Month: April 2025

Once A Tempest – 9th April 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 2 Comments

We used to be a storm

– good luck if you got in our way!

When the day became night

was the time to come out and play.


With no thoughts in our head

our hearts were often left wrenching,

and those who had succumbed

were left in a dreadful drenching.


Now that time has tamed us

to curb our once awful powers,

the hurricane tempest

has become just scattered showers.

Shared with Momoetry April Poet Month challenge – ‘showers’

Dharma – 8th April 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Unable to see the ends of the universe, we reach out to each other to make sense of it; grasping at notions to inspire comfort in the chaos and impose order on our lives.


our minds can travel

to the far corners of thought,

disconnected from

our bodies, glued to the earth;

so we must meet each other.

A tanka prose poem shared with Momoetry April Poet Month challenge – tanka and inspired by the thoughts of Jayaram V posted here.

Pavilions – 7th April 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 2 Comments

after slow thawing

Spring winds know bitterness

the place to break hearts

before the new blossom starts

pavilion of misery



~ when darkness yields, a new dance ~



let’s fish together

gathering the red bean seeds

on ten thousand trails

joy blooms when the heart exhales

pavilion of happiness

A tanka puente for Momoetry April Poet Month challenge – micropoetry and inspired by Tang Dynasty poetry examples found here at eastasiastudent.net

Dakou Generation – 6th April 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

A scrapbook of the zeitgeist
dedicated to the dakou generation;
It’s the new sound of the city –
Catalogue cut-outs from trash migration,

From cunning middlemen with a gash saw
to a table set up on university streets;
Cultural anarchy in black market bags –
No refunds and untraceable receipts,

Youth, as water, will find the way –
The Catcher In The Rye has New Pants;
Horizons broaden for the time travellers
prepared to take half a chance.

Inspired by this article at beijingscene.com by Jeremy Goldkorn and Su Fei back in 1999.

Da kou is the Chinese term for catalog cut-out CDs and cassettes that have been gashed with a saw to prevent resale. Record companies in the West can save money by destroying surplus stock, but the law only requires that a small gash be sawed into the disk or cassette (and packaging), which renders the product “destroyed,” in a legal sense. The music is still listenable: sawn cassettes are easy to repair, and on CDs the gash only ruins the last song or two of an average-length LP. Cunning middlemen then sell the gash-sawed items as “scrap” to poorer countries where copyright laws are lax, such as the People’s Republic of China.

Time Masters Call – 4th April 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Shared with Momoetry April Poet Month challenge – free verse and inspired/paraphrased from this post at Spinning Visions

With you, I find myself wishing;

everywhere I look

…all I see are clocks…

…tick, tick, ticking…


Both feet rarely grounded,

but six-thirty,

twice a day, at time masters call.




Fill my hourglass with molasses

because I cannot make it stick;

make the drips slow and sweet…

tick, tick, ticking…

Later;



The world entirely changed;

a rose garden under concrete

pillars that hide the sky.

Redded hands,

strawberry smears or bloodied

stings of sweat and toil?




With you, I find myself wishing;

twice a day, at time masters call;

at these intersections,

…all I see are clocks…

…tick, tick, ticking…

This Day Wants You – 3rd April 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 2 Comments

All the parachutes of fire,

Paper tears, small joys shredded,

Rains down so sweet.

I laughed and said,

‘Love the only possible end’;

Terrified of not loving again;

How long do we have each other?

I mean, why is no one talking about this?

Regrets are shivering in the wind,

Down to this day, today, wanting you.

An acrostic poem for Momoetry April Poet Month challenge – acrostic and also a kind of erasure poem mixed with a cento as almost everything is paraphrased from sections of other poems that were posted here at Tiny Hearts

Attitude Is… – 2nd April 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Ready for the rain
Ready for the sun
Attitude is everything

With only three ideas
All of them – you
I am all I have

My soul unfinished
Half-bad ain’t half bad
There’s no one left to say

Looking further out
Looking further in
Attitude is everything

All images from the awesome m_d_n_f_ Instagram page – click on the images to go there and discover more.
Shared with Momoetry April Poet Month challenge – renewal

The Lowest Form – 1st April 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 3 Comments

The limerick that schools
Upon this day of fools
Written with ease
I do as I please
Regardless of the rules

A poetry most base
Rhyming with lack of grace
These words I write
May just ignite
To blow up in my face

Shared with Momoetry April Poet Month challenge – limerick
I think I associate limericks with childhood and uncouth rhyme. I also find it one of the easiest forms to write, perhaps because the rhythm is so familiar. Anyway, that’s why I consider limericks the ‘lowest form’ of poetry!