hazeljhall

[hazeljhall]

Coming Up on Migration Season

I wonder if the same thing that tells a bird:“Go, you cannot stay”, talks to my father’s wood pile.If this is why we throw a plastic tarpover the meticulously stacked mound every fall. We trap our logs as though the wood wishes to leave.As though the wood knows what ‘wishing’ is. It’s migration season,so we’re stacking our logs under the tarp,the tarp that’s older than me.It’s gross now and…

[hazeljhall]

Analog Perspectives in Darkroom Photography

During September to December of this year, I was very fortunate to take part in a Darkroom Photography course. I had never taken film photos before, but I have had a digital camera (DSLR) for quite a few years now. Some of that experience carried over, but not all of it did. It was fascinating learning how to visualize the colored world before me into one of black-and-white. I shot on a Pentax…

[hazeljhall]

An Alchemist's Guide to Making Insulin

It does not have to be precious;let’s create matter out of nothing. Let’s turn to this matter of nothing:the diabetic body lives off pinpricks and needles. My mother taught me how to use pins and needles;now I embroider the edges of my bruises. I have tried to put my pancreas back together with stitchesbut there is no spell to heal a diabetic body. So a mother takes up in her arms a bodyborne…

[hazeljhall]

Ghazal for the End of Time

The ghazal is a closed poetry form; here is a brief overview. The global temperature might go up a few more degrees before the end of time.I tell myself, “At least we will stop treating oil fires like dogs on leashes; they will be set free before the end of time.” I wonder how we planned to win the war on wars when everything we have has been built on blood and baby’s breath.I clench my fists a…

[hazeljhall]

The Sights of 2024

The following are photos taken across the span of 2024: January until now! They have been edited in a variety of different styles, all taken across the Northeastern United States. I was particularly inspired by black and white film photography and, in juxtaposition to this, the saturated colors of Wes Anderson films when editing. Below, the gallery is organized from now back into January of…

[hazeljhall]

Blackness Between the Keys

he sits at the edge of his stool. at the end of things. a tumultuous tower before the edge of void, pressing in; a piano key hit press before the void of what we do not know. every sight to be seen stares back at us now. him pressing those keys playing piano, head tossed back gazing up to sky and seeing our lasting resonance our song played with closed eyes, blackness before the blackness a…

[hazeljhall]

Be Gentler Still, Unquiet Sea

Be gentler still, unquiet sea; again shesees her city days. She only ever saveswhat memories are not too heavy to carry. The pigeons want to know is she happyor does she ache? How many of her daysis she still in the unquiet sea?​Just buy the ticket overseas already;forsake those days on planes and the acheof some lady saying, “that carry-on looks heavy; ​I miss carrying my things so gently.”No…

[hazeljhall]

Poem by the River

I don’t want to write about the river / that can’t smooth stones / nor the bird drawing he gave me / on Valentine’s Day / I don’t want to write / about the poems I put down / the poems I ran out of words for / the poems I buried / in the river / I don’t want to write about how my grandma / loved birds and how I / inherited her hobbies as a stone is thrown against clear water / how it skips for…

[hazeljhall]

Generational Love

Mama says,“it’s time to keep on drowning in the soul bleach; our shared memories bloodied the clockwork bends and aged us into laundromat cycles— I don’t rememberif I was dreaming when my mother and I filled the car with soap of if we are what hangs on the clothesline. But I do rememberwhen the grass cut our eyes open, and we were taught againhow to cry more than blood, just like when…

[hazeljhall]

Fishbowl Brain

Remember how you loved melike a goldfish; behind the glassof your eyes I sawmy heart was never born in Junebeside the peonies and the lilac,nor at the bus stop where you showed methe cigarettes in your body.Body, tell me about forever.Tell me how to see in 1080p, how to get backto thinking in pictures knowingthere’s a poem in which I don’t have to miss you. A poem that doesn’t smell like your…

[hazeljhall]

Poem of what goes through my mind when she tells me I don't have to be brave and I try to believe her

Beneath the wood we stacked in the takeout containers—to save money on the heat bill—is the life we’ve made. A life made of letters, made of all the ending lines, of all the poems I never sent you. I flinch at your touch but eat your frozen udon and day-old empanadas like we still have poolside talks. Like we have not been equally abandoned by each other. So if what you say is true, be brave…

[hazeljhall]

Quiet Hours

City lights glistenthrough the gold ofnight’s first kiss. And the bartender looks outthrough the twilight veil of gilded rain,wondering to himselfwhether the weather will let up,or if now is the best it will ever be. Poem and photography by Hazel J. Hall.Previously published by The Sunlight Press.

[hazeljhall]

DIY Pancreas

The hook weaves through the yarn, and, in it, I see the breaking, flowing loops of a body. Being diabetic is just like making a sweater. The needles come in and out of the skin, the stomach, the soft parts of a person you wish to keep tender. The hook does one chain stitch, then one more. As I look down at my stomach, where the insulin shots keep it warm, I notice the slip knots of purple and…

[hazeljhall]

I see my reflection in the orange juice cup

The porch talk is weighed down by crows& we look at the sun hoping it looks back.The eggs are scrambled & the dogcatches the scraps. I’m so sickof going through the motions.Same breakfast, same porch talk.I want to make orange juice by milkingstars. Space should be an ocean& tidal pools should be filled withoranges & the crows should sing aboutclementines. I want my heart to be morethan an echo…

[hazeljhall]

"Is anyone listening?"

My hands find their way onto the spaces between the piano keys. Even when the amnesia takes me over, I know, / I will still remember music. / I can’t picture where the notes laid on the lines, but I know every feeling in my fingers, where they seek to belong. I will still remember music. / The sight of a morning sun was ten million lifetimes ago, but not this, not music. I can remember. / The…

[hazeljhall]

The Shadow Cast by Gentleness

In the patter of city street puddles,I see the truth about chaos. In the center of everything, there is a light. A shining light.I see the truth: that a gentleness is also a longing, for then I glimpse a girl at a desk. I look into her while all at once lookinginto myself—I can only hopeat night she still dreams,and in the nightmares, the monstercatches her before she is forcedto run on empty,…

[hazeljhall]

My agent asked for an updated author bio

This poem was written by a monster; this poet, too. A story of life when remembered by my mind would be an itemized list, which certainly tells a tale but not a very good one. I have dreams of another life. In between the joy of a memory, I pick apart my life and find the fragments of many little stories. A mind is a piece of microfiction. I just need to hear the laughter. And tomorrow the wind…