Author: shaun tenzenmen

Australasian DIY music specialist and practising poet, amongst other things

You Are My Only Witness – 8th March 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 7 Comments

This braided poem was assembled after reading a couple of posts at Sonia Dogra’s blog, borrowing the first line and then weaving together the lyrics from Nomeansno’s ‘It’s Catching Up’, with an imagined meeting with an old friend both now and in the past.
Also shared with Poetic Adventures

We bring with us the weight of others
Living rent-free in our heads

– Have you heard the news?
– The dead walk

We’ll meet in my room again

How to disconnect from the connected?

A sweet, dusty smell of cigarette ash
A comfortable haze, a bitter beer taste

– Do you hear that sound?
– Like fingers scratching underground

We’ll drive our parents crazy

The burdens of reality are distraction
Voices wild and unnerving

– Do you hear that sound?
– That slamming door

Put on another record to soothe the pain

My only friend, history made us enemies
It only felt like forever

– I’ve fought it all my life
– I can’t fight it anymore

We carry a deep nostalgia for last week

Here again, drawn to that sound
Everything changed, and nothing too

– It’s catching up

Listen to another record, this time alone

The same thought overwhelms us

– How do you hide from something you have
found?

Her Name – 6th March 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 18 Comments

Her considered sophisticated smile
careful
An enticing night time jasmine
perfume
Her rosy porcelain skin, fine
china
Her eyes shine bright the prize
clearly
It was all in her name
Allure

The original poem is below, and above is a re-write for dVerse using the WaltMarie form. A convenient coincidence that these two prompts came in the same week.

Her name was Allure
It was in her eyes
– Bright and unclouded
She made herself the prize

Her name was Allure
It was in her skin
– Rosy and yielding
Fashioned from porcelain

Her name was Allure
It was in her perfume
– Curious and enticing
A night time jasmine bloom

Her name was Allure
It was in her smile
– Careful and considered
A sophisticated style

When I was studying to teach English, there were folks from all around the world in the class. One young Chinese lady had taken the English name Allure, which I found quite intriguing. She was a pretty lady, and I’m sure many people did find her name appropriate.
Shared with Moonwashed Weekly Prompt – using the word allure

A River Of Cliches – 5th March 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 4 Comments

A young man, resting here weary
Ruminating possibilities and theory
With age, cliches come to mind
Once revelations, destined to find

Endless the water’s progression
Manifesting yesterday’s lesson
Never stepping in the same river twice
The path of least resistance, best advice

So pull yourself up by the bootstraps
Certainty has no time for perhaps
The cliche becomes the best insight
Rolling down the river, a delight

Shared with No Theme Thursday picture prompt, which brought to mind many cliches but then got me thinking about how when we are young those cliches are realisations and it is only in time that they become cliches. We have to discover them for ourselves first.

Charlie Zero The Poet Music picks & Reviews #13 and my quick thoughts:

William Basinski – Musically not my cup of proverbial. It seems there some story behind this work but I wasn’t inspired enough to find out more.

Helm – I like parts of this and overall it’s pretty interesting. With everything else available to listen to this won’t be making it to the try again pile though.

Matmos – I like Matmos. I like their vibe and style…. but in that cliched way “i like their old stuff better than their new stuff’

b e g o t t e n 自杀 – this intrigued me a little bit even though I’m not really into it. There’s definitely not enough guitars in today’s selection! 😄

Samiyam – definitely the most interesting to me out of this selection. In a different mood I might like this one.

Still Dreaming – 4th March 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Listen to the old man talk
as if he’s going to live forever,
still making plans for tomorrow

Looking for a lost lightheartedness,
finding it within, when all around
is filled with a musty sorrow

In his heart, his dreams are held,
a spritely sage of memories;
youth is wasted on the young

While the bitter lemons waste
turning into twisted leather;
each day his new life begun

You Can’t Wash It Away – 2nd March 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 6 Comments

Shared with dVerse Tuesday Poetics: The Four Elements – my chosen element being earth.


The blood spills to dampen the desert;
a dusted red mochi forms.
These plains become a fertile crescent
once more.

The storm forms, a raining of boots;

Mud made men without meaning – cold earth
enveloped those troops.


A coward hides to snipe;
pap, put, pup – he spits.


Thunderfire singes the old roots
before boats rise from underground;
where seeds now drown
in the red-rushed dirt of oblivion


The bones of the buried found
haunt forever those lost in the victory
amongst the deadly bloom together

ตามสบาย – 1st March 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 3 Comments

I told her ‘It’s up to you’
She said ‘That’s damn right!’
Yet she knows not what to do
It’s always fight or flight

And so it was she ran
Too immature to explain
Until her awakening began
And she’s welcomed back again

A real conversation I had a couple of years ago with rebel student Feije, who subsequently left my school for elsewhere but I discovered yesterday that she will come back for grade 10. I liked her feistiness and stayed in occasional contact with her.
Shared with Moonwashed Weekly Prompt – writer’s choice.