Month: May 2025

New Old Library – 31st May 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

A teacher under the Bodhi tree
Opened the pages of his heart
And as he began instructing me
My deconstruction found its start

This old library had so much to choose
Yet his words were very sparing
Having discarded so many views
He’d discovered those most caring

No bitterness from defeat
Also no victory parade
Laughing off the devil’s deceit
As a fiction purely self-made

Returning to the Bodhi tree
A thousand years in the ground
That teacher has become me
A new library of the profound

Inspired by the paragraph at the Road To Nara blog:


Well, personally it has been the most blessed thing to have found friendships in living books- that are these elderly souls walking, waiting to be asked, to be poked- to only turn into child like once again. But it is also true as much that the one will find you, the one you might be searching for. These friends don’t only carry stories, but discipline in varied ways. Experience of the land that can be found nowhere else. I bow to one such teacher who blessed me with a magic life saving skill.

My Rooms – 30th May 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 3 Comments

I keep a room in my mind for you,
my secret is there, though you don’t know;
Like a box of memories, the things you do
and say as I watch you learn and grow.

I keep a room in my mind for things
that once seemed so important to me;
The joy and sorrow that it brings
are all accessible subconsciously.

I keep rooms in my mind for many,
some, I decided, needed their doors closing;
And further in, there’s still space for any
that the future reveals to me proposing.

Somewhat inspired by the thought in James Clavell’s Shogun that Japanese people keep everything in their mind in separate spaces in their minds.

Erase Issue – 29th May 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

An erasure poem using text from the condescending and unreadable “The Chinese Have A Word For It” which I duly decided was only worth cutting up and using for this purpose.

I don’t know how to get WordPress to format text the way I would like, so have added a picture at the top of the post, followed by the original text and below, text that can be cut and paste.



each new track identifying;

each system distinguished:
require rain


immediate mobility
stores people usable;

raise issue there, not anywhere


further decree
want permission
denied key
request
and petition
test

family houses –
only register change,
report ration;

millions, a new look;
still control, still for order,
new and all available space

The Useless Children – 28th May 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Men forever falling
In an upward trajectory
Coddled and enabled
By patriarchal society

Spoiled little baby boys
Never educated beyond
Their own expectations
And how their fathers would respond

Unable to face facts
Unused to quality thinking
Cultural acceptance
Sees the population shrinking

Half the children useless
The other half without success
Societies in chains
One hundred per cent in distress

Monkey see, monkey do
It’s a man-child evolution
XY chromosome death
Maybe the only solution

The patriarchal privilege in Thai society disgusts me and both women and men are suffering because of it. The solution proffered here is extreme because I don’t know how it can be fixed. I am a useless man-child myself.

Watts Right – 27th May 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

1. Cinquain

The rock

Cold, unyielding

The best contribution

Sits watching a world in turmoil

Solid

2. Quatrain

Airs punctured by gasoline,
a perfume of our cancers;
shout out, the suffering scream
louder than any answers.

Once unseen, I will surprise;
smash me, I will not succumb;
bitter salts anaesthetise,
remaining forever numb.

Stagnant water starts to clear
passing through old time’s filter;
endlessly, year after year,
re-righting the Earth’s kilter.

I meditate in silence,
breathing calmly, taking stock;
to counteract the violence,
I am an island, a rock.

Submitted for a final AllPoetry assignment. I tried to incorporate the senses into this poem more than I would normally do. This whole poem is also inspired by an Alan Watts quote:

“As muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone, it could be argued that those who sit quietly and do nothing are making one of the best possible contributions to a world in turmoil.”

For the last line – apologies to Simon and Garfunkel.

Syllable count per line – quatrain : 7
Rhyme scheme: Quatrain – alternating rhyme and Cinquain
Rhyme types: mostly perfect rhyme
Personification: I am a rock!
Senses: smell (gasoline/perfume), sound (shout/scream), sight (unseen) touch (smash me/numb), taste (bitter salts)
Alliteration: shout/suffering/scream, any/answers, unseen/surprise/smash/succumb
Assonance: shout out/louder, unseen/surprise/succumb, stagnant/starts, I/silence, meditate/in, counteract/the, am/an/a
Consonance: salts anaesthetise, re-righting
Metaphor/simile: The first stanza is a metaphor for the chaos of the world. ‘Once unseen’ – rocks are not something noticed but always there. ‘Bitter salts’ – lick a rock, it tastes salty. ‘Numb’ – rocks have no feelings. “passing through old time’s filter” – mineral water cleaned as it passes through rocks. “re-righting the Earth’s kilter” – no matter what mankind does, the Earth will sort itself out.

Myopia – 26th May 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 13 Comments

Written for W3 Prompt #160:
Pick a single abstract noun that carries weight, mystery, or tension for you—something like liberty, danger, truth, love, exile, justice, forgiveness, joy, grief, silence…
Don’t use it until your poem’s final line.
Start each line with a description or action that leads us toward the noun, not from it. This is called left-branching syntax—it means delaying the main subject or verb.
You’re working with delay, accumulation, and unfolding. The noun you’ve chosen arrives only at the end. Until then, build around it, toward it, beneath it. Let readers feel its shape before they hear its name.
From Deepseek:
The word “opia” is a fascinating and relatively obscure abstract noun that captures a very specific, almost paradoxical feeling. It refers to the ambiguous intensity of eye contact—that unsettling, electric sensation when you lock eyes with someone, and the moment feels both intimate and invasive, vulnerable and powerful.

as wolf eyes in the gloom,

catching light,

a subtle, fleeting stare;


a mirror ball shaken by each boom,

a wincing fright,

enraptured to suddenly share;




is it a gander or a gawk?

tension-charged,

a piercing wonder;


translating a silent talk,

pupils enlarged,

enraptured to suddenly ponder;




uncertain at the exchange,

intimate invasion,

objectified by the gaze;


spine-tingling and strange,

a powerful persuasion,

enraptured to suddenly amaze;




a possibility of aggression,

observer and observed,

at the edge of scopophobia;


or a dance towards affection,

both slightly unnerved,

enraptured in this sudden opia.

Faith, Hope and Courage – 24th May 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Constant communiqués of despair
The end of times always kept in mind
The hollow rings of Happy New Year
Distracting us from our daily grind
We become living embodiments
Of the catastrophes we’ve foretold
Trapped within these dark environments
Hopes are fading for the dreams we’re sold

Embolden the heart! Be courageous!
Inspire action to defend the world
Sell, not be sold to, is contagious
Flags of faith, hope and courage unfurled
Hope becomes the energy of change
A radical audacious duty
With optimism, we can arrange
Our thoughts towards a life of beauty

Inspired and paraphrased (one more time) by Nick Cave at The Red Hand Files #308. The title is also a play on words of Nick Cave’s album Faith, Hope and Carnage.

Limited The Limitless – 23rd May 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

This word I give myself
I gift to you
The label on the package
I’ve told as true
Has captured the infinite
To be contained
Now nought but a thought
Easily explained

A paraphrasing of this quote

As soon as you believe that a label you’ve put on yourself is true, you’ve limited something that is literally limitless, you’ve limited who you are into nothing but a thought.

Adyashanti

A Pause – 22nd May 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 6 Comments

Longer days,

a child’s return;

each breath, a moment

of life.


Tranquil dreams,

soft and silent;

shushed to doze, stilled by

slumber.


Soundless sleep,

a peaceful rest;

before the full stop…..

a pause.


Hushed by night,

lulled to the end;

forever resting

in peace.

Another attempt at dVerse Quadrille #224 – quiet, this time inspired by a couple of other existing entries, one from Punam, whose line I reversed in the third stanza and one from Lona, who introduced the Divided Quadrille and so I thought I’d give it a crack!