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POEM FOR ORLANDO

ORLANDO

Intolerance, like heat, rises.
No one should have to –
No, but, they do....
Without having to reload…

Almost a double entendre
But who hears twice
When they are dying (dead)?
To be killed for love

Or to be honest desire
Is an outrage; is there
A kind of killing permissible?
Revenge itself is outrageous.

It’s all a circle, or some shape,
Not the shape of bodies
Held together, as if by glue,
Stuck by blood or sex,

Or yes, the loving grimaces.
Is there pity for ignorance
When it results in such loss,
And arises from belief?

Bad beliefs, like bad music
Are immediately apparent
To the soul’s ear;
We cannot dance to hate;

Only love has a beat
And a groove worthy
Of proper physical attention.
No one may make light

Of atrocity, poetry out
Of such blindness
Seems obscene; but terror
Is the porn of our age,

Clicking its way to hits
And hitting out; snuffed,
Those viable, visible lives
So various in their options,

The multiple mouths, truths,
The hetero and homo of coming
To terms with ecstatic union;
Always rising above condemnation

Of pleasure, the final outcome
Of God’s giving us new bodies
That entwine even as they die.
Cry out Orlando, in pride.


13 JUNE, 2016
by T Swift
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