling to Hurt

Too many ways to avoid risk and miss the reward

of touch, a kind smile, a tender kiss on cheek, on lip

or to close off from admiring eyes and hands

and to miss the magic and mojo

of conjurers skilled in bringing out the best in me

Love kept knocking, seeking, asking me

to come out to play, to live in full view

to trust that if I were ever hurt/betrayed/wounded again

I would survive--again--and Love would meet me

at the door, hold my hand/hug me close

apply what poultice my soul needed to try--again

This memory is why Love is my nearest companion

these days, a comfortable wrap/cool glass of water

a sip of sunshine on College Avenue

sand sliding through beach-worn fingers on Cape Cod

Laughter on the other end of a phone call

Poetry at Ruta Maya late into the night

mics hot from the breath of poets

a walk in Long Park/a cuddle with a zen Yorkie

who knows nothing except I am the one who opens

the bag with food in it

I have not forgotten that Love

cries for little 3-year-old girls found dead

or thousands of stomach-bloated starving Somali children

or that Love aches for justice/righteousness

or that Love is not simply simple pleasures

but ferocious She-bear protective

of those who cannot protect themselves

That, too, is what has returned in me...

You keep prying into my heart/wondering

how I got this happy/why letting go and falling into Love's

wide-open arms cracked me open/why I am not

bitter/withdrawn/afraid--still

how I come again to the possibility of betrayal

with utter faith that Love lives

You keep wondering the name of my Beloved

who is priming the pump/drawing the

redemption out of my center

who holds the map to my interior country

who knows my name that no one else knows

How Love has pushed/prodded her way

into my imprisoned soul/flipped the locks

and waved me free

You keep asking "Who do you LOVE!!!????"

Love, please....

Look in the nearest mirror

point at the woman/the man you see there--

and say your name.

© Valerie Bridgeman

August 17, 2011

I Am Not Juggling

I'm testing my ability to do vocals... videos are next....Click on the title below to hear the poem...

I Am Not Juggling

I am not juggling

I put down the balls/plates/the knives

To feed and drink from a well of my longing

To let my soul soak in a river of words

And be renewed

To remind myself that I am nothing and everything

That the earth does not need me to be in motion

In order for the world to turn

But while I’m on the planet it matters….

I have decided to say no

But not in a theoretical way

I am offering my “no” as a sacrifice to love

On the altar of my survival

My mother once told me that if I died tonight

You would figure out how to live without me

You ask me if I’m sad

And the truth is, I am just human

Holding on in the early dark of night

Between wake and sleep

And dreams that bid me explain myself

While I wait on daybreak,

And my eyes squint tightly to resist

The pain of sunshine

I have known hurt—this much is true

But I also have wrapped myself so tightly

Around a lover that my arms ached

And that embrace became a prayer

Into the universe, begging

Juggling between want and need

Longing to be in control

Of what has never been controllable

Explain this:

Why do we insist on the grind,

The treadmill of time and the taste of frantic

When we could be still and soak in

The sweet grace of breath

Feel our face touched by the hand

Of a grandmother who loves us so much

That teacakes are a natural progression?

Today I swore to myself that my life

is scripture enough

To love me is to love god

And after years of trying to coordinate

The rhythm of three plates for two hands

I have reminded myself that my mother

Was a prophet:

If I died tonight, you would find a way

To go on without me

And I would have missed the opportunity

To enjoy the words of poets

Who like me wonder how much

Of life had been sliced by a knife

Of success into nothingness

And whether they have sold

Their lives for balls and chains

When they could have been writing poetry

So today,

I will not wait to take a break

Next week or the following Sunday

Or come Christmas season

To be still and know

That while I’m on this planet,

It matters that I’m here

And that I am a poet

© Valerie Bridgeman

November 2009

When I Don't Know What to Do

Once, while sitting in Ego's waiting on the slam to start, I did what most poets do: I people watched and wrote poetry. This poem came up in my pen and just spilled over onto the page. It came so fast, I felt as if I were channeling the heart of some young man in the room. I read it during open mic. And, as you imagine, a young man came up to me with tears in his eyes and asked me, "how did you know my story?"


When I Don’t Know What to Do, I Pray for You

When I don’t know what to do, I pray for you,

A voice ascending to a distant and present throne,

The sound of a crone professing faith in you

And the divine impress imprinted on your soul

You cry into the hollow of my hands,

Confess your night terrors

And the times your mother caressed your manhood

Like a woman in need

You tell me how confusing it all was

And that the first time, you sneaked into the liquor

Searching for the elixir that would guarantee

You would forget—

You never did

And, though you loved her madly,

You could never look upon her breasts and be comforted

The way only a mother’s bosom can comfort a son

You explain to me the sacred math of reason,

How you went for seasons after women 20 years your age,

How you found yourself wanting a mother,

And yielded to this Oedipal urge that drove you

All the while you abandoned her—your own Jocasta

Who troubled you with her demons

You cry into the hollow of my hands,

Lean a heavy burden on my shoulders,

Sigh your curses into my hair

When I don’t know what to say, I hold you

Gently against my body and pray for you,

A silent petition for the healing

Of that first and fractured bond

Between a mother and her son

You tell me how confusing it all was

And how you found a toke and dipped it

In formaldehyde and stroked yourself

To sleep, crying softly and whimpering “Mama”—

How she tried to take it back the second

That she touched you, begged you

To forgive her, told you she was sorry—and drunk

You shrunk from her pleading

And told her to go to hell

Your words break and swell

In telling me as you cry your pain

Into the hollow of my hands

And I pray for you and hold you

To keep you from drowning

In your own confusion

When I don’t know what to do, I pray for you,

A voice ascending

A silent petition

A holy struggle

To deliver you from the fires

That scorch you still

© Valerie Bridgeman [Davis]

September 2002