Four Poems by Alfred K. LaMotte

PULVERIZED

I pulverized your jaw with a knuckle sandwich
but you fought back blossoming your hyacinth.

Then I shattered a quart of Colt 45 on the ivory
lingam of your skull but you exfoliated flecks

of lapis lazula therefor I tied off your red ribbon
and swung you around my head a plastic garbage

bag of last night’s pork chop bones then granulated
your skeleton against a concrete wall in West

Philadelphia glyphed with graffiti runes like black
and purple mouths that scream the unutterable

silence of poverty and victimhood. How did you
answer? I heard the sands of eternity inside your

skin sifting through your ribs erupting supernovae
from your pores the black hole of your olive smile

you became an ungainly greyhound cuddled on
my lap licking my face the tongue of the city its

destiny a shuddering seiche wave of compassion
contained in your pelt of mortality I pointed my

38 caliber Glock semi-automatic right at your soul.
How did you answer? You gushed mustard greens

to tangle me in vulva sheaths of the dream forest
the man in the black tunic flickering his curved

blade beneath your larynx you stared at the lens of
the world a docile most shocking parody of our rage

his body knotted cords of tangled angry scripture
eyes not more terrible than your fierce indifference

all of us captured by the quake of silence between
your scream and its echo the eloquent diluted pupils

of death the mute resolution to surrender hope this
moment the end the beginning when all that remains

is the razor and its exquisite thin crimson line.
How did you answer at all did you answer?

Embroider your tears in a shroud for the insouciant
Bodhisattva with threads of laughter each drop
containing the enormous sun.

FLOW INTO YOU

You flow into You the way
a trickle of ice becomes a mountain

pool edged with tiny flowers sun
gazing eye that blindly only sees

peripheral golden world dots streaming
snakes of breast milk through green

shadows of devil’s club now the
foaming tea among those angel roots

of You transmuting your sting to
spice the estuary of the Self alluvial

hips and thighs that open their oceans
of darkness we have taught our babies

to deny as they grow up get raises climb
ladders of success toward higher

brackets upper class ascended master
all the stress of heaven this infernal

rising only distancing their bellies
from their beaten hearts who need

to watch You drop a bursting seed
please let them sow You rivering

down the path of no resistance fall
of grace into your deepening breath

your subterranean succulent marrow
litanied with stars the pungent voices

of salty mycellium O daughter of loam
and light O foal of blood that seeps

from rocks the cloven hooves of
stumbling glaciers melted amniotic

broken water bearing ever You
downward show them how nothing
rises, everything descends.

WHAT THE ANCESTORS WANT

The ancestors want you to know,
you are not required to carry their pain.

Your mother did not spin the web that nets you,
you wove it from your own desire.

Yesterday’s rain won’t nourish this flower;
the new sun drank last night’s tears.

Your grandmothers are singing for you
to birth your own unbearable happiness.

Your grandfathers’ bones are praying for you
to hunt the sweetness in your own marrow.

You think you must stand like a warrior
in the withering crossfire of your father’s blood.

But what wounds you is the wavering blade
of your mind, slashing the past and future.

If you insist on making reparations, plant
a wild pine; let it be a tree of Presence.

You cannot pay them for the privilege of breathing,
for awakening this solitude of beauty.

They need no libation, they thirst for no offering.
They are not hungry ghosts,

But earthworms who luxuriate in loam,
shards of sunlight lodged in magnolia blossoms.

Do not carry them; they do not carry you.
They bear their own grief and laughter.

The past is vanishing smoke, the flame is now.
Be christened with this breath; name yourself.

You sleep alone in the chamber of your ribs.
No one else enters and leaves your lungs.

A mother kissed you, a father held you;
you owe them nothing for this.

They did it for themselves; now let them
be about the business of their next childhood.

Father your heart, Mother your body.
Hold and kiss new sparkling babies.

Give them your grandmother’s name if you must,
but not as a weight, not as a brand on the hip;

But as a prayer, a promise of astonishment
for what has not yet been conceived.

MY RELIGION

My religion is simple kindness.
It is very demanding.
Just when I think I’m
practicing well
I miss the opportunity,
the ordinary sacrament
of gentle giving.
Then I see what a hopeless
sinner I am
and how much I need
the grace of the Savior,
who is not hard to find
and requires no prayer,
no invocation,
for whatever I am doing,
the Master is the one
who sits before me
this moment.
Therefor I vow to be healed
by the very next person
I meet,
and to bathe in the radiance
of humanity.
May I make you some tea,
rich, bittersweet
and green?