OUT OF WORDS

Do poets ever run out of words?
Of sounding the same syllables
for love for hope for whatever happened
to that promise we made to stay
and why didn't we and how come
fear takes over at the worst damn
times in our life and when will the rent
get paid this month and is anyone
out there reading my shit anyway?

I don't turn a good metaphor anymore 
I don't have a day
like dog's napping in sunlight
warmed by the rays of love
and waiting on an owner
to pour the food in the plastic black bowl
next to the metal bowl where the water
started cold and now is lukewarm
like your love for me
(you said 'cold,' but I can always hope)
but then, maybe you would just
say that's like the lie you told me
because you were scared
and who cares that you're afraid
anyway? fear ain't never done
nothing for me but kill the 
relationships I wanted the most

It's not even 10 days into April
National Poetry Month
and I already done run out of words
and certainly got no rhyme or
rhythm to make sense of all
that needs to happen in the next
5 days, and you won't me to
write a poem, too? 
This ain't no poem, but 
it's the best I can do since
I've run out of words
and hope to boot

© Valerie Bridgeman
March 8, 2013

WOULD YOU STILL?

I listen into the wind
and the words just come
slow, the story of
a child/a girl-child
a girl-woman abused
stripped of clothes and voice
left to fend for her self
the two or three who should
protect her a part of the pack
leave her alone and stay
with the 99, she stuck
in the bushes of shame
and no way home

I see her there alone
and know she will
want them to want her
and they will choose
almost always choose
the one who hurt her
while she waits
for a ram in the bush
to take her place
while she cry for
justice and no one
hears while she
say, I didn't mean
to be an easy target
to make the 99
feel good about 
their silence

what if you believed
Christ was everywhere
two or three gathered
what if you saw him
there
would you still....?

© Valerie Bridgeman
March 7, 2013 
POSTED March 8 (DRAFT)

ENDING

What was once an easy thing
strains at comfort
words chosen for minimum impact
uttered or written slow
the eraser at the ready
in case I need to change
my mind about what to tell you.

© Valerie Bridgeman
April 6, 2013

SOPHIE'S TABLE

I have few words for this day

the way it unfolded into wisdom

Sophie's Table full of men and women

around her trying to figure out how

to make the world safe for women and children

which means a world where men too

are safe and wise, eating the bread

of thanksgiving making wise the simple

Conversation with our Elder, James Cone

laughter good food and a way forward 

poetry, tears and the kind of truth

that makes your gums ache 

in the telling

I am full with the wisdom of questions

the way preachers/poets lean into

the horror stories and learn to tell

them well, to sink their teeth

into the flesh of them

to say Hagar didn't deserve

this raw desertion, this abandonment

this having to face the beasts of 

the wilderness alone

she didn't deserve it

and neither did her firstborn

son, Abraham's firstborn son

Ishmael the rightful heir

from whom was stole his birthright

and the right to be in safety

this day was about Ishmael

and Hagar and all the women

and children who struggle to survive

when they've been abandoned

in the name of God

it was about Thomas having more

faith in God than the disciples

reporting a ghostly sighting--

he had no reason to believe

their report since they had already

proven unreliable sources

it was about poets fingering the walls

in the dark, trying to find their way
to truth in the midst of stories

and their own struggle 

holding the corners with their palms

searching for the room of memories

of worlds they discovered in books

and their own lives and figuring out

how to go forward from here

and what to tell the people

© Valerie Bridgeman

April 5, 2013

DRAFT

(posted after midnight because we were out celebrating Catharine A. Cummings' 30th birthday)

THE MOVEMENT

You can't draw back
give up stand still
stop plotting planning
the exits from a world 
of fear of hatred
a world built on the notion
that some people
are expendable
you can't slow down
except to check the 
directions or catch
your wind for the next
sprint toward freedom
you can't quit
because of who you are
in the movement
because of what you represent
in your life, with your life's work
by whom you love and how
you are important because
you exist and are the
next step the movement takes
its breath its being
you're the reason people
pay attention to the currents
the winds of time
you are its weather vane
and compass
you point out the direction
we must head
and if you sleep
we will all be sluggish
drugged and unable 
to move
if you  move
we move
if you stand still
the movement
becomes a memory
a monument to something
that was, stagnant
stinking
its all on you
its all on you
don't look for anyone
else to lead to decide
pray
and move your feet
pray and keep walking
pray and don't stop
no matter what happens
don't stop moving
walking
crawling
to a future
where all of us
are free

© Valerie Bridgeman
April 4, 2013

MORTGAGED HEART

She mortgaged her heart
for the price of a hug
deep sweet long
for the cost of silence
sit heavy in the stomach
sold her heart
to the lowest bidder
settled for the least amount
that could be offered
and still be called love
made herself believe
it was alright to want only
crumbs, to eat increments
of desire in kibbles
and bits of affection
snatched from the leftovers
that fall from the table
the unintended
consequences
of seconds 

© Valerie Bridgeman
April 3, 2013

A POEM FOR MAMA: I'M NOT STUPID

I found a poem (in a journal) that I wrote after something my mother said. She was in the throes of Alzheimer's Hell. I wish I knew what prompted her to say, "I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid"... 2001 (she wasn't crazy either).

She knows her brain misfires

like bad pistons in an engine

that needs retooling

She catches herself pressing

forward in mental motion

to recall words she hears

in her head, but cannot for all

her trying summon to her tongue

She reminds herself that this story

has already been told, then 

repeats it anyway

She is so aware that her

good sense betrays her

is insulted by her own
stammering by what she
calls her baby babbling

She despises the blank start

induced by too-strong doses,

narcotics dull her mind

to keep her from the persistent

shaking, precursor to fall

But she'd rather have her mind

the wit, well-framed retorts

and take her chances

at a broken hip

©  Valerie Bridgeman

June 11, 2001, edited 
POSTED April 3, 2013