Learn Their Names – 4th October 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

I learned these names today:
Leigh R. Tate, Jeffrey E. York

The terrorists in suits
   can smell the end of days.
The question is:
   how can we keep the legions of hell at bay,
when so many monsters already live among us?

The post-colonial arc bends,
   inevitably, towards the horizon
Long shadows on the grass
   In an insane world,
the only weapon left is insanity.

But the reality of a world beyond the West
   is a phoenix.
Black propaganda
   has become a translucent mirror.
It’s harder to kill somebody you can identify with…

….and learn their names:
Hana, Fatemeh, Reza, Arya, Ali, Zahra, Ahmad, Hamed, Fatemeh, Mahdis, Athena, Amirghasem, Fatemeh, Arad, Saman, Fatemeh, Nadia, Parham, Mahmoud, Fatemeh, Amir-Hassan, Zahra, Mohammadhatam, Asna, Benyamin, Mohammad-Sadra, Maryam, Liana, Mandana, Sara, Zoha, Esra, Salma, Fatemeh, Zahra, Mahna, Athareh, Alireza, Mohammadreza, Samira, Ehsan, Fatemeh, Zeynab, Mohammad, Reza, Athena, Khadijeh, Roqayyeh, Reza, Marzieh, Mohammad-Mehdi, Mohammadian, Ali-Akbar, Hananeh, Fereshteh, Mohammad-Ali, Parsa, Arina, Makan, Esra

The first stanza is a paraphrase of a page taken from a Judge Dredd comic and there are links to an article paraphrased at Equator.org as well as Joe Nichols blog ‘Sacred Mischief’. At the start, this poem names the two people accused of dropping the bombs in Minab, Iran, that killed 170 children, 61 of whom are named at the end of the poem.

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

All For One, One For All

It is an interconnected cosmos
We are citizens of the world, you see
And that which isn’t good for the hive
Also isn’t good for the bee

Dreaming Of Running – 3rd October 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 7 Comments 
Man is sick but he can’t rest
the dog sleeps all day, dreaming of running

Faith is never pure and rarely true
it takes a degree of intellect to behave that stupidly.

A family measures time in dogs and cats
but my stomach and bladder tell me the time

We of the low-style, vulgar horde:
can you imagine the boredom of being a god?

Life has never been so good
and I’ve never felt so bad

I am full of self-inflicted knowledge
I’m nothing, if not a contradictory man

Every translation begins and ends in failure
—ravishing portraits of otherwise

Walking around with the weight of his potential
The poet acts as a guide

Written for the dVerse prompt to break form with couplets, this piece let me use random lines I’d noted down over time. The first and penultimate lines link to their origin. The ‘vulgar-horde’ line is taken from Dante’s Inferno. The ‘translation’ line was definitely appropriated from somewhere now forgotten and the ‘ravishing portraits’ line is by Maria Popova.

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

A Mantra Of Mutual Interdependence

The butterfly weaves a whirlwind
As sympathetic stirrings follow
All rivers lead to the one lake
The same waters that we all swallow

And Yet… – 5th October 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 11 Comments 
The body fails us inch by inch, by year,
   and we must hold each other gently.

Every day the news is worse than the last.
   The dog still wants to play at noon.

We arrive alone and depart alone.
   In between, sometimes someone saves us a seat.

The earth is burning, and no one will stop it,
   so I'll teach the trees toward a sky I won't see.

All my best thoughts have already been thought.
   Someone, somewhere, understood me.

Shared with Poets and Storytellers United #247: Reframing Negative Concepts

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

Words Can’t Be Unsaid

Better to trip with your feet
Than with your tongue
You can always get up again
But words cannot be undone

There’s No Opting Out – 2nd October 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

You are a public class that everyone audits
Each slice of you remains a lesson
The observer is busy making behaviour edits
The observed will leave their impression

Respect the gaze of children; they know how to see
We are teaching by our existence
Tomorrow’s normal is today’s complacency
A museum of small acts’ insistence

There’s no opting out of your own exhibition
Everyone browses for their own cues
Influence is ambient, becomes tradition
Good or bad, it somehow all accrues

Another write inspired by a David Elikwu newsletter.

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

The Most Valuable Asset

Friends and money are just bluffing
They can come and go with the tide
The wise person can lose nothing
They have everything stored inside

To The Grim Shores – 1st October 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 25 Comments 
As the language of the night settles in,
   with a candle raised to the sky.
The way ahead is slippery and sodden
   —a vanishing point, a future sigh.

A gloved hand held, we wend our way
   to the rolling river, quiet and moody.
The conspiring trees shake their bones
   at your subtle ceramic beauty.

Your trusting eyes make no plea
   as you submerge under the darkened depths.
Your silken arms are the last I see,
   the last twinkling that the moon protects.

I walk with you, across the many bridges
   that lead us out to the troubled seas.
I’ll wait for you on the silent shore,
   framed in judgement by those ageless trees.

Written for dVerse Poetics and inspired by the paintings of John Atkinson Grimshaw, whom I’d never heard of before, but can see very clearly an England that I feel very familiar with. While the use of light in the paintings is somewhat seductive, I couldn’t help but let the darkness in with a story of forbidden love ending in quiet tragedy.

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

Let Virtue Shine Bright

Darkness lies on either side
The lamp shines until its fuel is spent
As should your truth, justice and self-control
Until your light faces its own descent

Deadhead in Woolworths – 30th September 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Yeah, yeah – it was me, not you,
  but I still blame you.
I toiled until my elbows gave way.

I toiled for myself

  and you benefited from all I gave.
You only saw another drone.

I shouldn’t have been surprised

  that the corporate mentality kicked in.
Here where dollars reign.

Demoted to self-service checkout,
  I carved a new little kingdom

where I let thieves get away.


Fuck with me, I’ll fuck with you.

  I’ll never go back, never see your face again.

Content that you’re just someone else’s drone.

“Treat people like shit, and that’s what you get” is the phrase that comes to mind with this poem, which I know from the song Deadhead by Crass. Woolworths is where these events took place. Hence the title.

Shared with an AllPoetry contest:
Write about that ONE place you never want to go back to. Only ONE place. Be specific!

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

You Can’t Touch Me

Your body can be victimised
Philosophy protects your mind
If freedom can be visualised
Then it’s freedom you will find

Living Bonds – 29th September 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 3 Comments

value is not cash

in friendship, debts breathe and grow

ledgers have no heart

A simple haiku suggesting that the best friendships are imbalanced perfectly, by giving more than receiving, inspired by a David Elikwu newsletter.

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

Your Actual Needs Are Small

Every day of success gathers more
You never know the feeling of having it all
Will you remember your beginnings
And that your actual needs are small?

Your Watson – 28th September 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

What do you think, as the pen is poised?
Is the thought already fully formed?
Ideas get tested before being employed
Many of which can be ignored

Sometimes the sounds make little sense
The intelligent audience will reject
Every other idea must be dispensed
Until all the logic is found perfect

Let the paper test all your doubt
Brevity of words makes clear the reward
Most everything else can be crossed out
What’s left, highlighted and underscored

Inspired by a David Elikwu newsletter, where he discusses how Sherlock Holmes used Watson as a sounding board, much like many other famous people, testing ideas. So the writer tests their ideas on the page, in search of something meaningful.

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

You Hold The Trump Card

Do you look at the day ahead and despair?
We could look at it and simply rejoice
What we’ve been granted is usable and fair
Your response is decided by your choice

Your Faith And Your Soul – 27th September 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 3 Comments

Walking in circles under the dripping canopy’s leaves,
repeating a sentence someone gave him at twenty.
Terrorise your enemies.

The world moved on while he stood still,
saluting the red circle of the sun.
Stand your ground.

Voices called his name from the edge of the trees,
but every kindness sounded like a trick.
Never surrender.

Counting the years by how many ghosts went silent,
the mission remained loud in his head.
Hold the line.

Set to starve than admit the hunger was pointless,
rather be feared than feel foolish.
Show no retreat.

It is not truth that convinces him,
but a formal command,
stepping out of the past.
“Lay down your arms.”

So, Onoda walks out of the jungle at last,
wearing three decades of orders as his only story.
His identity.

Hiroo Onoda was the last Japanese soldier to surrender, 29 years after the Second World War ended. He survived in the jungles of the Philippines, not believing that the war was over and only came out of hiding on his insistence that his commanding officer issued the order to stand down.

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

What Will Prosperity Reveal?

It won’t matter how good things get
If your mind is primed for panic
When there’s even more to lose
You’ll be prone to feeling manic

Still Frozen – 26th September 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 21 Comments 
The dew isn't frozen for a change,
each step leaves a dark hole,
a trail to my soggy shoes.

Once again,
I stand at the old wooden shed door
with a bent, rusty key
that no longer turns the stuck lock.

It would be easy to break in.

Inside, 
the axe, 
the scythe, 
the shears, 
all in need of sharpening.

I'm not ready yet.

Written for Poets and Storytellers #246 – spring. Look at that. I actually wrote a seasonal poem.

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

What Time Off Is For

Enjoy your relaxation like a poet
Relaxed but observing the world around
What is your calling? Do you know it?
Endless TV is not freedom found