Downcast Eyes – 24th April 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Another woman with downcast eyes
Hands folded like origami cranes
How may she cast off her old disguise?

‘Too much’ or ‘not enough’ – no surprise
“How these things should be,” he gently feigns
Another woman with downcast eyes

She builds a fortress of compromise
Forever dragging along her chains
How may she cast off her old disguise?

Surrounded by her filial spies
Unwelcome in so many domains
Another woman with downcast eyes

In darkened corners, her silent cries
Her will to survive all that remains
How may she cast off her old disguise?

In this world, always denied the prize
That the patriarchy ascertains
Another woman with downcast eyes
How may she cast off her old disguise?

Written for GloPoWriMo 2026 Day 23:
Try your hand today at your own take on a villanelle, and have the poem end on a question.
and for dVerse Poetics – Exploring the art of Gerard Sekoto
Inspired by a Substack conversation with Sunra Rainz

The Decision – 23rd April 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 2 Comments

I: Do it. No one will know. Pull the trigger. One move. Done.
Myself: You know that’s murder. You know what that makes you.
Me: Woah! Let’s slow down. Say I do it. Then what?

I: Then nothing. Peace. No more flinching every time a siren sounds.
Myself: You carry it forever. Every single night. Every single mirror.
Me: I hear both of you but this needs time to decide.

I: There’s nothing to decide. He breathed wrong. He wins if I don’t.
Myself: You win by being nothing like him. Don’t become the thing you hate.
Me: What if I just leave instead? Same result. No blood.

I: That’s the coward’s way out. He doesn’t feel a thing that way.
Myself: Exactly. He doesn’t feel a thing. That’s mercy. For both of you.
Me: I’m not sleeping tonight. I’ll decide in the morning.

Written for GloPoWriMo 2026 Day 22:
Write your own poem in which the speaker is in dialogue with him or herself.

Very much inspired by LucyLaughs at Writers Digest, who has been writing in dialogues like this for a long time. I wanted to imitate this style, making a note about it around a year ago, and today’s prompt pushed me along.

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

The Mind Is All Yours

You are body, breath and mind
But only one is truly yours
Body broken, breath hard to find
Your mind carries all the cures

Soubriquets – 22nd April 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 9 Comments

Shaun, Shaun,
the leprechaun
– chanted every day.

Never owned,
made forlorn,
even if just child’s play.

Then came punk
– shortened and claimed,
please call me Leper.

Finding my own way,
happily renamed
to something better.

Also was Sol
or sometimes Sunny,
though I never knew why.

Perhaps ironic
as I saw little funny
with clouds filling the sky.

After that
it was back to Shaun,
I was named after a pup!

Contemplating change,
what new name worn
that might improve my luck?

Into a new world
I became Smithers –
a name I simply hated

Secretary to a Mr Burns
who gave me shivers,
with his energy created.

Once online
I was kabukiboy
for my love of Mack’s Kabuki.

My pseudonym,
I did enjoy
the freedom of anonymity.

Finally,
It’s tenzenmen –
a moniker of many years.

A name for everything,
I began again
whenever inspiration appears.

Written for GloPoWriMo 2026 Day 21:
Write a poem in which you muse on your name and nicknames you’ve been given.

“Shaun, Shaun the leprechaun,” was the name Paul and George, lodgers in my early childhood home, gave me and I didn’t like it much, though not entirely sure why. Maybe it was explained to me that leprechauns had a negative connotation. Thinking about all this now, they also called me Gaun, after a pre-school friend who hadn’t learnt how to pronounce ‘sh’ yet.
When I got turned onto punk, it was the thing to have a punk name, and so, remembering the above, I shortened it to the punk-appropriate Leper. I kept at it for a couple of years but the nicknames one tries to introduce themselves never really catch on.
Sol and Sunny was a name some older girls in middle school gave me, though, again, I don’t know where it came from at all.
Starting work life in the UK, I don’t think I got any nicknames given here, which is quite surprising considering it was a male-dominated office where ribbing and playing were a given. This was when I discovered that my dad had named me after the dog that was the mascot of the Irish Guards, where he was a member.
Moving to Australia and finding a job there, I suddenly acquired a new nickname. The job I applied for was as an IT tech support but because I was the new guy, I was also seconded for the mornings to do the secretarial work for the manager, who was a real pain in the ass. Hence the nickname Smithers from The Simpsons. It really felt demeaning and I hated it.
With the introduction of the internet, it was a chance to be reborn and hide behind a pseudonym and as I had gotten back into comic collecting again, really loving David Mack’s Kabuki stories, I started with kabuki but that soon evolved to kabukiboy.
Before moving to Australia, I had released a noise album under the moniker of tenzenmen and when I got back into music making and then running a record label, I decided that from that point onwards I would use the non-de-plume of tenzenmen for whatever I was working on, whether it was music, production, poetry or publishing.

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

The Marks Of A Rational Person

The characteristics of a rational soul
Looks inward with a critical eye
Pays no attention to the others’ poll
Within oneself – one’s own supply

Two Types – 21st April 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Rebels are just another power getting ready
to dictate the game by their own rules;
Aliens are standing so far outside the realm

of the foolers and the fools.

From a Shannon Shelberg (above) quote about there being two types of people – rebels and aliens.

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

Don’t Let Your Attention Slide

Stretch to avoid error
Never let attention slide
This is the habit of the wearer
Focused on the prize

Spindle Tree – 20th April 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

There are no gardenias –
perhaps they only existed
in my imaginary garden…

I’ll sip and sigh,
with my yellow chrysanthemum tea
bringing you to mind.

Where’s my frangipani?
My sweet summer’s soul
just a deep red carnation.

All the daisies tell all the stories
so very well.
Will you think of it?

I will think of it
as the scarlet geranium
let the scars deepen.

Written for GloPoWriMo 2026 Day 19:
Pick a flower or two from this online edition of Kate Greenaway’s Language of Flowers and write your own poem in which you muse on your selections’ names and meanings.

Chrysanthemum, Yellow – Slighted love.
Carnation, Deep Red – Alas! for my poor heart.
Daisy – Innocence.
Daisy, Garden – I share your sentiments
Daisy, Michaelmas – Farewell.
Daisy, Party-coloured – Beauty.
Daisy, Wild – I will think of it.
Geranium, Scarlet – Contorting. Stupidity.
Spindle Tree – Your charms are engraved on my heart.

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

Real Good Is Simple

The status craved, once achieved
Is never quite as wished
More is good, we believed
But simple wisdom will resist

After Words – 19th April 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 8 Comments

Epilogue:

So that was it, the story done,
everyone was dead – everyone!
A tragic tale to be very sure,
even the heroes were no more.

But just as this tale was being told,
a similar one was taking hold,
Because history is always repeated,
as if the lessons had been deleted.

It becomes a chore to tell again
the hows, the whys, the where, the when.
So the storytellers always return
to teach the students who failed to learn.

Shared with GloPoWriMo 2026 Day 18:
Try your hand at writing a poem that could be a section or piece of a story. 

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

Our Sphere Of Impulses

Surrender and serve the common good
With power or not – leave room
Everyone can be the one who could
Provide the answers that you’d presume

Philosophical Truce – 18th April 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 5 Comments

All is a contradiction,
a place where opposites meet;
avoiding confrontation
in a war where words compete.

Reading many philosophical texts, which contradict each other and often themselves. This doesn’t render them useless but keeps us in balance and open-minded to all ideas.

Shared with GloPoWriMo 2026 Day 17:
Write a poem in which you respond to a favourite poem by another poet.
While this is not a response to a specific poem, it is a response to the poetry of the philosophers.

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

Opinions Are Like…

Think about the world around you
And the opinions you pile on top
Dogma, expectation or ignorance
Weed them out until they stop

Some Kind Of Love – 17th April 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Every day I hear you call.
The beast rumbles
and so the hunt begins!

Temptations triggered
by olfactory memories.
Salivating salvations!

Down the aisles
or spread before me.
Swords to the ready!

Sometimes I don’t want
to talk or think about you.
I’ve had enough.

Some days are sharp,
others piquant or honeyed,
but balance is better.

Some kind of love?
Because without you
I would die.

Written for GloPoWriMo 2026 Day 16:
Write a poem in which you describe something that cannot speak, and what it has taught or told you.

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

No Harm No Foul

The interpretation of words holds power
The difference between fight and connection
The choice between the sweet and sour
Is purely based on your reception

Hourglass – 16th April 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 26 Comments

Where did you go?

You were still there
as I tried to get each
grain of sand back
inside the hourglass
I’d smashed.

Our hearts no longer full
yet still far from empty.
When shared with another
did you disappear?
I can still feel you here.

Where did you go,
shuffling away so slowly?
I still see your trails
on every new horizon
I’ve chased.

Memories morphed
deeper within
the longer valleys between us,
old sun making shadows
of that time.

Where did you go?
My love.

Written for dVerse Poetics: Where does love go? and GloPoWriMo 2026 Day 15:
Write a poem that muses on love, but isn’t a traditional love poem in the sense of expressing love between romantic partners.

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

Observe Cause And Effect

Learn to identify the thoughts
 and behaviours that are destructive
Cause and effect are sorts
 where patterns are observed constructive