The Sunday Poet: Bridget Galway

Bridget Galway

Bridget Seley- Galway is an artist/poet. Her art has graced several covers of Ibbetson Press, and Bagels with the Bards, as well as Doug Holder’s, “Eating Grief at 3AM”, and Molly Lynn Watts', “On the Wings of Song- A Journey into the Civil Rights Era.” Her poetry was published from 2001-2002 in Provincetown Magazine’s Poetry Corner, 2011-12 Popt Art Magazine, 2009-2014, 2009-2016, Bagel with the Bards, Ibbetson Press #34, 39, and in 2016 Poetry Porch online poetry journal. Her art has been exhibited throughout New England. She was arts editor/curator for Wilderness House Literary Review 2009-2012. In 1990 she co-founded/ directed El Arco Iris, free youth arts center in Holyoke, and in 2014 procured funding to established and facilitated Youth Arts Arise, a free after school program at Arts at the Armory in Somerville. Ma.

       

New York Tompkins Square 1980  

He disappears between worn out buildings,

Where darken corners supply a needles relief.

He wears me from this moment to a knot.

In my usual taciturn,

Benched under the grand Oak Tree.

Again I feel its reproach,

Rising up from its roots.

Once it was valued for its beauty.

Now it shades the broken and wretched,

Garbage tossed and blown.

And I,  

Still innocent

Molded from this familiar circumstance of

Loving a poet whose damage comes first.

This is the slipknot of my childhood:

A frayed strand woven by hip conversations,

About books and revolution.     

 The brilliant guided me.

 Some drunks and junkies,

Tolerated and adored.

 I harbored by their words,

Tossed and turned in their shifting currents,

 Loss and gain,

  Loss and gain,

 A constant anticipation of better

 Now,

Scathed again in the waiting. 

 He emerges,

 Moves towards me

In slow stride,

 This lion to his den,

 Pulls me to him,

 Dips me into a kiss.

 I am collected,

As the flower

Archived in a glass paperweight

 That settles on his words.

 He says

     He says 

        He says

“You know Geeta,

These are great old buildings.

if I just had some money,

I could get a nice space,

Make it fine and write.”

  And I

 Scribble in my notebook over unfinished poems,

 Advertised phone numbers

“Renting Option to Buy”

  In this want I am

Again

Adopted undone!