Category: 2024

Hold Your Nerve – 24th June 2024

~ tenzenmen ~ 2 Comments

Said with a smile, hand over fist
The beating you deserve said with a kiss
Hormones kicking in, take a licking
The beating you deserve, hand over fist

Given an inch, you’ll take a mile
Can you hold your nerve and smile?

Medication kicking in, it’s a kiss in
Given an inch, you’ll see what’s missing
The beating you deserve, hand over fist
Say it with a smile, said with a fist

Submitted to Three Things Challenge #M734 and a reworking of Drive Like Jehu’s Hand Over Fist and somewhat a part two to Get It Together

Your Brother – 23rd June 2024

~ tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Can we grow? Help each other know
The best is ahead; let’s just start with better
It’s the knowing when to come and go
Through thick and thin together

Twenty years with no exchange
When we didn’t need each other
Resumes without feeling strange
Wherever you are, I’m your brother

Written for an AllPoetry assignment analysing friendship

Get It Together – 22nd June 2024

~ tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

Got a head barren of motivation
What’s said only delivers frustration
Not dead but denied inspiration
Get it together or you’re done!

Emo-driven tears an aberration
Forgotten fears sudden implication
Perspective clears internal narration
You got skills but the bills are due!

Each turmoil treads towards education
Lessons learned have no expiration
Third eyes open to the realisation
Time to shine because the rains will come!

Submitted to Ovi Poetry Challenge 53 and inspired by one of my students who is trying hard at school but is close to getting kicked out.

Spy On You – 21st June 2024

~ tenzenmen ~ 2 Comments

My lizard eye spies surprise
Sideways sly spy in the skies
Explain a name, much the same
A play for fame explains the game

To beat the heat or face defeat
You gotta cheat the play complete
I did the do in watching you
So talk me through the dimmest view

Before there’s more along the floor
See what I see, saw what I saw
Split decision at the supervision
I got television with precision-vision
I got an eye on you

Submitted to Three Things Challenge #M729 and #M730

Whisper In The Dark – 19th June 2024

~ tenzenmen ~ 2 Comments

Stumble in darkness clear of you
A restful cave, I start to think
Repeat the mantras I wrote for you
To amuse, gather together what I have
To pass this quiet time

Thrust into light, away from you
A forgotten face is all I have
Understood by both, no means no
Repeat the mantras I have for time

“You think you have time, you have no time”

Ghosts by nomeansno

A golden shovel inspired by nomeansno and submitted to FOWC with Fandango – faceless and MLMM Wordle #377 – clear, restful, repeat, amuse, pass, thrust

Clare’s Hoped For Sleep – 16th June 2024

~ tenzenmen ~ 13 Comments

A knot to untie the time
Tightened by weight
A sinking ship
Submits to fate

Empty bottle on the sill
A chemical reaction
Soothed into slumber
A sought-after satisfaction

A razor to the wrist
A red river runs
Across the dim-lit dusk
Of no more suns

An inch of water deep
To all the sorrows drowned
A cold ceramic bed
A final furlough found

Cold steel at the temple
One last prayer said
No more cookies to crumble
All the lemons put to bed

Submitted to Moonwashed Musings – hope for, Writer’s Workshop – sleep and Weekly Prompts Weekend Challenge – Sleep. Inspired by Australian fanzine writer Clare Lemon’s quest to commit suicide which she openly wrote about and eventually achieved her wish.