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