Balinese Danse Macabre Poem by Eddie Roa

Red faced dancers on artful bowed legs
Gold tipped fingers on an upward tilt
Wide eyed but expressionless
Beckoning with uncertain malice

Peacock headdress strutting, eyes like
Black dots darting left, then right
Oblivious of the boisterous, crass crowd
Heads cranking on the plink of the gamelan

Foot bells tinkle at the angklung’s hollow beat
Earthy auburn songket sarong with gilded edge
Glittered loudly with each half turn of
Pretty boys masquerading as nubile dancers

At the last clang of the agong they scampered
Sucked into the emptiness of the dark night
Malevolent sounds shriek from the blackness
Augured that somewhere tragedy will strike

It was a chilling, killing night in Bali
Terror struck with hellish ferocity
Scarlet striped pale faces run helter-skelter
Minced by shards strewn by wrathful blast

Mangled limbs dangled on dancing carcasses
The hapless hobbled and crept, lost in terror
The pall of the blackened smoke draped heavy
Kuta reeked with zealot’s pungent burnt hate

In nearby Nusa Dua, the merriment runs on
Youthful artistes plied their age-old trade
While revelers loud with obscene laughter
Unaware of the other carnage and despoliation

In the morrow they washed their bikinis
To rid of the red that came with the tide
Batik now indelibly stained with carmine blot
A stain in the land’s richly textured tapestry

Where now the inimitable Balinese smile?
Where now the art of the woodcarver, the painter,
The smithy, the batik dyer, dancer and the puppet maker?
Where now the white sands the majestic promontories?

Senseless slaughter of anyone, anything, everything
Not for all the promise of virgins, white horses and
Heavenly gates can ever make right the selfish injustice
Pancasila violated by militant butchers of the faith

The euphony and gaiety of the festive stamboul
Replaced by pained moans of the stricken
And the hissing groans from mutilated throats
Cry anguish that echo even in distant hearts

What a waste, what a shame! Why Bali? Why?
Fountainhead of art, island of beauty and amity
God’s pearl spoiled by the ugliness of inhumanity
Of ignorance, of intolerance and manic zeal