Hall, Rodney

England/Australia, (b. 1935)

Folk tales: 5

  1. Even as a child he was a model,
  2. everyone agreed, unfailingly polite–
  3. as a student, punctual and diligent,
  4. hoped for a long career
  5. in advertising or insurance–
  6. at twenty faced his duty
  7. strapped himself inside a uniform
  8. saw his number on a Saigon plane.
  9. So he went to kiss his mother
  10. shake his father’s hand–goodbye–
  11. but he found instead his bayonet out.
  12. They it was who gave him strength
  13. with all the moral lessons he’d been taught:
  14. he cut them down he cut them
  15. down and hacked their loving faces off
  16. even while they thanked him for remembering.
  17. (What are you going to be when you grow up?)
  18. “I’m going to be,” he said, “obedient.”
  19.  
  20. This pink pig went to commerce
  21. And this pink pig stayed at home
  22. This pink pig smoked grass man
  23. And this pink pig smoked cod
  24. But this pink pig said Hell all I want
  25. is to be like a bird in flight
  26. without a shadow that’s all

 Rodney Hall. The Owner of My Face: New and Selected Poems. St. Leonards, NSW: Paper Bark Press (2002).

The hunter

  1. Neighbourly day was over, a hunter ventured out
  2. to await with prickling skin the mute attack,
  3. for chilly night to waterfall
  4. and wash along his back.
  5.  
  6. The hills ahead, grotesque and hung with misty beards,
  7. like hope or understanding, shyly withdrew
  8. from man’s approach. The hunter crawled
  9. in winter’s residue.
  10.  
  11. He waited (eardrums throbbing, hands like metal, frosted
  12. hair, and eyes as crisp as the moon at midnight)
  13. to catch some hint of an angry tread:
  14. the pigs of his own spite.

 Rodney Hall. Eyewitness: Poems. Sydney: South Head Press (1967).

About the Poet:

Rodney Hall, England/Australia, (b. 1935) is an Australian poet, editor and writer. He was born in England and immigrated to Australia during his childhood, receiving a B.A. in Music from the University of Queensland in 1971.

Hall has worked as a freelance scriptwriter, actor and film critic; a music tutor and lecturer in recorder; an Aboriginal rights activist; an advisory editor at Overland magazine and as poetry editor for The Australian daily newspaper in Sydney.

Hall began publishing poetry in the 1970s and has since published fifteen books of his own poetry and thirteen novels. He has also edited eight poetry collections and anthologies, contributed to seven works of criticism and biography and published his autobiography. [DES-02/18]