"displacement" poems
Beauty lies bereft and bound
it cries for help but utters no sound
mascara kisses fade from your lips
etched by lovers worn fingertips
purple rings around sullen eyes
the broken skin it never lies
fists of thunder make not the man
nor the swift strike of back of hand
a thousand apologies can never repair
the displacement of a single hair
for she is not an object for you to own
she is a Queen that deserves a throne
and if she allows you to enter her chamber
it's also her decision if you should remain there.
Jun 28, 2018
Jun 28, 2018 at 5:32 PM UTC
Municipal Gum was written by Oodjeroo Noonecaal. Municipal Gum is about the changes in society and the tendency of people to want to control everything. Oodjeroo uses various techniques to convey this idea.
At the beginning of the poem Oodjeroo is addressing the tree. This immediately creates empathy for both the tree and her people. By the last line she has emphasised this with the pronoun “us” to show that they suffer a similar fate.
This poem expresses how life in Australia has changes especially for Aboriginal people. In the first half of the poem Oodjeroo is talking about how life was for her and others. It explores the changes in society and the displacement of the Aboriginal people from their land.
“Whose head hung…Its hopelessness”, the author uses this as further re-iteration of the immorality of the situation and by the use of analogy comparing the tree to her people to further emphasise the shame and lack control of that the Europeans have inflicted upon her and the environment.
Oodjeroo uses extended metaphor technique in the very first line of the poem ‘Hard bitumen around your feet’. This means that the gumtree has been placed in the city scape where it is suppressed and not allowed to spread out and be unique in its own way. This is clear and immanently direct link to the pain and suffering endured by the Aborigines post European settlement.
Oodjeroo uses vivid language to present these ideas. For example the use of the word castrated is very effective. The connotation of the word is very demeaning. With castration often comes a sense of a loss of pride and power. The word castration is symbolic of how Oodjeroo feels the European have treated Aboriginal people and the environment. Castration also refers to the fact that what is done is done. Nothing can undo what they did and the damaged they have caused.
Other symbolism includes the title “Municipal Gum”, municipal meaning community, implies that the gumtree belongs to the community. One of the vast differences between European and Aboriginal law is that Aboriginal people did not believe in the ownership of land or of animals and plants. Municipal Gum is a reference to the Europeans assumptions that everything is theirs to own and control.
The rhetorical question, “O fellow citizen, What have they done to us?” is the conclusion of the implications that have been made throughout the poem. Oodjeroo, is advocating for her people and all things wronged by the controlling behaviour of the Europeans. Rhetorical questions are used to provoke thought and to stimulate a pre-determined response. “What have they done to us?” They have “castrated, broken… strapped and buckled” and ultimately changed things to a point that they cannot be fixed.
In conclusion, Municipal Gum is a poem about the constrictions and change that the European invaders forced upon the Aboriginal community and the environment she believes that the Europeans have deemed themselves ever powerful and practice their power in a manner that is immoral.
Sep 11, 2013
Sep 11, 2013 at 7:47 AM UTC
Can you feel all the suffering, can you see it?
Stop embracing the hate of your own humanity, just quit it
Why all the hypocrisy?
Challenge your democracy
Aim for enlightenment
Fight against all ill torment
Oppression, alienation, inequality
The government's manipulative utilities
Explore your human aptitude
Your mind and your magnitude
Because passion is power and
You can make all evil cower
Work to open your third eye
Don't cry or comply, but rather ask "why?"
Empathy and compassion are most important
Without them, moral principles remain impotent
Our world is nothing compared to the entire universe
We are so small, egoistic, and it's getting worse
Focused on all of the wrongs ideals
Creating terrible and false ordeals
Our world is cruel and mean
Too many people die hungry
There's no such thing as equality or true justice
It does not exist in this realm of consciousness
If only we could shift the system and our ways
Then things would continue to fall into place
But change is virtually unachievable
Especially when entities with just intents are inconceivable
Human beings are clueless, trapped in a trance
Don't let yourself fall victim to your ignorance
You need to expand your knowledge and your perspective
Aim to be more pensive and introspective
Challenge absolutely everything you are told
Form your own beliefs, don't let your mind be controlled
Remove yourself from conformity and complacency
And you'll realize a multitude of problems, that I guarantee
*You can't trust anything
Hear what I'm saying
No you cant trust anything
Believing is damaging
Creating is everything, it's promising
Stop adhering to societal norms
Why do you conform
To all that
The government tells us
All that society spells for us
Why don't you realize
Wake up from all the lies
The world is an intricate place, that you can't replace
But you can change your ways and your pace
Create some displacement in the system
Stand up your rights
And what you believe in
Be genuine
Imagine
Not one person, thing, or system
Can tell us, control us, conform us*
With enough minds open and motivated
We can help those oppressed and alienated
We can change this race for the better
Let's all work to be that kind of trendsetter
Come on, let's start a movement
So we can see some real improvement
In our world, our ways, and our wisdom
But most importantly in the system
Apr 18, 2013
Apr 18, 2013 at 3:29 PM UTC
Innocence displayed
Like a little girl touching dandelions
. . . a butterfly left behind
lingering on the doorsteps of winter . . .
Time , Time , Time
. . . so elusive , so undefined . . .
we have tried (so) true
(only) we fall so short
Love . . . an instance in time . . .
. . . so passionate (in it's) displacement
We hope for but it lays like the cross
. . . at Jesus's feet . . .
We bury time , we bury love
We bury ourselves in search of both
The little girl without a sense of time
Knowing only basic love . . .
Tenderness of care . . .
and dandelions
Maybe we are the dandelions of time
Petals of love . , . surrounding each
in it's time . . . falling . . .
one by one . . .
Like kisses given and taken
Lost to time , in love ,
till the doorsteps of winter
close in and freezes the moment
. . . all alone . . .
Love . . . time . . . dandelions
Little girls . . . and innocence . . .
Run away as fast as you can
Oct 16, 2014
Oct 16, 2014 at 10:04 PM UTC
I was with the ocean last night and your body
Was its vessel, overflowing. Words were frail,
Drops indwelling about the shapeless sky,
Water reaching for its own height and breath,
Like touch, were as desperate letters exchanged,
Endlessly read, until like loamy vellums, they
Disappeared in our hands. Inklings of tide-
Pool and driftwood.
My blood was a river that ran
Its course. Members feeding your deltas and birds
Breeding where the water-russet sheds on pampas
And inverness. Eyes like wing through ever—
Green, empties the fossil shell. Fire, brimming
Mountaintops that were, for countless millennia,
Sleeping. Did I mention that the earth moved?
No? Her displacement was involuntary.
Then came the waterfalls, lifting throughout
Time. The scent, searching for its identity,
The wave, calling to its own name— Ocean,
O— cean. And flowers, opening like galaxies
In the after-light. A universe of face and hand
With hunger for salt-rain and then the cloud
Burst-blue and spilt and spun more redolent,
Deities, in joyous creation.
I breathe, in your ocean, like a child unborn.
Jul 3, 2012
Jul 3, 2012 at 7:30 PM UTC
.
What floats your boat babe,
Archimedes' Principle of Water Displacement?
© Pagan Paul (20/07/18)
Jul 21, 2018
Jul 21, 2018 at 7:36 AM UTC
The builders of Stonehenge
Were pelvicly challenged
So they erected a monument
In such a way
That it could be interpreted
As a displacement activity.
And the rest as they say
Is pre-history.
Mar 28, 2014
Mar 28, 2014 at 4:36 PM UTC
What brief utterance this, the color of time
That gives more meaning than language can hold
To force a confrontation between unresolvable contradictions
Such as make malleable a gracious hospitality to ******
And sound trumpets of unwarranted discord
That lie and lament the reputation and experience of damage
Hold forth the envious clouds of displacement
To provide for the vicious energies of hate
Those oppressive weights of past problems
That enactment of intense and exhausting experience
Which embalms the tears of fresh bleeding
Without impediment dictates the human existence
Where the mistress of aggressive thought finds
Extremity of dire mishap a strenuous protest
Leads to well meaning certainty of illusion
And asks, art thou so in love with masks that you
Would transform thyself and as such
Bind a loyalty of angers to thy touch
Aug 21, 2012
Aug 21, 2012 at 4:21 PM UTC
Eros
In my soul
Taking my breath
Thrumming in my heart
Eros
In your touch
The flitting-fondness of skin to skin
Sweat, beaded-trickle down
Salted flesh
Curly topped, flayed on satin
Eros
In your taste
The sweet tangle of tongue
Twisted-cheeky
Raspberried laughter
Eros
In the presence of your wit
The clever-confines of your mind
Depressed-displacement of your thought
Sophia
Eros
From one being to another
Thundering
Chaotic in my breast
Burning my throat
Scalding-stinging
Across the distance
Eros
In the silence of contentment
With arms wrapped
Smooth
Held close to the rhythm of your light
The hammering of blood
Pacing
Pitter
Patter
Sluggish-slowing
Lull of sleep
Eros, even in my dreams
Σε στιγμές σαν και αυτές που φέρνουν μου όλου του κόσμου για να γονατίσει
(In moments like these you bring my whole world to its knees.)
Oct 3, 2012
Oct 3, 2012 at 4:03 PM UTC
Walk
Down cracked sidewalks but forget where and why the going started.
Lost in the chaos of moving feet whose unity lies in their organic flow,
Perspectives shift to some new truth: experiencing its constant displacement.
Here
As bodies carry me forward, they rush to the rhythm of those who desire our desires:
I smile and laugh at voices screaming out from billboards and TVs
“What you need is need itself! Don’t look within, but to ME!”
Drift
Down the street and pause at the window’s reflection.
Behind the still face staring back lies the world’s movement:
With purpose distorted by its realization, the present bursts forth out of nothing:
Pushing
Onward from some inconceivable lack,
Towards a resolution that will not resolve.
Here I close my eyes.
Here there is the silence between thought and its realization:
In which the meaninglessness of boundaries can be discerned.
Here I find myself fall away into everything.
Here I find only Love.
Oct 12, 2011
Oct 12, 2011 at 4:44 PM UTC
Dark nights where pain resides
No where to run, no place to hide
A young child, a boy of only five
A young child, a boy of only five
Giving chase were the foreigners
Hunters, killers, demons alive
No where to run, no place to hide
In this place where pain resides
"Pull the trigger... Now."
The first shot rang out,
The boy loses his left arm which held his prized possession
A bamboo stick, shaped into a doll
Now sitting in his right fist
The second shot rang out,
The boy loses his right arm and his bargaining chip
He sits on his last two limbs,
He cries out in pain and anguish
Two more shots ring out,
His right and left legs burst out
From right underneath him,
Giving way to the soft ground
Soaked in his blood and his tears,
As he sniffles and goes into shock
The soldier steps closer in fear,
And then the boys face was lost
Another soldier asks them
"What the hell have you done?
He was only a child, a boy,
Why is this the outcome?"
At this moment a man turned a corner
His grocery bags fell to the floor
As he laid his eyes upon
The torso that lay in an ocean
Of blood next to a bamboo doll
That he had made 5 short years ago
He slowly said, "My Son."
Jul 15, 2013
Jul 15, 2013 at 5:54 PM UTC
It is not my story to tell:
Languishing dreams in the midst of barbed wire fences,
Fearless laughter,
We add lemon, chile powder and salt to this border.
They carry these stories,
Heavy as a sack filled with indignities,
Weighty, like your grandmother’s advice,
Cumbersome, like this daily mental displacement.
I have not bought big things as of lately,
In my mind I plan my exits,
I constantly check my relocation fund,
“What if” is a constant in my lexicon.
I often break in tears at the sound of an immigrant story,
My emotions become gallons of water:
broken and splashed by the boots of immigration officers,
Little do they know, we are cacti:
Tough and our seeds also flourish post mortem.
I want to sing an immigrant song:
Less like butterflies who migrate,
But more like dislocated nations,
Collateral flesh, caught up in steel thorns.
Rest assured we will survive,
Like leaves of siempreviva,
Even after torn away from our stem,
We will grow our own roots:
Defiant, resilient, and with a stubborn willingness to belong.
We are you.
Jan 29, 2018
Jan 29, 2018 at 3:30 PM UTC
*
Collapse into the arms of destiny
Let them carry you wherever the wind blows
Do not resist, be pliant
Like the reed that sways
Trust that you will be guided
To that which is in season to your soul
Love speaks with one voice
Sometimes through the parting of different lips
Know that the displacement and nostalgia you feel
is but a memory and a foretelling of Home
Relief comes with surrender
The leaf knows this secret
it yields in acquiescence.
Take a moment and contemplate
the life of a leaf ~
Surrender is not defeat,
it traverses land far and wide
and arrives gently to its destination
Surrender is not weakness,
know your strength.
Your essence can move mountains
Transcend into a fragrance that casts its spell into the night
unbeknownst to the beholder from whence it comes
In your surrender is beauty
that draws you closer to the ultimate Beauty
and culminates in the ultimate Love
Love him, love her, and let your love permeate
like the scent of two roses, together in bloom
♥
Dec 17, 2014
Dec 17, 2014 at 10:44 PM UTC
beauty lies bereft and bound
it cries for help but utters no sound
mascara kisses on bitten lips
etched by lovers worn fingertips
purple bruises and sullen eyes
the broken skin it never lies
fists of thunder do not make a man
nor the swift strike of the back of a hand
a thousand apologies can never repair
the displacement of a single hair
for she is not an object for you to own
she is a queen that deserves a throne
**** you.
28/11/2018
Dec 1, 2018
Dec 1, 2018 at 12:45 PM UTC
and maybe ill go back and rethink every heart wrenching decision that ever came across my mind
anything that ever affected me in any way that made me change my thinking
when im wrong and i cant handle it
when i sit in complete darkness and thing about you
but i think about the comfort that im not feeling with you here
im thinking about if you were to be here and them comfort i still wouldn't feel and how that would make me cringe and cry and never want you and make me need you and realize that the things that i want aren't the things i need
its a change in the security of the things of need
a thing in the displacement of the things i need to feel that void in my heart
its like waking up and needing you by my side but when i see you there i realize that i just wanted that physical aspect of seeing your face to fill the void of everything i couldn't handle
not the meaning inside of myself not knowing what i want right when i want it
its the simple thing as if not having you there is enough
its the self reliance i need to feel to make sure that me, myself is good enough with having enough comfort in myself to know how to handle situations alone
being alone and knowing how to handle things alone without needing you by my side
mentally, and emotionally
and ill look you in the eyes
and tell you that i need you
and look in the mirror
and stare at my reflection
in realization that i've needed myself a lot more all along
and you can ask how im going to be without you
and i have a good sense that ill be fine
until you find someone else to write about and call mine
Dec 16, 2013
Dec 16, 2013 at 2:11 AM UTC
I was with the ocean last night and your body
Was its vessel, overflowing. Words were frail,
Drops indwelling about the shapeless sky,
Water reaching for its own height and breath,
Like touch, were as desperate letters exchanged,
Endlessly read, until like loamy vellums, they
Disappeared in our hands. Inklings of tide-
Pool and driftwood.
My blood was a river that ran
Its course. Members feeding your deltas and birds
Breeding where the water-russet sheds on pampas
And inverness. Eyes like wing through ever—
Green, empties the fossil shell. Fire, brimming
Mountaintops that were, for countless millennia,
Sleeping. Did I mention that the earth moved?
No? Her displacement was involuntary.
Then came the waterfalls, lifting throughout
Time. The scent, searching for its identity,
The wave, calling to its own name— Ocean,
O— cean. And flowers, opening like galaxies
In the after-light. A universe of face and hand
With hunger for salt-rain and then the cloud
Burst-blue and spilt and spun more redolent,
Deities, in joyous creation.
I breathe, in your ocean, like a child unborn.
Oct 18, 2012
Oct 18, 2012 at 12:39 PM UTC
dedicated banishment
self inflicted, echoing
physical displacement
from permanent coronary scarification
devouring accidentally my lacerated pulmonary edema
cauterizing weakness into cement
thermodynamically frozen muscles
umbrellas on parade in your city
netherworld for my regret
disreputable raincoats rubbery ebbing
against a tide of discontent
ringing out like let-downs
May 23, 2013
May 23, 2013 at 8:21 PM UTC
DEAR JUSTICE,
Every act that day
revealed their involvement,
in their regions, blood pools lay,
as deep dug the predicament,
death and displacement left all awry,
cries of agony crawled, crumbling all.
JUSTICE! They have drawn a blank today,
branding them WAHESHIMIWA, the gall,
visiting us with ‘aid’ and false word, here in the tent,
where they just shove us in the recent,
their dope remains in minds of the awakened,
in those suits we see spooks good at demolishing
stretch your hand and dispense a mete from them
for in you we reckon that they will pay.
Nov 1, 2013
Nov 1, 2013 at 2:23 PM UTC
Sometimes you make me so mad.
Because you treat me really bad.
I really dont know how to act.
If only I could speak with more tact.
Thinking, blood pressure rising.
I feel like I could explode.
My feelings now have over-flowed.
I can't keep calm.
I want to cry in my palm.
It really is not fair.
To just act this way and not care.
Why are you so narcissitic?
You have no reason, no logistic.
You do not own me.
You made it clear, expect nothing.
Why do you act if were apart of something?
I have grown numb
I feel like I don't know who I am.
I have built up an emotional dam.
Devoid of love or care.
That is not the person I want to be.
I want to connect, not feel like I have to flee.
So I act like I don't care.
Feelings have become none nothing to share.
Never in my life have a I felt afraid to feel.
Seeing you talking, boring round and round like a wheel.
You have no right!
No right to make a fight.
Your hold me at a double standard!
All my feelings completely unanswered.
Because I know I can't have none.
So your not allowed either! Not a single one!
May 18, 2014
May 18, 2014 at 6:51 PM UTC
her foot never fully touched the ground,
remaining half afloat in the air--
stuck in the clouded mist of her anxious mind,
she could not grasp the full weight of reality
her dance too tentative to be considered one of grace,
she treaded carefully with each step, although,
she knew this all with a great familiarity--
a constant state of limbo and disarray,
out of touch with sight and mind,
thoughtless rumination
all gather to combine into this displacement
she leaps with hope and faith,
but unable to press her foot along the earth
she glides over the dust and ruin,
seeking to avoid rather than settle-- she survives without living
May 7, 2017
May 7, 2017 at 10:22 PM UTC
distance.
disaster
disadvantaged
disfigured
disappointment
disconnected
disappearance
displacement
distance.
Nov 24, 2013
Nov 24, 2013 at 4:59 AM UTC
Jumping up and down on the time mattress
making sure it's under my feet
and opening one vortex
while hopping to the next
the terrible robots try to follow me
screaming they will catch me soon
so I try to hide on the dark side
on the dark side of the moon
I wish the cow would stop mooing
the spoon would find it's way home
the rotten cat with it's fiddle
would go back to the moon base dome
where has my bed gone now
I could really do with a sleep
I will have to eat some cricketers
and give my poems to Pete
That planet is at risk
but that is not my problem
this temporal displacement
will send me home again
By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris
Dedicated to my loving brother Peter Andrea Kourtis...... Love yer Bro X
Dec 6, 2013
Dec 6, 2013 at 11:38 AM UTC
unarmored
meat bones
loves tones
abrasively chanting
hates moan
leave him alone
heavy sleep
headache
crave
me
I
will never
hold you again.
karma is greener, much meaner.
volume displacement
losing you was the punishment
of my crime.
never again
will I love you,
never again
the things that I said.
there's nothing you could want or need from, of, or because of me:
not even the memory of our best days
our first kiss or our last kiss
there's nothing I miss,
never again,
will I love with a love so blindly.
never again,
a love built on such a crumbling foundation.
never again will I run away from pain to love,
love which stems from any other source save for love itself
is not a love for me.
love again?
I will.
Oct 24, 2013
Oct 24, 2013 at 11:58 AM UTC