Farewell Gamelan

a gamelan lies on the fifth floor - its players are grieving -
it should be resounding with rhythms and echoing chimes
for gamel means hammer - so why don't those beaters start heaving

I can't think of anything musically sadder than leaving
a gamelan lying neglected and gathering grime
it needs to be polished and played - we musicians are grieving

we used to rejoice in the sound of the instruments weaving
their intricate patterns while kendang and gongs kept the time
though gamel means hammer - it's programs and staff that they're cleaving

when at last we secured that ensemble - imagine how pleasing
it was after struggling for funding for years - now we find
we are back where we started - no wonder performers are grieving

imagine the loss of world music - sad news we're receiving -
those melodies kept us in tune - culture's food and its wine
though gamel means strike it's our hearts that are doing the heaving

soon they'll come with the trolleys - ensemble and stands will be leaving -
put the lot in some store room forgotten - all deemed past its prime -
to lie there unplayed - though we're shattered and cannot cease grieving
if gamel means strike - we will do it - for hearing's believing


© Hazel Hall
31 May 2012

On mourning

This sonnet was recently published on the memorial pamphlet for the late Pete Griffith

as surely as the frost of winter hides

the memory of a garden under moss -

a dark renaissance where spring resides -

I know that nature compensates for loss

not asking us to understand its choices

or question the weird mystery of grief

it emerges like a choir of many voices

to fill our hearts with wonder and belief

though misplaced memories may bring regret -

alighting briefly in our restless minds -

the act of mourning heals us and begets

its blessing as our lives are redefined -

when mourning breaks we find we can forgive -

made possible to us because we live

© Hazel Hall

21 April 2012

The Killing Fields

This poem was published in the Poets for Peace broadsheet prepared for the Anzac Eve Peace Vigil 24 April 2012.

It was read on 2xx FM on ANZAC Day by Christopher Dorman.
Now republished by Poets for Peace on a new broadsheet in July 2012

To sleep, perchance to dream - Hamlet (III, i, 65-68)

peace is lying deep within these shallow ponds

calm and ceaseless sleep beneath the leafy fronds

the searing heat, the screaming and sirens have long ceased -

an all-abiding dreaming commenced at their release

like sentinels the trees - that meant no harm nor wrong -

yet eager roots still squeeze the sleepers in tight bonds

with crumpled fists creased fabrics peep from the greedy earth -

a shirt, a tattered piece of black and knotted scarf

though reverently we tread over splinters worn and bleached

and suggestions of a head - the dead remain unreached

in pyramids piled neatly the sightless ones are stocked

encased in glass discreetly - locked in eternal shock

but none can stop the plunder - its intent as cold as steel

while innocence still slumbers in these patient fertile fields

© Hazel Hall

Phnom Penh 8 August 2009

Australian Poetry Cafe Poets in Residence

On Friday 8 June I begin my Poet in Residence at Biginelli Espresso Cafe at the School of Music ANU. For more information on the Cafe Poets Program go to Australianpoetry.org and follow the links.