Author: shaun tenzenmen
Australasian DIY music specialist and practising poet, amongst other things
The empire founded on phantoms,
Does Not Compute – 25th October 2025
Walk with your teacher but trust them not;
even your eyes should not be trusted.
Your thoughts as useful as diddly-squat
– Error 404 – done and dusted!
Shared with Reena’s Xploration Challenge #404 and the attached picture.
Big Toe Blues – 24th October 2025
If you could talk, what would you say?
You’re the one that keeps me stable,
not wobbling in a doubtful sway.
If you could talk, what would you say?
When I stub you and swear away
at that stupid fucking table.
If you could talk, what would you say?
You’re supposed to keep me stable!
Shared with W3 #182 – a triolet about something ordinary.
ประตูมรสุมสั่น – 23rd October 2025
First thunders mutter beyond the hills
The flame-of-the-forests ignited
The schoolyard screaming suddenly stills
This season’s mango gold soon sighted
Shadows vanish as the bold noon stands
Heat haze braids shimmer like woven silk
Morning mortars thud with chilli-stained hands
Iced coffee, blooming curls of condensed milk
Silver water cups ring with laughter
Powder and perfume for New Year’s turn
Sudden winds gather ever faster
Flash floods for which the parched fields yearn
Shared with dVerse Poetics – microseasons. The Thai title translates as Monsoon Doors Rattle. While the events described may span a month or so, there have been times when all this will happen within the same week.
Lovely Ice – 22nd October 2025
She holds divine diamonds
Piercing dark portals on innocent smiles
A skipped beat, held breath
Reading cards waiting in the deck
Kaleidoscope memories tumbling at the twists
Love forever, or just a second
Effervesce and overflow
Strike me dead! Enchanted in that delicious gaze.
Shared with dVerse Quadrille #234
Dropping In – 21st October 2025
Inspired after reading ‘turning up fresh’ by Ren
Never had a need for others’
politics, rules or opinions;
I’m dropping in from the out,
a reminder of other dominions.
Here it comes,
here it comes again,
that sick-to-the-stomach pain;
– Too much of myself again.
Taking a break to turn around,
a moment in the mire
to freshen up in the muds that may inspire.
The Knowing – 20th October 2025
Inspired by this piece of writing by Maia at Tiny Hearts, though I was less explicit.
Life’s echoes return soon –
your reflections reveal the blame.
A child’s plea, a tide pulled by an invisible moon,
a candle waiting for a flame.
Love is not held tight with a closed fist
but free to flow from an open palm.
The heart not so easily dismissed
from the banks of a river, calm.
The knowing grows in a room
with all the windows open wide.
Gut feelings fall down too soon
if you’re never looking outside.
The deeper reading of the maps
will quiet the storms in advance.
The heart becomes a harbour, perhaps
to contemplate this dance.
Some Surrender – 19th October 2025
The both of me are struggling inside
One wants to just enjoy the ride
A hedonist with parties to attend
A firestorm with fuel to spend
Better to burn out than fade away?
So, tonight is the time to play
…Tomorrow, I’ll write down everything…
The both of me, struggling to get out
The anxious side, processing doubt
Every word needs to be remembered
So that some time must be surrendered
If all this savouring gets rephrased
Will it be somehow falsely praised?
Did it really happen as we say?
The feeling is that it must be done today…
…Tomorrow, I’ll write down everything…
The both of me are struggling to win
A desperate balance being fought within
This happiness must be documented
Not pass by forgotten and lamented
So tonight I’ll simply sigh and say
That if it cannot be done today
…Tomorrow, I’ll write down everything…
Shared with W3 #181 – a bop poem. This poem was inspired by this week’s dVerse prompt, using a line from a Günter Grass poem as a refrain. I saw this line, “…Tomorrow, I’ll write down everything…” used in the poem ‘Tomorrow’ and along with the word ‘bop’, this reminded me (again!) of the dilemma Jack Kerouac would face when having fun with his friends but wanting to rush home to write it down before it got forgotten to the mists of time. I see that I have written this poem before, too! Perhaps this is part two?
In the first stanza, I reference Firestorm, a DC comic character that at one time was two different people inside one body, often struggling with decisions. This came to mind as I had been reading it last night.
Ice Age – 18th October 2025
Shared with dVerse MTB quatern and utilising the phrase ‘what happens when the river stops‘ taken from Günter Grass’s ‘What I write about’.
What happens when the river stops
flowing towards its final form,
to meet dissolution, consumed
in a roiling ghost of gestalt?
Gathering stagnation – is that
what happens when the river stops?
Dammed many times along the way,
it aches to carve a deeper chart;
Breath seeping into the soft soils,
probing for any solve to see
what happens. When the river stops,
frozen skin, a trick of the light,
conceals the hand of destiny
on swirling tides of history.
I find I do not want to know
what happens when the river stops.
Empty Chest – 17th October 2025
Amid grief, it seems easy to find words to comfort others, yet a struggle to find them for yourself. This poem was somewhat inspired by this write from Carol Anne at Therapy Bits
1994ever 