TERMITES TRIBAL MARCH & MIDTOWN CHARITY BALL – a collection of peoms by Lawren Bale

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Termite's Tribal March,
a Work Still in Progress

in which direction is this world really turning?
with the missing feet of the murdered
running in the billions
and agent orange, supposedly tamed
renamed Round Up, commonly available
in every garden, a green house of death . . .
in water tables, ozone layers
acid rain, and crack

if our species is somehow able to survive
what will our progeny say?
as we leave them a heritage of orange county Disney style
fantasylands, become a major growth . . . a cancer
a construction, cum service industry . . .
carved out of the ruined map of myth and natural process
scraped and pushed into antiseptic parks of amusement
exquisitely childish escape in the realm of the homeless

what's left of the wild, the natural and free . . .
must each generation mold it all
to mirror their collective dreams of greed
an' thereby invite, indeed guaranteeing these disasters
like the downtrodden, brokenhearted souls
wharehoused in our broken inner cities?

Spring, 1990

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Tina At Work

Her Epistemic Windmills
               Churning
                   Downhill Skiers
          In New Powdered Snow
     Butterflies, Hummingbirds
                   Domesticated Felines
                All fluttering hostages
                    of institutional walls
                         and sick building syndrome
                      The Prisoner of Zelda
      Held captive in our Bureaucratic wasteland
                     Designing her Escapades . . .
                Prepare the mailing
                    Answer the Phone,
                          Compile and Edit
                      the Database,
              The second hand sweeps
                      through molasses

07/05/93

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Ode of the Refugee Mother

Kabul is on fire
and we are all refugees
I have given two sons
as martyrs
one of them was hit by a rocket
and blown to bits
he was only twenty
his brother was eighteen

My niece, a little girl of 3
lost her hands
and one eye
to a land mind,
it looks like a plastic toy

What can I say?
I've had enough of these people
and their holy war

04/14/94

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Unraveling a Silken Shroud

Having fashioned these cocoons of silken thread
              the conch snail unravels it shell, unawares
   in the garden
              the spider on its dandelion
                          patiently spins her web

04/14/94

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Pluperfect Here:
that we are here manifest . . .
that in itself . . .
that which gentle binds
with message
smiling surges, warmth of spring
that warmth of snuggled in your arms
that luminous and glowing
accessible, flows
even at its lowest ebb,
rains triumphant returning
. . . that unnamed silent plotting
that with laughing eyes
beholding
only
to that
all . . .
(this and more)

Before the Rapture

before the disappearing
four plagues, clothed in bleak newsprint
return with deadly aim . . .
their horsemen raid in titanium chariots
or iron pigs, there, unmuffled idling
ceramic hardened, off in the distance
many buried up to their turrets
like desolated castles in the sand
in the deserts of time buried, beneath an open sky
burning campfires, mark the distant standoff
two armies encamped in the desert
preparing to burn in hell.

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their horseman thrive on radiation
hawking the continued production of plutonium
and other fissionable materials
beside the pristine dawning brook,
this alarming diversification of high tech
weapons and destruction guaranteed to drive
into extinction countless species of birds,
insects, microbes, and amphibian friends
disappearing: lost in space, lost
to the seeping tenacity of radioactive, chemical
wastes, contaminants suppressing all life, beside
a flourishing proliferation of the nuclear club. . . .
there horsemen ride in hydrocarbons . . .
chemi-suits, rubber boots
and masks, all are standard issue.
cloaked in techno-science slogans, green revolutions
buying precious time, spewing newer gasses,
sewing death, sterilizing the soils, flooded
in suicidal mists of chemical intervention.
warning, as if you don't already know,
PCB's and other such substances
act negatively on children,
pets, and every friendly ecosystem
. . . shrinks away, cursing. . . .
so forebodes the rapture
the unexplained disappearance
of countless sacred orders
these angels, messengers of God
reaching out in dismay
confidently groping for an end to these plagues

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these horsemen ride on half-truth lies . . . . .
beneath the sheets concealing their true identity
in halftone images, public relations
scams and ploys, pooled correspondents,
need to know ethics, poisoning intrigue, violence
and high finance . . . dumping their creativity
on the dawning meadow's brook, endangered life forms
calmly alert, warming her brood, confident in her song
a mother's complex nesting shrill, proposes
the hatchling's insistent chirp,
perched at the center of their world,
sways in outstretched arms
a sapling's stark branches
arched stubbornly open
receptive, asserting
beholden only to
that all . . .
all this
and more
     .                                that we are here manifest
                                               that in itself
.                                   that which gentle binds

with message
smiling surges, warmth of spring
warmth of snuggled in your arms
that luminous and glowing
accessible, flows
even at its lowest ebb,
rains triumphant returning
. . . that unnamed silent plotting
that with laughing eyes
beholding
only
to that
all . . .
(all this and more)

02/22/91

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Ma Bale, a Reminiscence

Give us an aging car
             an open road, a map
                           and a navigator
And we'll fly the whites lines
            in odd and even numbers
Across the concrete ribbons
            toward the widening horizon
                        we'll fly
As far as the eye can see . . .
I'll sing you cowboy songs
            and ballads of my youth
                         we'll play the alphabet game
Rock slide down oak creek canyon
            we'll cross the great divide
Explore the parched badlands,
            and the painted desert
We'll visit the garden of the gods
             read verse on the run
                          by the side of the road
             burma shave
And marvel at the wedding of the waters

04/13/92

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For Valentine's Day

For the mother who gave us
California poppies
The redwoods in spring
Weekends at Seacliff State Beach
in October
And in the August might, Mt. Diablo,
Contra Costa
"Paradise in a Nut Shell," Walnut Creek
Summer heat
Excursions to Golden Gate Park
Fisherman's Wharf
Chinatown and Seal's Point
Salt water taffy
"Ripley's Believe It or Not"
Life with a California Poppy
Love and Fond Remembrance
For the mother who gave us
Life . . .

02/13/92

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Ma's Birthday, A Reminiscence

I remember, not so long ago, After a week in Oregon
With Steve and Pam, Barry Roy, Brett and the Boys
We sailed your clackity diesel Old's
      back through my childhood
             where it had snowed on Easter Sunday . . .
Back through the logging country, Through clear June skies
Past oceans of evergreen redwood, spruce, ceder and pine
Through Medford and Ashland, Southeast
             Over Grant's Pass

On cruise control, we drifted into the moonscape and
Barren shadows of Mt. Shasta and Lassen, like old times
Together, talking about everything
      we rushed through Redding
              went around Red Bluff
Stopped for gas, some coke and refreshment
And floated into the sweltering heat
              of the Sacramento rice crop. . .
At the capitol city our path veered left,
              East northeast Up the Sierra Nevada to Truckee
              And beyond, to Northshore Lake Tahoe!

Remember the goofy floor show?
              A topless chorus line of hapless dancers
        and two Spectacularly bronzed acrobats
              Refigees from muscle beach . . .
Remember the three dollar slots Our passion! And our glee!
             Our hands gun metal grey, as the day passed
       and water turned to wine
             We beat the one armed bandits!
Sixty loaves became six hundred
       and financed my first semester
              at Theological School

07/21/93

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The Screw's Turning

the screw turns
and we return, back where we began
just a bit older, apparently no wiser,
reliving anew the churlish summer
days of rage and hate, days of frustration
bitterly harvested,
fruits of past generations
burnt in frosts of benign neglect . . .
stalked in the ghettos' sticky cage,
and tamed in sour cream suburban surrender
our landscapes, stoked and smoldering coals
     of bilateral racial hate,
now more than ever,
     a two way street
rushing into a collective cul-de-sac. this catastrophe,
a rolly coaster carousel
the social suicide of a herd
an outrageously clumsy
metaphor of bucking broncos, blinded
and strapped under our children
this captive generation
     maimed and mauled,
thrown from their saddles
     at best wounded, crippled
and bleeding,

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gnashing their teeth . . .
with cracked up heads and clubbed feet
they trudge through our city streets
resentful hearts, reflected in their angry faces
the entire pack, on both sides of the redlined
walls, miming my generation's errors and mendacity,
as our complacency comes back to haunt us, back around
echoing voices silenced, yet still resonating
voices of martin and malcolm, and che
voices of abbey hoffman, phil ochs, lew welch
richard brautigan and jack kerouac
turning back on time's axis
echoing throughout
our recursive social circuitry our tom-foolery, as well,
amplified to distortion
ricochets throughout life's
spiralling particle accelerator
cyclotronic neglect
fed into biofeedback networks
our children, this captive generation,
as captive as the electrons in a cathode-ray tube. . . .
tubed and emulating the TV, the theater
of their city streets . . .
mimicking their cinemas' titillating death wish
slasher flicks, dirty harry,
swartschennegger, counterfeit karate clowns, clones . . .
breakin' bones like twigs or sticks,
kickin' ass, an' takin' names . . .

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       an' jus' like on the tube,
our kids are killing themselves
     out on their country roads
or our fast lane freeways
     and down on our inner city streets . . .
giving up their vision
     and dying. the screw's slow turning
burns cold, like slow rolling thunder
     burns bright
shimmering across the night sky
tracers of life, orange sunbursts
off in the distance of
the space-time continuum
the sparkling motion of light
rampant on a field of water lilies
blue lightning balls
turning back upon an axis,
     reaping
assorted doughnuts,
      a baker's dozen
of torus, figurative speech
in a sack entwined,
     like twisted spirals
our tepid fate, in a bag of pretzels
turning back in galactic rap around,
     and kharmic cycles of praxis

04/19/91

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Death's Dream

I had this dream, ya see
it was a nightmarish vision, starring
the Fieldmarshall, who looked across the battlefield
menacing and lean, like death warmed over . . .
with a patch over one eye, and yes
his pirate, brigand's face, full but blankly confident
fills the screen, a grimanched
leering, in living pallid color
and real flesh, a grinning death head . . .
his skin, leathery and drawn, puffy
splotches, wrinkled & sagging
around the one good eye,
a dark socket, with one fiery coal of an eye
the jolly roger, skull & bones come to life
with an eye patch, and yet another mission . . .

Above the noise and confusion of a battle about to begin
he cries out, exhorting his followers,
in every tongue known,
are ya with me, men!? . . . (well are ya?)

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            Up he scrambles
up onto the back of a flatbed truck
over the roar of his tanks, half-tracks & APCs
he calls out to his commanders,
his light artillery and infantry,
all together now
moving up over a bank . . .

             When five large armor piercing slugs,
44 caliber automatic fire,
cut through the truck's cab,
flying fragments of flesh 'n blood
rip out the back of Field Marshall's chest
as he crumples, a marionette without strings
a rag doll in a pile, oozing life. . .

             All so graphically depicted in modern cinema,
as I struggle to awaken, on the horizon
a horde emerges, crashing through the lines
rushing at me, a bullet passes through
the lens of a camera,
shattered glass
and the screen fills up with blood. . . .

08/03/91

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Johnny's Girl
Keeper of Secrets

Her loneliness must have been profound
    The family moved every few months
         and had no contact with relatives
    Their only friends were business associates
Because she longed for normalcy and acceptance,
    like all children, she too became
         a keeper of secrets

For a long time she viewed her parents
    as people living outside the mainstream,
         but they weren't, not really
Their goals were no different from those of others
         of their generation;
    only their means were different . . .

He was a man of exact manners and expensive tastes
He nurtured a lifelong love affair with huge finned luxury
    cars and jewelry . . . He loved Cadillacs best
His jewelry was like his cars: large and expensive.
Her mother spent most of her adult life in institutions
    She was a stripper and prostitute who worked in bars
         until she succumbed
         to recurring mental illness

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They were divorced when Johnny's girl was five
She saw her mother for the last time in a nursing home
She was nine and didn't look forward to seeing her
     For the three years before,
          she had been in and out of cold places
     with white walls and white linoleum floors
mental institutions and nursing facilities . . .

Mother was a stranger, her eyes seemed to search mine
for answers and help, but I never knew what to do.
The father, whom she found dashing and glamorous
     although she was afraid of him,
          flattered and flirted
then flew into rages and beat her. A career petty
     criminal, he came and went without explanation.
He never so much as told her his real name . . .

Johnny was a steersman who led pigeons or unsuspecting
     victims, amateurs, into crooked card games
          with professional gamblers. He graduated
     to owning massage parlors
          that were actually brothels,

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He also ran an illegal gambling operation in his house
His murder was followed by a sensational trial . . .
For a long time, her father's FBI rap sheet was all she had
by way of a family history, Her loneliness must have been profound
     The family moved every few months
          and had no contact with relatives
     Their only friends were business associates
Because she longed for normalcy and acceptance,
          like all children, she became
               a keeper of secrets

For a long time she viewed her parents as people
     living outside the mainstream,
          but they weren't, not really
     Their goals were no different from those of others
of their generation; only their means were different . . .

04/13/93

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Top

Sunday Morning Jazz For Free
At the Historische Museum

For those of us who see
what could be breaking through
against what has been and remains
that which pours forth
from the torn and opened wounds
of our shrinking, beleaguered world
is such a bloody waste! I offer these words
not in despair
to the one what holds our world
together
to whom every person who labors
for peace and selfless society
offers their work May we all yet hear
if not see, and through
your grace, or whatever,
may we find our way
to harmony

18.07.82 (Hochschule St. Georgen, Ff / M, BRD)

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