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Alex Potter  Feb 2017
Orlando
Alex Potter Feb 2017
I saw the news of that night,
I saw the people cower in fright,
I felt their love fall to the ground,
I knew the fear would spread around,
Down in the place called Orlando

The outed, the loved, the brave,
The ones in closets, dark like a cave,
The lonely, the lovely,
The ones like dogs stomping muddily,
Down in dear old Orlando.

No one had expected what came next,
It was something like text,
You read from a book,
Now don't ever look,
Down in Orlando.

What was once a place,
A very special space,
Space for those different than him,
He thought they were a sin,
Now it's no more in Orlando.

All they wanted was love,
But their souls flew like a dove,
No more of their musical,
Wonderful, beautiful,
Lives in Orlando.

To all those,
Who rose,
To the next place,
I give you good grace.
I am sorry for all that's been done,
I know sometimes life hasn't been fun,
But you didn't deserve,
To be served,
The final, the last,
Place. I'm sad that you passed,
Into death.
I know this was a while ago, but after the Pulse shooting in Orlando, I wrote this poem, and only just found out about Hello Poetry, so thought that it was the best place to post something like this. I hope you like it!
Aaron LaLux Jun 2016
∆ The Fear (Orlando Commando) ∆

Oh my God son,
did you hear,
there was another terrorist attack,
and again comes The Fear.

The shootings by these psychos,
struck some familiar cords,
extreme actions by extremist with suicidal tendencies,
leads to the tightening of borders,

the attacks in Orlando last week,
happened on Saturday Night,
gives us all The Fever and The Chills,
all at the same time.

The incident occurred,
during at a club in Orlando,
a rouge shooter emerged,
and went Extremest commando,

this ****** had his finger on the trigger,
until EMTs arrived to put their fingers on the pulse,
of victims slain for no good reason at all,
this violence is insane when will it halt?

Oh how patronizingly patriotic and fitting everything is!

From shootings in Paris,
to drones strikes in deserts,
if you ask me,
they’re all terrorist,
extremist are extremist,
extremism is extremism,
I don’t support any extreme,
I don’t support any regime,
I don’t support patriots in chariots,
I don’t support Sharia law in it’s most extreme variance,

fck this,

I fckn mean this,

why I have to fckn cuss,
to get your attention,
three minutes to make a point,
with the words I mention,
intentions,
set,
like smart bombs and ******’s focus,
IMF got the world in debt dollars are tokens,
tokens we use to play,
the game of life until God takes us away,

away,
gotta be a better way,
than bombing each other,
why the fck did we even enter Iraq,
and engage in that trouble,
what’s the real reason,
and no don’t fckn say oil,

bombs over Baghdad,
down with Saddam,
up with the black flag,
stab you in the back like a black ***,
fck that that’s all hate,
why the fck are us as in US even in Iraq,
why do attack others can’t we find the time to just relax and relate,

can’t really blame President Baraka Flacka,
he’s done as good as any of us could in his position,
a president is just one man he’s not God,
so he has to do what he does to pursue his visions,
still we spend millions on maniacal missions,
making incisions into civilizations putting them into critical conditions,

I must be a punk because I feel like all religion is Bad Religion,

NO ONE IS INNOCENT,

that’s what ISIS is trying to say,
that’s why they chose to attack a normal place,
because when the US kills 500,000 in Iraq,
shooting 100 people in a bar in Paris doesn’t seem that bad,

fck it,
someone could walk into this crowd right now and start shooting,
just like,
a hurricane could hit Florida today and by the tonight there’d be looting.

NO ONE IS INNOCENT,

that’s what ISIS is trying to say,
we all play our part,
in this macabre play,
and I warn you right now,
don’t ignore the problems and think they’ll just go away,

if you work your *** off,
then you pay your taxes,
we’ve all got blood on our hands,
and I’m not saying that those in foreign lands,
are any better than us *******,
anyone with an AK-47 can get buried in the sands!

But what the fck ever,
have another beer cheers,
pretend everything’s ok,
try and drown out The Fear with beers,

but you can not ignore,
that tightening feeling in your stomach,
and can not ignore the fact that we’re all lost,
sea sick on the high seas feeling like I might *****,
so we stare up at the stars,
hoping we can catch a ride on a comet,

hoping maybe someone will save us,

we save up,
but still our taxes go to destruction,
supposedly targeting the axis of evil,
but regardless the target bombs have only one function,

destruction,
there’s nothing smart about a smart bomb,
anyone that wishes to wage war should just move to another planet,
and all of us that wish to wage peace should just stay here,

****** is ******,
I don’t want to hurt any other human being,
that’s it,
I’m sick of rooting for the home team,

I feel so fckn ashamed to be an American right now,

NOT ANOTHER BOMB DROPPED IN MY NAME!

Where do we go,
when everyone’s gone,
and there’s no one left to blame?

Right here,
the red, white and blue,
same colors as France,
these colors don’t run fool!

To proud,
to admit our mistakes,
like when you lie to someone you love,
they confront you and you punch them right in the face,

except for instead of a punch,
we unleash bio-chemical energy warfare,
call it a hunch,
but I’d say we are all guilty of war crimes here,

here,
have some facts bro,
Raqqa,
attacked for,
extremist attackers,
attacking the people of Paris no answers,

only questions,

no pleas for peace,
only military police,
only guns and more machismo,
still no peace in the Middle East,

can we please get a little peace in the Middle East?

Can we please get a little peace here for that matter,
can we just have the love and let the hate evaporate,
uggh it's all so painful and so heartbreaking,
and I don't know how much more of this I can take!

And usually I can ignore it,
and just say it’s someone else’s problem,
but honestly this whole world is fct,
unless we find resolution and solutions for these problems.

Oh my God son,

Oh my God son,
did you hear,
there was another terrorist attack,
and again comes The Fear…

∆ Aaron LA Lux ∆

Hollywood Hearts available worldwide 7/7/16

#orlandoshooting #pulseshooting #pulsenightclub #terrorist #isis #stoptheviolence #terroristattack #peace
RIP Peace...
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2016
And The Hungry Ocean Spoke:

sea the human modifier,
each wave,
a dance choreographed,
a fomented friction, a whitecap invitation,
dispelling man made fictions,
repititiously reminding to:

remember, ascertain, fail, try again,
to reckon the imprecise place
you occupy upon this Earth
and be ever wave grateful

you-man, speck sized,
suffer tenderly these unceasingly reminders,
provisions of stiff winds,
soft slaps of gusting humility
coming from a roughened atmosphere

perspective, not selective,
sea how much loss I have
eons stored for you-man

has time's tenure insufficient
to yet teach you-man,
to the one conclusion bring,
kindness towards a living thing,
is the life's solitary methodology
to survive upon our shared principality?

oh desperately,
this hungry ocean, inquires:

what advantage does
your kingdom of the shore provide,
upon both the soft soil and the hard boil water,
doth not life and death mutually coexist
beneath my watery bounds,
yet killing for pleasure
here has no measure,
unlike your cursed you-man
internecine interactions

you, man, every-one, and each
a cornerstone, an etched mark so slight,
footprint in the sand, a shifting, imperfect, yet lasting,
molecular impression for all time

all time,
till the next second, the next air lifting, the next wave,
our creator's begging method of commanding,
surrender your Babel Tower's mortal arrogance

I am not human, yet I am modified.

each wave an accusation.

Oh Orlando!

what have you-men become,
infinitesimal but universal,
sparking containers of miraculous
creation breathing,

what justifications
do your bloodied solutions
that be no answers, provide?

here you-man
come once more to my irregular edges,
to replenish regularly my stores.
with your unwanted salted tears,
the sullied bodies of thy children,
mourning deaths you have fostered

Oh Orlando!

weeping, weeping,
even as your pulse's fury speedth,
every dance must end,
for to time subservient,
even as time ever forwards,
living men must slow weaken...

live by the sea,
die by the sea,
come unto me only as,
unruined mortals,
worn only by happy ending of
molecular disintegration,
the sweetness of time's decay,
a recording completed,
your resolute dancing resolved

come unto me
only from deaths
which one cannot void
but come concluded peaceful

Oh Orlando!*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shakespeare­ Sonnet LXIV

When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced
The rich proud cost of outworn buried age;
When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed,
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;
When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state itself confounded to decay;
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate
That Time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Wild animals never **** for sport. Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself.” James Anthony Froude (British historian, 1818-1894)

~~~
June 12 ~ 18, 2016
Shelter Islamd

also inspired by Jessica Lang,
Choreographer
Carly Salzberg Sep 2010
The sun bakes down heavily on a plastic micro planet in Orlando, Florida
where crowded trams drop American bushels of tourists into an alien world.
Quickly fantasy comes alive
through a corporation of disguise.
The workers mask themselves in a drapery of familiar life
-like costumes to charm little children’s hearts.
They smile wildly, carving a clear dimple line on the but of their cheeks. Walt’s Disney World
must have driven every one of America’s circuses out of business.
The flying trapeze is too elegant,
people now want to be strapped in,
buckled up and whipped around
to forcibly experience the true velocity of entertainment.
Even the participant’s attire is geared for this third world oblivion. Neon ***** packs rest like bloated kangaroo pouches
on fat sweaty old lady’s round hips, their plump fingers
holding on to leashed harnesses reined to their child’s small chest.
This is vacation,
strangers of people in massive conglomerations
with confused expressions and burnt faces.
Even the food seems wickedly unnatural,
like an artificial order of burning plastic and sour dough surprise.
Waiting is the enthusiast’s pastime as parades
of anxious voyeurs are captivated by a trance
fixation of lights and whistles.
They line up like schools of lemming,
plunging on rides,
one by one.

This is the place
Where memories are made
And dreams come true
AFJ  May 2015
bando.
AFJ May 2015
we was in the bando,
trappin, we were trapped..
cook named Orlando,
moved across the track..

used to be my  neighbor, now hes got the paper,
owns a couple barbershops, got myself a taper,

owns a deli too, couple cleaners down the main street,
not long ago we were sitting in the same seat..

back when,

we was in the bando,
trappin, we were trapped..
kitchen hot too handle,
Found ourselves a rat..

polices, driving by increases...
Orlando had a thesis,
Moved in with his nieces..
He says...

"Theyll never catch me in here,
I live without fear,
only time i cry is with this tattoo tear"

A couple days later, cops broke the door in,
couple windows too, just to let more in,
they found a couple rifles, most of them foreign...
Cuffed Orlando, his niece, and his babymomma Lauryn...

multiple charges of distribution.
couple cases of ******...
money laundering, and weapons, his attorney would murmur...


They say my writing *****, this is no place for this crap..
i dont do poetry, i just write reality rap..
and truthfully, nowadays reality lacks.
So i dedicated this to his daughter Natalie Max.

25 to life..
no chance of parole, bottle....

of hennessy,

just *** he was my role model..

They say how can you defend him, when i yell free Orlando..
*** i still remember when..
we was in the bando...




-afj
Cedric McClester Jun 2016
By: Cedric McClester

I cling to the memory
Of our last time together
Though I can’t find the symmetry
In knowing that we’ll never
Share those precious moments
Like we did back then
Because all of that was stolen
When I lost you my friend

Orlando used to be known as
The happiest place on earth
Until forty-nine people were senselessly murdered
So how much is it worth

I cling to the memory
Because that’s all I have
And the jokes that you would tell
That always made me laugh
Tragedy does not begin
To even remotely describe
The empty feeling that I have
Because you’re not alive

Orlando used to be known as
The happiest place on earth
Until forty-nine people were senselessly murdered
So how much is it worth

Things can happen in a second
Ya see we never know
Here today is not to say
How long we have and so
Learn to cherish every moment
Because you never know

I cling to the memory
That in quiet times I review
I guess it’s elementary
How much I’m missin’ you
Hopefully I’ll recover
But it’s gonna take me time
To try to find a reason
For such a senseless crime

Orlando used to be known as
The happiest place on earth
Until forty-nine people were senselessly murdered
So how much is it worth


























Cedric McClester, Copyright (c) 2016.  All rights reserved.
Thomas EG  Jun 2016
Orlando
Thomas EG Jun 2016
Fifty innocent deaths
Are fifty deaths too many
They prove that the world still

Is full of hatred
I have a right to hate it
Proof: This blood spill

And now there is a lack of blood
Yet we are not allowed donate ?
O positive and O negative, oh

Mainly, I am positive that
This needs to change
**I am so sorry, Orlando
At times like this, we must unite and show the world that #lovewins
judy smith Jul 2016
The 9.6 million followers who tune in to watch Miranda Kerr having her hair done on Instagram — for this is how models spend most of their time — were treated to a rather more interesting sight last Thursday: a black and white photograph of a whacking great diamond ring.

Across it was the caption “Marry me!” and a twee animation of the tech mogul Evan Spiegel on bended knee. Underneath Kerr had typed “I said yes!!!” and an explosion of heart emojis.

A spokesman for Spiegel, founder of the Snapchat mobile app, who is 26 to Kerr’s 33 and worth $US 2.1 billion to her $US 42.5 million , revealed “they are very happy”.

At first, the marriage seems an unlikely combination: a man so bright he founded Snapchat while still at Stanford University, becoming one of the world’s youngest self-made billionaires by 22, and a Victoria’s Secret model who was previously married to the Pirates of the Caribbean star Orlando Bloom (she allegedly had a fling with pop brat Justin Bieber, leading Bloom to punch Beebs in a posh Ibiza restaurant).

Perhaps the union indicates that there is more to Kerr than we thought. More likely, it reveals something about Spiegel — and the way the social status of “geeks” has changed.

Since Steve Jobs made computers cool and Millennials started living online, nerds are king. Even coding is **** enough for the model Karlie Kloss, singer will.i.am and actor Ashton Kutcher to learn it. Silicon Valley has become the new Hollywood, as moguls and social media barons take over from film stars and sportsmen not just on rich lists, but as alpha men.

Being a co-founder of a company is this decade’s equivalent to being a rock star or a chef. And, if their attractiveness to models and actresses proves anything, then being a Twag — tech wife or girlfriend — is a “thing”. Sources tell me Twags are also known as “founder-hounders” because they like to date the creators of start-up companies.

Actress Talulah Riley was an early adopter. She started dating the PayPal founder Elon Musk in 2008. Riley, then fresh from starring in the St Trinian’s film, met Musk in London’s Whisky Mist nightclub after he had delivered a lecture at the Royal Aeronautical Society. I interviewed her shortly afterwards and she told me they had spent the evening talking about “quantum physics”. A month later they were engaged. Their on-again-off-again marriage lasted six years before she filed for divorce again in March. Currently Musk, worth an estimated $US 12.7 billion and focused on Tesla cars, is said to be “spending a lot of time” with Johnny Depp’s estranged wife, Amber Heard.

Model Lily Cole dated the Twitter founder Jack Dorsey in 2013. Later she had a son with Kwame Ferreira, founder of the digital innovation agency Kwamecorp. Actress Emma Watson is going out with William Knight, an “adventurer” who has an incredibly boringly sounding job as a senior manager at Medallia, a software company. Allison Williams, Marnie in the HBO television show Girls, is married to Ricky Van Veen, co-founder of College Humor website.

Could it be that these women are onto something? Dating a bro certainly has its appeal. They are innovative: how else would they invent apps that deliver cheese toasties or match singles based on their haircuts? They are risk-takers who must be charismatic enough to inspire investors and attract crowd-funding. They may not be gym-fit, but they are mathletes who can do your tax bill. They are animal lovers: every start-up is dog friendly. And they are fun: who would not want to date somebody with a ball pool in their office?

There is a saying about dating in Silicon Valley: the odds are good but the goods are odd. Nerds are notorious for peculiar chat-up lines and normcore clothes. Still, if geeks can be awkward, that is part of their charm. Keira Knightley, complaining that Silicon Valley was all men in hoodies and Crocs, described how one gave her his card, saying she should get in touch if she wanted to see a spaceship.

One Vogue writer recalled a Silicon Valley man messaging her via a dating app, in which he noted: “In 50 per cent of your photos you’re holding an iPhone. It may interest you to find out that I invented the iPhone. More accurately I was an engineer on the original iPhone . . .”

Most promisingly, some guys are astoundingly rich. It is suggested Kerr’s engagement ring is a 2.5-carat diamond worth around dollars 55,000. She has already moved into Spiegel’s dollars 12m LA pad. Between his money and her Victoria’s Secrets bridesmaids, no wonder sources claim they are planning an “extravagant wedding”.

It might rival even the Napster founder Sean Parker’s $US10m performance-art bash. He married songwriter Alexandra Lenas in a canopy among Big Sur’s redwoods decorated to look like an enchanted forest. Some 350 guests wore Tolkienesque costumes created by The Lord of the Rings costume designer Ngila Dickson. They sat on white fur rugs and were given bunnies to pet. Presumably rabbit babysitters were on hand when the disco started.

If such fantasies inspire you to become a Twag, the great news is you do not have to be a supermodel to be in with a chance. Such is the dearth of single women in Silicon Valley that one dating site, Dating Ring, crowdfunded a plane to fly single women to Palo Alto from New York.

Be warned, though: guys are single because they are married to the job.

No wonder most meet their partners at college or work — the Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg met his wife, Priscilla Chan, at Harvard.

The Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom met girlfriend Nicole Schuetz at Stanford. Melinda met Bill Gates when, in 1987, they sat next to each other at an Expo trade-fair dinner. “He was funnier than I expected him to be,” she said.

Kerr began dating Spiegel in 2014 after meeting him at a Louis Vuitton dinner in New York. You can bet he was networking. Shortly after Louis Vuitton showcased their cruise collection in a Snapchat story. Last season Snapchat went on to become the biggest new name at NY fashion week.

If you want to meet tech guys, you might catch them at Silicon Valley parties, which is how the Uber chief executive Travis Kalanick met his partner, Gabi Holzwarth, a violinist hired to play. Or they might be schmoozing clients downtown in a swanky Noe Valley club in San Francisco or a boring Union Square hotel in New York. In London you find them around Old Street, aka Silicon Roundabout, in bars, at hackathons, or start-up meet-ups. In the day they are coding at Google Campus or practising their pitching in a co-working space.

Some tech boys date the old-fashioned way: on Tinder. Airbnb founder Brian Chesky met his girlfriend of three years, Elissa Patel, through the app. When I interviewed Instagram co-founder Systrom he admitted that when he had been single he had signed up.

Dating agency Linx — presumably a play on operating system Linux — is dedicated to making Silicon Valley matches. Amy Andersen set it up in 2003 after moving to Palo Alto and being “flabbergasted” by the number of eligible men. She claims her clients are “extremely dynamic and successful individuals’’: tech founders, tech chief executives, financier founding partners of large institutions and “tons of entrepreneurs”.

Andersen says tech guys make “fabulous partners”. Romantic and chivalrous, they write love letters, plan dates, “even proposing on Snapchat!” If you want to marry a tech billionaire, she says, “you need to bring your A game.” Her clients look “for women who are equally, if not more, dynamic and interesting than he is!”

There are drawbacks to dating tech guys. Before Google buys your amore’s business, he will be living on *** Noodles waiting for the next round of funding — and workaholics are dull.

Kerr says Spiegel is “25, but he acts like he’s 50. He’s not out partying. He goes to work in Venice [Beach], he comes home. We don’t go out. We’d rather be at home and have dinner, go to bed early.” Which might suit Kerr, but is not my idea of a fun.

You had also better be prepared to share your life. When Priscilla Chan miscarried three times, Mark Zuckerberg wrote about it on Facebook, while Chesky used a romantic trip with his girlfriend to promote Airbnb - uploading a picture of her in bed, with a note saying “f* hotels”. Besides all of which is the notorious issue of Silicon Valley sexism.

It has a chief exec-bro culture that puts pick-up artist/comedian Dapper Laughs to shame. Ninety per cent of women working in the Valley say they have witnessed sexist behaviour, 60 per cent have experienced unwanted ****** advances at work, two thirds of them from their boss. Whitney Wolfe, a co-founder of Tinder, took Justin Mateen to court for ****** harassment. Her lawsuit against the company alleged that Mateen, her former partner, sent text messages calling her a “*****”.

Spiegel has tech bro form. He apologised after emails from his days at Stanford emerged: missives about stripper poles, getting black-out drunk, shooting lasers at “fat chicks”, and promising to “roll a blunt for whoever sees the most **** tonight (Sunday)”. After one fraternity Hawaiian luau party, he signed off emails “f*
bitchesgetleid”.

No wonder some women are not inspired to become Twags. Especially when you could be a tech billionaire yourself. Would you not rather be Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook, than married to the boss?Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/evening-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/black-formal-dresses
Shootings, shootings everywhere
Forty-nine face down in the mud
But who will save our rainbow lives
When we can't give rainbow blood?

— The End —