Kim Bridgford – Five Poems


 

Why Sisyphus Isn’t a Woman

Because it wouldn’t be mythological,
Just life. What woman hasn’t pushed a rock,
Or two or ten? It’s not an obstacle,
But a way of navigating. No shock.
Instead, it’s the efficient way to push
While also writing a book or raising a child.

Because no one would be interested in it.

Because if it weren’t a boulder, but a system
Rigged to keep her back, and she weren’t a lamb,
We would see the wrongness festered in it.

Because this Sisyphus complained too much,
And drove the other heroes almost wild.

Because when you change what’s most obvious—
The central figure—it is away from us.



No-Face

After Spirited Away

At first, he wanted to buy people’s love.
He generated gold, and made a mob.
But once he drew them near, he of them ate,
For love, in this way, serves as well as hate:
Erasing what it means to be alone.

It is hard to be the one who sees the greed
As something less: a smallness, bitter as a stone.
To hold oneself outside, not have a need,
To be entire. To have this self-esteem.

To fit in is the wrong side of the dream.
The right side is to quiet this desire,
And find the skeleton, intact, entire.

To act according to what is only true,
Communion’s fingerprint, and so of you.


 
Spoils

Some really sad things happened. We went on.
We always like to think we were our best.
Sometimes we only see things later on:

The vicious bullying we didn’t comment on
(We were sidetracked with the personal, we confessed).
Some really sad things happened. We went on.

On a certain level, when we peeked to watch it happen,
It was satisfying. Good, like being kissed.
Sometimes we only see things later on,

The way she was always kind to us. When she was broken,
We didn’t realize we had regressed.
Some really sad things happened. We went on.

It was best she went away—a myth, unspoken.
Her husband’s heart attack made us feel lost.
Sometimes we only see things later on,

But prefer these thoughts remain in contemplation.
We want the spoils, but do not want the cost.
Some really sad things happened. We went on.
Sometimes we only see things later on.



In  The Mirror

1.

I want to tell the story backwards, I confess:
Not my own sins, but those of someone else.
That is always what we want with loss.

So many things about this choice are false.

Everyone has a violet-creamy sense of good:
It is someone else not doing what he should.

Malice. Blindness. Smallness. Bitter sorrow.
You cannot write that script with your own arrow.

Even something for which you are at fault
Is tinged with the excuses for your guilt.

I want to unscroll the story to the place
Where it can make a difference, but it can’t.
What you want from someone else is just your rant.
The triumph of your rightness on his face.

2.

The triumph. Your rightness on his face:
What you want from someone else is just your rant.
Can it make a difference? No, it can’t.

I want to unscroll the story to the place
Tinged with the excuses for your guilt,
Something for which you know you are at fault.

You cannot write that script. With your own arrow:
Malice. Blindness. Smallness. Bitter sorrow.
It is someone else not doing what he should.

Everyone has a violet-creamy sense of good.
So many things about this choice are false.
That is always what we want with loss,
Not my own sins but those of someone else.
I want to tell the story. Back-words. I confess.


 

Narcissus Puts on Mirrored Nail Polish

On announcing the new mirrored style. . .

Narcissus would have a field day.

-Elle

Narcissus is in love with fingernails.
It doesn’t matter what size the mirrors are.
The ego, in each context, shines, prevails.

The world has taken on myopic styles:
Ten times the face, ten times the silvered stare.
Narcissus is in love with fingernails.

Narcissus roams the Macy’s make-up aisles.
An upscale beauty, painted into rock star.
The ego, in each context, shines, prevails.

On stage, he turns the groupies into smiles.
His hair lights up the dark, each silver finger.
Narcissus is in love with fingernails

Because he’s tired of iPhones and of wails
Reflecting who he is, and who they are.
The ego, in each context, shines, prevails.

The names are interchangeable. Cockatiels
Serenade a whistle at their mirror.
Narcissus is in love with fingernails.
The ego, in each context, shines, prevails.


 

Author’s Statement on Beauty

I value beauty, above all, in poetry.  I have always thought that to have a poem called “beautiful” was the highest praise.

Yet, several years ago, on the way to a Fourth of July picnic, my husband and I began to argue about this topic in the car.  Usually I am very aware of the scenery when I am a passenger, but what I remember about that day is our voices going back and forth in the front seats. We rarely argue about anything, so this was a memorable occasion.  Our conversation was heated and intense.  I refused to budge on my greatest ideal—beauty—and my husband felt that I was too rigid in my approach. I felt that my creative life had been devoted to beauty, and so he was calling my career into question.  I may have even been that direct.  My husband indicated that I should be open to other options. So involved were we in the discussion that we were still talking about this topic when we arrived at the picnic, and, again, after we left.

The poet Mark Jarman had begun the argument. My husband is a fan of Jarman’s style.  I am too (and have written a long appreciative article about his work), although my preference is for poets who are more ornate, like Edna St. Vincent Millay or Richard Wilbur.  My husband felt that a plainer style made the expectations for beauty different and more surprising—through subject matter, for example, or a quieter palette of diction.  If I were to expand my views of poetry, it wouldn’t be in the area of style; rather, it would be in the direction of emotional resonance and subjects central to women’s lives. I have written formal poetry for between fifteen-twenty years.  While the complicated structures are intellectually challenging and satisfying—perhaps the most difficult form I have done is the sonnet redouble—they can be rhetorically “high,” vague, and boring.  (The best are not, of course.)   That is the reason I enjoy reading poets like the later Sylvia Plath and Sharon Olds as well.   One reason I have a soft spot for country music is for the narrative appeal of popular songs like “Dirty Laundry” by Carrie Underwood or “Mean“ by Taylor Swift.  I pause when a poem—however beautiful—needs more narrative and sass.

When I teach editing classes, I have students rate their top five criteria, and I do too. Beauty is always my first choice, along with form, emotion, surprise, and imagery.  However, over the years, I have learned that it is the re-combination of these elements that makes me re-define, re-read, and re-consider.  Beauty, for me, is always a part of what my teacher Donald Justice called the “Platonic script,” and I trust it will remain so.


 

Kim Bridgford directs Poetry by the Sea and edits Mezzo Cammin. Her poetry has appeared in Measure, The Rotary Dial, The Hopkins Review, The Christian Century, and Cherry Tree.