#displaced
The calm, the silence
from a heated argument,
Not violence but almost as
we control our tempers,
Still fumed as we whimper,
in different areas of our place
the silence is eerie, yet displaced,
It started so serene, then the
screaming and yelling and
mixed signals are unseen
Erupting like a volcano,
Destruction like a tornado
then everything is quiet,
as the storm slowly lays low
B.R.
Date: 3/21/2026
Mar 21
Mar 21, 2026 at 10:17 PM UTC
<for DE.L>
"Like a poem poorly written,
We are verses out of rhythm,
Couplets out of rhyme,
In syncopated (1) time
And the dangling conversation,
And the superficial sighs,
Are the borders of our lives"
Simon & Garfunkel, "The Dangling Conversation"
~~---------
ah, this out of rhyme and over and
past the borderline of the contours of arrhythmia
is it not the normative human condition,
who among us
is not a displaced person,
even inside the container of our minds,
seeking groundings, testing and retesting
our edged abraded shape,
with notes of vraiment,
un cri du cœur
lucky few who go without
that the affect of disaffect,
that does not contaminate the spirit,
for it is the way of the world
to overcome fear with
hatred,
to transfer the ill will,
to those who are lesser,
in number,
but greater
in accomplishment
and your internal dialogue,
always lands, settles,
on the unanswerable:
Why.
that doesn’t deserve the inquisitive honorific
of a ?
but the exhaustion of an
life long inquisition of
what is beyond
belief
Dec 29, 2025
Dec 29, 2025 at 12:47 PM UTC
They throw stones, wave
sticks, and make a racket
The animal runs away
Whooping they chase it
through the fields
along fences
Across the ditch, it rests
for a moment, and, startled again
flees, zigzagging into the forest
where it has never been before
and, in the deepest
can't go anywhere
Panting, it lies down
warm in the cold night
but alone, ignored
by the other animals
Dec 22, 2025
Dec 22, 2025 at 2:09 AM UTC
I knighted myself
and left home
to make the unknown
my own
Apprehensive of danger
I travelled ever further
hoping for a hand
and for the reassurance:
Stay, you are safe here
there is a place for you here
a place of your own
not a niche in one of the porches
where you remain a stranger
to the envoys and counsellors
You won't have to do much
in return, and you can
keep the memories
of your former life
Dec 19, 2025
Dec 19, 2025 at 3:15 AM UTC
A host country: like
a sober hotel, fine, but --
without my story.
Oct 5, 2025
Oct 5, 2025 at 3:13 AM UTC
He is back, being
a foreigner in the land --
he longed for so much.
Mar 27, 2025
Mar 27, 2025 at 4:50 AM UTC
it has been a while since
my little self, hidden, felt safe—
beyond comprehension’s schematic structure,
deep within, where all that is
becomes understood.
where your words are felt,
where your expressions cause a melt—
a sudden, radical acceptance.
your self-established mantle of significance…
my little self has lost its worth.
in your eyes,
it matters no more
that human I am, experiencing life
just as you do, just as it flows,
as it nears the ultimate axis—
as winds and tides, as gravity itself.
we are alike in our search for the unfathomable,
a place of serenity,
a longing for love and security.
yet, adamant you remain in your complacency.
it would have been better to die
than to endure
your unraveling, your disarranging—
how your eyes burn with disregard,
exposing your innermost self,
enticing a taste for the misunderstood.
deep within, where all that is—your little self—
remains hidden, untouched by obligation,
playing eternity’s game,
choosing to be too lazy to care.
Mar 23, 2025
Mar 23, 2025 at 10:43 AM UTC
The fish requests for
asylum, with a suitcase –
I open my mouth.
May 25, 2021
May 25, 2021 at 4:34 AM UTC
Back 'home' after years.
What will I come across there?
Can it still exist?
May 2, 2021
May 2, 2021 at 2:26 AM UTC
#*Times when the heart doesn’t feel its own beat
Lost, maybe some part of it forever displaced
Work makes sure, time is passed
Together, still doesn’t help
Stuck in some redundancy
Maybe, they work well, separately
Time and work
Maybe it’s for words to see*#
Jun 29, 2020
Jun 29, 2020 at 2:16 PM UTC
My emotions rule my mind
my brain lives between my legs
Blind devotion is my sight
if you'll stay with me in bed
My arms are winter's embrace
I always have them wrapped
The chills keep you in grace
while my fingers keep you rapt
My mouth, a serpent den
sparking silver charm galore
My tongue twists round itself
tied in efforts to adore
My worship signals ships of war
through seas of violent storms
A fairweather fleet, full and by
with you as the port of call
A simple harmonic motion
with the force to drown an ocean
One simple price to pay
to be the captain for a day
May 6, 2019
May 6, 2019 at 1:16 PM UTC
Leila,
sometimes I wonder if people's hearts,
are as dark as your hair.
Sometimes I wonder if their hate,
is deeper than your beauty,
and that smile you share.
Sometimes I wonder if their greed,
is as enormous as the void I find in your eyes,
which nothing but finding hope,
of care.
Leila, forgive them.
Leila,
is that song you look for,
when fires smolder you're entity's emotions.
is that song you look for,
when you should of yourself be caution.
is the song you look for,
when you want to cleanse your soul,
cleanse it of people's defiled ambition.
Leila, forgive them.
Leila,
with your earned sorrow you passed an ocean,
and carried a dead father's watch,
a watch to remind a paralyzed mother,
of for whom she once ran for, with devotion.
She once prayed for time to pass,
To see her love,
And now, time turned into a compulsion,
That stops her from living,
And tuned into a con,
Instead of a meditation.
Leila, forgive them.
Leila,
Drunken sun -
Aches from loneliness
In the space where noone it,she shares
Drunken sun -
The vacancy of company it faces
Keeps rotating there,In endless mazes
Drunken sun -
It shows its pain, it spreads blazes
That's the only difference between you,
And the drunken sun
you keep to yourself all the pain
In all cases,
Drunken sun,
Is trapped there,in the spaces
just like you, in the past's vases.
Jun 27, 2018
Jun 27, 2018 at 6:53 AM UTC
If I had pennies
For when Rage was
Misplaced
I'd have pounds,
But they'd burn to
At my fireplace.
When was there fair space
Just to despair
Grace.
I'll fall slowly and mould
Along the way,
I'm so cold I couldn't be
Strong anyway.
I lost pride
I'm dust in the
Place I used to reside.
These are the words
To empty air
I confide.
Nov 21, 2017
Nov 21, 2017 at 6:26 PM UTC
Vast the landscape I watch that rolls out, ragged,
Before my eyes, hurt words describing, haggard.
Moby soothes me but a little as I watch still fractured sights
Of what was and is in Chernobyl.
Marshlands filled with death and mutation,
Homely houses putrid with abandonment and radiation.
Broken tokens of people’s former lives and loves –
Where are they now?
Their hairless dolls, sitting in the middle of rooms,
Bathtubs, broken and oblique, empty.
Soap washes memory and nothing else away.
The sky has spoken; it is broken.
Push the poison out to sea. To see
They hadn’t time to leave a memory,
But ran, already dead while living,
Not allowed to gather souvenirs.
There’s nothing left for them here.
But did they die?
Nobody told us where they went,
Or why
This happened.
They are gone now, dispersed in Eurasia I suppose,
Like ash in the wind, like their future or past ghosts.
They haunt the places, the buildings and the waters,
Engulfing fish, and drying fungus on the northern trees,
Watching wolves still move through winter freeze,
Still beautiful in the taiga sun.
Tainted yet rife with energy not destroyed,
Trying to paint its passion on the sides of walls,
To venerate the people here and their lives,
Their animals, their clothing only frozen.
Sep 9, 2017
Sep 9, 2017 at 11:35 AM UTC
As thunder put paid to my tranquility,
I ventured out of my darkened room,
Into my fecund garden,
Amidst blooms I'd lovingly brought forth,
Unblemished, unexceptional.
Fraught with anxiety,
I searched,
For peace, joy, equanimity.
And then the Gale brought me,
A shock of pink.
A battered displaced bloom,
Torn from home by violent gusts of wind,
Left to the mercies of strangers,
Disparate, unconnected,
Yet vivid, ablaze.
Ephemeral perhaps,
But substantial.
Jun 7, 2017
Jun 7, 2017 at 9:46 AM UTC
Running away
An eternal struggle
Fighting against suppressed feelings
Feeling displaced
Located in a world of my own
A world so strange...
I don't belong here...
I'm just a misfit
Branded by society
Trapped by my own peculiarity
Jun 14, 2016
Jun 14, 2016 at 4:26 PM UTC
He sat all alone at home
There was no where to roam
Even on this holiday
All his family had passed away
His ex-wife and kids where in a different state
There was nothing for him to celebrate
Life had left him with an empty plate
He was trying hard to stay away from deaths gate
He sat there trying to watch on tv some shows
Only commercials of happy families, that's just the way it goes
He set's there reliving happier memories
Then looked around at his empty house of misery
A call from his kids
Sent him into a skid
Made him relive their younger years
He was so glad they couldn't see his tears
He did have a small smile as they talked
But like anything the call to soon came to an end, it stopped
The heart piercing whimper that acrossed his lips seep
Would of made the coldest hearted person weep
He just sat there with eyes red with the pain
Knowing all he had lost, not seeing anything left to gain
The agony of his memories played in his mind
Desperately wishing he could go back in time
So he could fix it all, make it all rhyme
For this mountain of lonely misery, he just couldn't climb
As others enjoy their families, with good food and cheer
You will find him setting there with his cans of beer
Trying to drown his sorrow, amplified by this holiday of thanks giving
Wishing that instead of dying inside, he was living
Jan 31, 2016
Jan 31, 2016 at 9:02 PM UTC
I guess I'm not ment to be seen
I'll just float through life ghostfully
The sight of me is to obscene
I'm almost gone, transparent
Who cares where I went
Jan 21, 2016
Jan 21, 2016 at 2:33 PM UTC
Timothy Yan, that was his name
I miss him, still, 71 years later
I don't know if he's alive now
Nor, really did I know then in 1942
We were kids, he was 11 and now
would be 82 or 83
I don't know if he'd remember me
But, I remember him
and will forever
He was Canadian
He was my best friend
His family was Japanese
We'd come from Ontario, Burlington
Work brought dad west
So, we settled in a suburb of Vancouver
Tim's family had been here for a few years
There weren't a lot of Japanese in Canada
He was the first one I saw
We didn't have any in Burlington
So as I know
We lived on the same street
Went to the same school
He was Canadian
We played baseball, road hockey
football, we were brothers
blood brothers, we were a team
We moved west in 1938
I met him that fall in school
We were instant friends
The day I saw that St. Louis Cardinal hat
stuck in his pocket, all rolled up
He'd be Stan The Man, I'd be Red Russer
He was Syl Apps, I was Sam LoPresti
I was Turk Broda, he was anyone he wanted to be
We were both Joe Di Maggio
We were brothers
I remember the noise first
Great big Army trucks,
Olive green
All up the street
Not just at the Yan place
The Yokishuris, Wans, and Timmy's Aunt too
Soldiers, loading the trucks
We weren't allowed out to see
Notices had been posted though the door
We could only watch and wonder
They were being moved
They scared the powers that be
Little Japanese families
Many born here
Scared the powers of King in Ottawa
And they had to be moved
Inland, to the Okanagan Valley
To Camps, in Canada, their country, Camps
Canada was at war
With it's own people
With 11 year old Timothy Yan
Ever since Pearl Harbour
Ottawa got scared
Japanese fishermen in the west
Japanese fighter planes from the east
There had to be spies in British Columbia
Tim Yan was apparently one of them
They were told their property was safe
All their goods in storage
They were lied to
A month after they left
The auctioneers came in
Everything was sold
Everything...
I hope he kept that hat
Dad bought what he could
So did other neighbours
I still have the boxes
Never opened
Waiting for the Yans,
I miss Joe DiMaggio
I didn't understand it then
And I don't now
My teachers couldn't explain it
My minister said it was the best
That didn' t help either
What best?
Who decided what was best?
Best for who?
It wasn't best for me, or Tim
Nobody asked us
He was just gone
I spent years looking for him
He never came back after the war
They were moved further east
They were sent to Japan
He was from Canada
Why would they send him to Japan
He was gonna be the first Japanese big leaguer
I hope he made it
I grew up and became a lawyer
A citizenship lawyer
This was not going to happen on my watch
To anyone again
Not while I was around
I miss him
He went to war
And never fired a shot
He went to war
And never knew why...
Mar 21, 2013
Mar 21, 2013 at 11:39 AM UTC
A calf without milk
Ripped from the womb
Mother's hair like silk
Lay stiff in the tomb
And father's embrace
To go up in flames
Our house to misplace
In a lion's main
My siblings so dear
Strung far apart
Lost and in fear
Rip out my heart
The system tells not
Of where we should go
It makes me burn hot
Through rain and in snow
Lost were the lambs
Without mother's kind face
Lost were us lambs
Without father's sturdy place
Scattered are we
My siblings and me
No place to go
Nothing to be
Jun 20, 2015
Jun 20, 2015 at 8:43 AM UTC
*Do you ever get the feeling
Of great malaise
Right from birth
Feeling displaced
Of being born
At an ill time and place
Waiting only
For our place in the dirt*
Jun 16, 2015
Jun 16, 2015 at 1:55 AM UTC
I know you so well.
And not at all.
You keep me at bay.
What's the point.
I've drowned off shore.
Everything you've told me.
Is it truth I'm left unsure.
Scrambled more twisted every day.
This bay you've placed me.
I fear I'll stay.
Collaborative closure causing contemplation of a committed connection.
Mar 17, 2015
Mar 17, 2015 at 8:05 PM UTC
When you try to uproot
And displace precious lives
Remember,
Roots grow much deeper
For the soil nurtures for ages
Not to let go
Roots spread their arms
Holding tightly to the loving *****
Growing resilience
And the trunk of will
Leaves of glory, and
Fruits of love
You may well uproot
Feeling triumphant
But you cannot displace the roots
From then shall spring new foliage
For roots are holding hands
To create a cradle
Where love is tended
And thus, born are the bravest
You may keep trying
But you won’t go deeper than the roots
Dec 24, 2014
Dec 24, 2014 at 8:21 AM UTC
The window panes
Silence the rain
But cannot dull the thunder.
Aug 21, 2014
Aug 21, 2014 at 7:24 PM UTC