He Is, She Is – 28th April 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

She:
Maybe the world
didn’t revolve
around your plans?

He:
Because liars succeed only
where there are men
who want to believe.

She:
Borderline loving –
enough to fuck,
not enough to be loved.

He:
He guides her fall from the curb,
sheds one happy tear for his good luck,
and feels better.

She:
She grew up too soon –
Her plastic pets left in the garage
My dusty little ponies

He:
He can only fall in love
while he’s already in love,
having no idea what love is.

She:
Her next steps are secrets.
Then again, maybe the world
doesn’t revolve around her plans?

The world has a thousand ways of not loving women

Written for GloPoWriMo 2026 Day 27:
Write your own poem in which all the verses contain the same number of lines (whether couplets, triplets, quatrains, etc.) and in which you give the reader instructions of some kind.
But I forgot to include any instructions, although you can read them between the lines.
This poem also includes several borrowed lines – all linked in the text – from A Kings (paraphrased), Ashley Guzman, Shayne Rich (paraphrased), Brendon Holder, Deanne Dee Daydreams. All on Substack.
The second stanza, I came across in Penguin’s The History of Lies but I forgot who said it! And the last line was taken from somewhere/someone that I have also failed to note! If it is you (or maybe it’s a famous quote), please let me know.
Oh yeah – the title is taken from the Mission of Burma song of the same name.

No Other Side – 29th April 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 6 Comments

This life gave you nothing,
it only made time pass.
Every photograph is a question.
Is it a rainbow or a cloud?
Chickens still cross the road
even when there’s no other side.

Written for GloPoWriMo 2026 Day 28:
Try writing a poem that follows the same beats: three sentences, six lines: statement, question, conclusion.
Sentence one is a quote from Knausgaard (whoever that is!) and the last sentence is a paraphrasing of a lyric from the Volcano Suns’ Sea Cruise.

Gears Grinding – 27th April 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

The race is rigged, we all know
Today’s trend is to go, go, go
Add another task to the list
The Joneses are jonesing and insist

But we’re all racing towards the red
Let’s go but go slow instead
We’ve forgotten that the tortoise wins the race
So let’s unplug and go with grace

On my daily drive, there is a long straight stretch leading to a set of traffic lights, which can be seen way off in the distance. As the lights are on a set schedule, it’s ideal to race to the red because by the time you get there, they will likely be green. Similarly, if they are green, then slow down because you’ll never make it in time. Each day, I’m reminded of the phrases and lyrics ‘Rush to relax’ and ‘The lights are green, and so am I.’

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

Turn It Inside Out

How short-lived, the praiser and the praised
Not every situation deserves the attention
Turned inside out, you’ll be amazed
How much is your own invention?

A Single Dusty Shoe – 26th April 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Written for GloPoWriMo 2026 Day 25:
Write your own poem in which you use at least three metaphors for a single thing, include an exclamation, ruminate on the definition of a word, and come back in the closing line to the image or idea with which you opened the poem.

When the rains came that day
  you had to wonder why?
What had you done to deserve
  these questions from the sky?

School was quietly cancelled
  and you had to entertain
ideas to the innocent
  that you were unable to explain.

A story folded mid-sentence,
  the page torn from the first chapter;
a question…
  that will never reach an answer.

Somewhere, a plastic tricycle
  and a single dusty shoe
are waiting as a reminder
  of the happiness you knew.

It’s a goddamn genocide!
  Yet it’s constantly denied –
On its way to a holocaust
  from which you cannot hide.

No – it’s a goddamn genocide!
  One day to be repaid
By ghosts of all those glass bells broken
  when the rain returns – afraid.

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

There’s Nothing Wrong with Being Wrong

No one has ever been harmed by the truth
Only those who dwell in ignorance and deceit
Have we learned nothing since our youth?
Admitting error is not admitting defeat

Evolution Of A Myth – 25th April 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 8 Comments

Written for dVerse OLN #406 – Pegasus and the Muses – a mythical story that I was not very familiar with until today and doing some research. Some of the contradictions in the myth raised the questions in the second stanza and had me contemplating how stories evolve over time.

Pegasus, already a devoted companion,
a gift to the Muses as proof
of favour from goddess Athena,
struck the ground with his hoof.

But what were the Muses musing
before the Hippocrene was created?
Just singing, dancing and bathing,
as the daughters of Pierus awaited?

The challenge laid down, divine,
Mount Helicon rose to the skies.
The nymphs declared the Muses won
and the Pierides turned to magpies.

Downcast Eyes – 24th April 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 10 Comments

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

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

A Productive Use For Contempt

Look closely – everything is absurd
See things for what they really are
Hold contempt for the things you’ve heard
Because all that glitters is bizarre

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