ELECTION
I voted.
I voted for the rainbow.
I voted for the cry of a loon.
I voted for my grandfather’s bones
that feed beetles now.
I voted for a singing brook that sparkles
under a North Dakota bean field.
I voted for salty air through which the whimbrel flies
South along the shores of two continents.
I voted for melting snow that returns to the wellspring
of darkness, where the sky is born from the earth.
I voted for daemonic mushrooms in the loam,
and the old democracy of worms.
I voted for the wordless treaty that cannot be broken
by white men or brown, because it is made of star semen,
thistle sap, hieroglyphs of the weevil in prairie oak.
I voted for the local, the small, the brim
that does not spill over, the abolition of waste,
the luxury of enough.
I voted for the commonwealth of the ancient forest,
a larva for every beak, a wing-tinted flower
for every moth’s disguise, a well-fed mammal’s corpse
for every colony of maggots.
I voted for open borders between death and birth.
that cannot be erased, for it becomes the dust and rain,
and then a tree again.
I voted for more fallow time to cultivate wild flowers,
more recess in schools to cultivate play,
more leisure, tax free, more space between days.
I voted to increase the profit of evening silence
and the price of a thrush song.
I voted for ten million stars in your next inhalation.
SOLAR STORM
It is difficult for God
to let there be light
without your eyes.
That glory is your work.
Now get busy burning
yourself to ashes.
Didn’t you know?
Each photon of your body
is the whole sun.
On the tip of a dendrite
in this very thought,
a proton’s dark core
condenses the death
of a thousand galaxies
into amethyst wonder.
It is not enough
to illuminate your mind
with knowledge.
Your flesh must dance,
a wickless flame,
jump off cliffs
into the void,
drown with frogs
in an emerald
forest pool,
tangled in the fetid delight
of mud-sprung
water lilies.
You need to starve
for forty nights,
then get drunk
on a buttercup.
Life is too furious
for the merely enlightened.
A wild one needs
nakedness and victory,
a storm to ride
back into her heart-beaten
stillness.
VESPERS
“Our great mother does not take sides; she protects
the balance of life.” ~Neytiri, ‘Avatar’
Because I am neither
“for” nor “against,”
I have outraged everyone
but the Goddess…
She and I quietly
recline by a stream
eating whatever berries
are in season.
It’s the flow of stillness
we all know,
some of us carried
along by the current,
some of us just watching.
Please don’t call me
“irresponsible.”
I respond to mothwing,
breath of raindrop,
thistletouch of purple
evening, mourning cry
of mother raven
just as she dissolves
into a Winter mist.
If you want the “answer,”
friend, just rest
more passionately
in the darkening meadow
of this moment,
this silence
where the question
never arises.
WHY TARA TURNS GREEN
Some parts of your body are alive,
and some are numbed by shame.
The real purpose of meditation
is to wake up God
in your supernova toes,
arouse your bones’ erotic photons,
let each neutrino ring
like a mindfulness bell
in your rib cage,
make every proton rhythmic
with its star,
inspire a leukocyte to waltz
with a red dwarf.
This is how ancestors dance
with angels in your blood.
Have your received a morning glory’s
promiscuous smile,
a kiss from the dust on your sole?
O yogini, O devoted monk,
I know you’ve been trying to sing
without lips, “I am not this body!”
But Adam was a breath of mud.
His first wife, Lilith, liked to ride
on top, and Jesus died
on the Tree of Life shouting,
“I won’t leave anything behind!”
He claimed each sparkle
of your semen and each tear
you mingle with marrow and loam.
The half-chewed morsel
of bagel in your mouth
is the kingdom of his perfect joy.
Don’t you know he has a secret name
that means, “Miracle of Worms”?
The Bodhi Tree is the Body Tree.
That’s why Tara turns green
when her fingers stroke the ground.
It’s why we share food,
pray for sacred land and water,
laugh when we see babies,
whirl and spin like wizened leaves
at sunset when we die.
WHAT MATTERS
All that matters is the kiss
of pistil and stamen.
All that matters is the wave nature of the moon.
All that matters is the sexual caress
of listener and silence, thrill
in stillness where the music is conceived.
All that matters is the death of distances,
the sapphire yearning-pool
where the sky in your forehead drowns
my darkest embryo again and again.
Are we not born inside each
other as tears?
Here is the gift of emptiness.
All that matters is the touch
of your breath – pouring in
from its desert night across the sea
where stars arrange themselves tenderly
over your slumber –
and my breath
ebbing into the diamond blackness
that is always awake.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR A POETRYOGA PLAYSHOP
1. Standing Micro-movements
Abandon every program and routine.
There is no sequence of postures.
Stand valiantly and gently sway
in the breeze of your own breath.
Let your body rise and fall,
circling silently, a starry firmament
between your nipples,
boundless space between
the ligaments of each bone,
muscles washed in pure attention
moving from their ocean wheels,
each galactic cell of human flesh
a Wordless creation
of the infinitesimal…
There are no instructions.
There is no book.
Move more slowly, going nowhere.
Micro-movements
inventing themselves
from molten golden stillness.
Now it is you own dance…
2. Sitting Meditation
(Micro-movement of Shakti in the Spine)
From the baby’s soft spot in your crown
to your sap-dripping sacrum
runs a nerve down whose core
the liquid lightning bolt hums.
Bees feast here, making
honey of your sorrow…
Let blue fire incinerate your mind.
How could a single thought arise
in spaceless bewilderment?
Kali will guide you.
Reason is not required.
Your backbone is her wand.
The creatures around you are sparks
thrown out of that burning neuron,
the axis of your soul.
They are all inside you, the song
of the wood thrush, tangle
of devil’s claw, sunbeams
frozen at this end
into mountain tops,
vagabond comets, crazy angels
gazing over the rim
of entropy toward a horizon
of derelict light,
curved into this dewdrop
on a blade of alfalfa…
Words like “You” and “I ”
have been scorched into silence
by the Lord of Wonder,
whom we no longer call “Annihilation”
but “Master of the Dance.”
Shivo’ham, Shivo’ham!
All that remains is a swirl of cinders.
Grasping the enormity of the disaster,
we know that we cannot control
the laughter that creates the world.
Supriyo Lahiry says
Fred Lamotte, aa you say the social media is random and unpredictable and it’s also powerful. Your poem, ‘Ancestry’ went viral even before even it 2as published. Yes I received it on whatsapp in India. Thankfully unlike most WA forwards, it had your name at the bottom.
I was so moved by your poetry that I translated it into Bengali and posted it in FB.
It was liked by a lot of people and tomorrow I’ve been invited to recite it in a literary meet at Mumbai! I hope you don’t mind.
Loring says
Dear Alfred K. LaMotte,
May this find you well.
Might I have permission to share your Ancestry poem (found by way of Clare Dubios Treesister on Instagram) in my yoga studio’s upcoming June eNewsletter?
Thank you & take good care,
Loring
Alfred K. LaMotte says
You may certainly share! The poem is published in my new book, ‘The Nectar Of This Breath.’
Rich Fitzpatrick says
I heard Ned A. say today “Wash the dust from your smile with your tears…”
Is this poem in a book of yours?
Rich
Alfred K. LaMotte says
There is a version of this poem in my new book, ‘The Nectar Of This Breath.’ I’m sorry I’m just discovering this reply of yours. Thank you so much!
https://www.amazon.com/Nectar-This-Breath-Alfred-Lamotte/dp/1955194025/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2UWF19RR2GQBQ&keywords=the+nectar+of+this+breath&qid=1657597670&s=books&sprefix=nectar+of+this+breath%2Cstripbooks%2C121&sr=1-1
Frances says
Bemasked in Maun today dodging doing what I love I stumbled via dreaded FB over your words. When the world hurts we need perceptive poets. Thank you Fred La Motte for your just magical words that pull our middles with their truth and honesty.
Alfred K. LaMotte says
Thank you so much! I have not been back here in a long time .
Anna Scott says
These words feel like popping candy in my mouth they delight me so
thank you for this musical mindflow
Alfred K. LaMotte says
Thank you so much. Haven’t been back here in a while sorry to say.
Art Goodtimes says
My friend Charris Ford told me to look you up and I’m glad I did. Your poetry tips the ecstatic back to balance with the quotidian. I’m poetry editor for a National mycological journal, Fungi.com. Would you consider sending us a poem about mushrooms. Already published is fine, we can credit. Bless, Artg
Alfred K. LaMotte says
Let me see if I have one… But have you heard of Sophie Strand? Look her up. She is amazing and not only a poet of mushrooms but a scientist of mushrooms.
https://sophiestrand.com/
Fred LaMotte says
Joyce, my poem “This how I voted today…I went to the woods and dug a hole” has never been published. It was very briefly shared on facebook, and well, it got to you somehow. You can email me at [email protected] and I will get you a copy. Thank you!
Alfred K. LaMotte says
The poem I Voted, called Election, is published in my new book, ‘The Nectar Of This Breath.’ You can find it at my Amazon author’s page: amazon.com/author/alfredlamotte
Fred LaMotte says
Carl, not sure how to get in touch with you. My poem Ancestry DNA has never been published. Yes, that is the one. I shared it with a few people on facebook and it went viral. Social media is wonderfully random and unpredictable. It will be published, ironically enough, in my new book ‘The Fire of Darkness.’ which will release on February 2, at the feast of Imbolc. Please email me at [email protected] and I will let you know more about it.
Carl Schroeder says
Last summer I heard Jack Kornfeld read a poem that I believe was titled “My Ancestry” or perhaps “My Ancestry DNA” , and I believe you are the author (I bemoan my poor memory and my poor note taking). Did you write that poem, and if so, can you tell me where I can find a copy? Thanks.
joyce says
where would i find your poem This how I voted today…I went to the woods and dug a hole etc
thanks!!
Alfred K. LaMotte says
It is in my new book, The Nectar Of This Breath, that can be found at my author’s page on amazon:
amazon.com/author/alfredlamotte.
Fred LaMotte says
Zowie! Your words are great, and resonate with Gary Snyder’s. Thank you.
Sam Silva says
This is absolutely incredible stuff!
Fred LaMotte says
Honored by your words, Sam, and its an honor to be in such a very cool journal as Empty Mirror!