BIO 

 

Randolph Bridgeman grew up in the Pacific Northwest and settled in Southern Maryland after a 26 year Navy career. He graduated from St. Mary’s College of Maryland and is the recipient of the Edward T. Lewis Poetry Prize for the most promising emerging poet. He is widely published in poetry reviews and anthologies and is the author of two collections of poems, South of Everywhere and Mechanic on Duty.

 

 

the desert

 

when my father’s heart
closed up shop for the last time
language was the only thing
that could grieve with me
and the pen knife he left behind
that wore a groove in his thumb
as he whittled
his rough hands bringing things
to life in the deadwood
as i sat close by listening to
his silence that taught me
all of the secrets he ever knew
Indians say when your father dies
he comes back as the thunder
knocking clouds around
the sting of cold meeting hot
then the loneliness of silence
between the two
i’m reminded once again
of those static storms that lit
my bedroom walls
in that house in the  sagebrush
so far away now and still a slap
in the heavens sends me
running for cover 

organized nature
trees reach into clouds
white as a church woman’s gloves
rain washes everything
born again clean
wind turns leaves over as gently
as my mother inspecting our hands
before the Lords supper  
then a chainsaw on the far side
of the woods sounds out
like some wounded animal
gnawing at a trap
or its leg off to get away

passion pit
drive-in screens shown
through trees
on the outskirts of towns
like a second moon
on saturdays
in driveways all over america
guy’s washed and waxed
their supped-up cars
chromed fins and bumpers
hubcaps and hood ornaments
shinning like trophies
in glass cases at rival high schools
best girls sit at vanity mirrors
in bedrooms with beach boy posters
listening to ‘45s and wrapping
their hair on top of their heads
holding it still with bobby-pins
and hair spray
padding their bras with toilet paper
then waiting in living rooms
the smell of fried chicken
in their hair
waiting with parents who trusted
those boys in letterman sweaters
coming to pick up daughters

ode to the wal mart super center
some blamed you
for the going under of bakeries  
or the darkening  of the five and dime
and the closing of corner groceries
all over north America
when you came to occupy
cow pastures at the edge of our towns
your red
white
and blue façade
your blue vested greeters
made some wonder what is behind
those smiley faces
a generation of middle class
fat ass  bargain hunters
trying to stretch a buck
helped you turn
mattel
and hasbro
and fisher price
those trusted friends of our youth
into killers of our children  
that’s what some say
but not me
i just want some place to go
at three in the morning
to wander the aisles in my flip-flops
searching shelves for pinwheels
and yoo-hoo