once a safe haven, where one could bare
   their sexual dog gone boon
just one moment before mass hysteria
   and hubbub ripped cocoon
where majority of patrons comfortably displayed
   gender preference a goon
forever shattered safe haven
   of Pulsations Night Club where on June
12th, 2016 - forty nine lives affiliated
   with LGBY Community bayed at moon
for long lost loves rent asunder when barrage of gunfire
   took down light of high noon

draping mourners and the forty-nine victims –
   viz broke kin brethren
   (quaffing from same cistern), now a ruin
swath of irreparable grief, when healing
   if possible may NOT be very soon.

immediately once horror abated questions
   without answers, and speculations sprang
   amidst frenzied fray
whereat no choked back voiced opinion
   sufficed to explain, how and/or why hay

wire loosed gunmen blithely emptied
   high-powered assault weapon – may
hem immediately loosed with instinctual
   brave action heroes did play

last card to save life of her/his partner –
   when bullets did spray
from assassin - guaranteeing
   those in cross hair,
   when deathly hallows came their way.
those whose physical injuries recover,
   versus casualties of battlefield slain

haunted (maimed for always)
   per that incessant and unexpected fierce rain

of leaden slugs  that stole dearly departed –
   planning to pledge troth now train
of misery – eternally tracking survival of body, mind and spirit –
   when as if a major vein

corporeal being in shell shock -
   hemorrhaged wound time will not wane.
this poet lives far from madding crowd,
   yet my psyche impinged from shrapnel of terrorist act
a silent benediction in tandem with this poem –
   my head lowly bowed.