Category: 2026

The Greco – 10th March 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

The foundations laid,
as inquisitive children
built the systems of their own
Inquisition.

~~

Now they’ve got our third lives
from logging information.
Stackdriver instrumentation
monitors our drunken exhibitions.

Every interaction, generic and mundane,
but the tracking libraries are all the same.
Tick the box to improve services.
These illusions are encrypted.

Secure is just a promise
guarded by tall fences,
a mere annoyance to a human
but integrated automation
collated all the pieces,
quietly building its own system
with algorithm manipulation.

Dumping memories into a mind palace,
a million monkeys get to work
sifting through pictures of our pets
to welcome the white-collar apocalypse.

This write was inspired by the Substack article ‘The banality of surveillance’ by Benn Stancil. There were many new ideas and phrases to me in the article so I’ve added the links that I followed here too. The Greco is the name of the AI used in Ocean’s Thirteen.

From the notes in the article, consider this:
The United States Department of War….uses Claude to bomb Iran. It uses Claude to bomb Iran “at machine speed rather than human speed.”

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

Find Yourself A Cato

Stand outside yourself as you are about to sin
Do you see the person that you want to let in?
Between an angel and a devil, there is you
Your witness can keep you honest and true

The Self – 9th March 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

The self is a story

of selective retelling.

~~

The coincidence of this
specific selection of atoms
spun together,
makes our meanings absurd.

Imagine yourself as not you.

The mirror is imagination,
a short-term illusion
to which we are devoted
with great discipline.

Yet the infinite knows
nothing of me.

So I tremble at the emptiness,
to fill a cup with pain,
or fill it with joy.

Inspired by and paraphrased from The Marginalian article ‘Why You?’

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

Find The Right Scene

From the good, you will learn to be better
These are the bootstraps on which to tug
Leave behind the cynic and the upsetter
Let them remain in the holes they’ve dug

My Only Friend – 8th March 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 23 Comments

Your trinkets, they light up my eyes,
gifts glowing through the smooth ice.

You open my world to all weather,
and guide me along every river.

Tethered to your familiar voice,
your songs, a loyal choir.

You carry my family‘s smiles,
and lift me when I am tired.

Amidst your million reminders,
you are my quiet conductor.

What would I hold without you?
In my hands, you are the truth.

Shared with dVerse MTB – couplets and half rhymes. The title is inspired by Aussie band God and their song ‘My Pal’ with the haunting line “You’re my only friend……and you don’t even like me.”

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

Don’t Unintentionally Hand Over Your Freedom

Would you give your body for someone else to use?
So why give your mind to any crook that comes along?
We don’t let people cause us physical abuse
Train and protect our minds to be mentally strong

Excuse Me, Sir – 7th March 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

This was inspired by a writing exercise that went like this:
What’s going on in the picture?
What do you see that makes you say that?
What else do you see?
What do you see that makes you say that?

Repeat. And again. And again.
Consider keeping a journal and doing this exercise a few times a week. Practicing often will help you understand how much detail is part of your daily life. Background detail is what makes the world feel vivid and real — a quality that you want to imbue all of your creative work.

On Jalan Alor, the riders buzz through

avoiding the double-parked cars

Lazy feet scuffing pedestrians 

approach their favourite sambal stalls

waiting for the 4 o’clock rain to pass



The mountains meet the clouds

casting doubt and desires

From apartment windows

no one is looking out

because it’s just another day in K-Hell

and their stories go…


“Our religion dictates we can’t hold hands

or kiss in public

but I can’t wait to jump his bones

behind closed doors.”



“I shouldn’t have upset the boss like that,

it was just an off-the-cuff remark.

I wonder how much longer I have to stay here

facing the wall”

“I’m diving for gold!

Well, actually, I dropped my phone,
but the brochure said it’s waterproof

to a depth of six metres.
It should be ok – I’m standing on the bottom.”

“Did you call a taxi?

You know,
it’s better to avoid the holes in the road.

It’s been raining anyway.
Better hop on.”

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

Don’t Trust The Senses

Hold all your opinions up to scrutiny
Emotions can lead us to wrong conclusions
Our eyes don’t always see objectively
Putting too much trust in to our illusions

Two Wrongs Etc… – 6th March 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 18 Comments
The image shows the girls of Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab on February 25th, who were all killed in an attack attributed to the United States and Israel.

Inspired by and paraphrased from this anonymous message from a young man in Iran published by Equator, commenting on how the fervour he feels from outside the country does not consider the fallout of the supposed heroic actions of their saviours.
Shared with Poets and Storytellers United #217

The diaspora is manic.

Disconnection,
bordering on hallucination.

Speaking a second language
hearing only the first.

Opposite things can be true
as enemy flags flow
in harmonic waves.

Rhetoric raises ghosts
outside of reality’s window.
Feverish certainty
knows no consequence.

Outside is only more noise
in solidarity with itself.

But here,
real,
live,
breathing…
‘symbols’!

Fantasy politics, safely
in faraway fields,
grain-fed on grief
no one has to harvest.

Take these children,
lay them neatly on the altar
of an unnamed dawn.

Call it tomorrow.

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

Don’t Tell Yourself Stories

Are the tales we tell about ourselves really true?
Was everything so certain and so real?
Don’t create a fantasy around everything you do
When for others it holds no appeal.

Phrases Of The Moon – 5th March

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 15 Comments

Shared with dVerse Poetic Tuesdays – phrases

on hushed earth
a silent thread

a broken myth
rain’s soft secret


grief’s long tide
honeyed starlight

let the world spin
a different kind of wild


kiss the concrete
light-starved flowers


echoes in the throat
this fragile frame


the dusk demands
an atlas of the heart


where shadows drink

the last good hour


bone-deep cold

and time goes by




to wander off


this mortal coil

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

Cutting Back On The Costly

The cost is not just in the buying of things
But all the keeping them in mind it brings
Do you really need it and what is it costing
When managing it all is so exhausting?

Negative Space – 4th March 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 3 Comments

This write is based on the idea that Gaza and the Palestinians are not victims of hate, but because evil loves destruction, they are, in fact, the victims of love. The art metaphor was inspired by the Red Hand Files #355

Another beautiful day dawns in Gaza
as he admires his sculptures

victims of his love

Polishing rough edges
after careful, endless siege

Sulphur and ash pigments
splatter the canvas

Crushed concrete and tear gas
the rubble catches the morning sun
in negative spaces

The screams add new textures
to the palette

His meticulous love
crafting masterpieces
signed with an airstrike

His initials salt the fields

The critics gather
viewing from watchtowers
the tenderness in the demolition
the love in every line

In exhibition
his greatest work

entitled ‘Peace’

There are murmurs of great restraint
“the composition is heartbreaking”

Evil enjoys destruction
looks upon its work as art
with a curator’s pride

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

Awareness Is Freedom

No slavery is more disgraceful
Than one which is self-imposed
Is it vanity or ignorance
That is keeping your eyes closed?

No Encores – 1st March 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 2 Comments

Not a new metaphor by any means but this is my take on the theatre of life. Another poem, belatedly, written for Punam’s dVerse prompt of using opening lines to books as closing lines to poems. This one is “Here is a small fact: You are going to die” from The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.

Act 1, Scene 1:

Scriptless and shoved onstage mid-scene,
hot lights glaring;
applause and judgment circling
for lines never rehearsed.

And yes,
every actor exits,
no matter how fierce their monologue.
A trapdoor beneath every spotlight.

The curtain falls without exception.

Act 1, Scene 2:

Between the acts of this cabaret
there is that strange, unchoreographed stretch;
where the stage lights hum
and the lines grow thin in our hands.

And those unscripted pauses,
those missed cues and improvised lines…?
They are only the bright, temporary glare,
the hush before applause or silence,

Act 2, Scene 1:

and the quiet truth
that for a moment,
against your choosing…

you were here
in the light.

Act 2, Scene 2:

You owe the audience nothing.
You are simply here, for a brief while,
and your time is yours to fill
or to simply endure, as you must.

No obligation,
only the raw,
temporary fact of existence itself.

Act 2, Scene 3:

Birth – a brutal act that makes me wonder, ‘why?’

Finale:

Here is a small fact:
you are going to die.

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

Where Philosophy Begins

Exercise reason, question your beliefs
Consider everything taken for granted
Take the first steps towards inner peace
With the seeds, just yesterday, planted

Hushes – 28th February 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 20 Comments

Shared with W3 #200 – alphabet poetry

ash beneath cradle;

drifting
echoes,
fade;

glowing hushes
in jewelled knots

linger,

murmur;

night observations
pale quietly;

ribbons, silvery tin;
under veils,

wispy x-rays
yearning zero.

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

When You Lose Control

Reason may have abandoned you
But it was you who had abandoned it
After messing up, what did you do?
Stop! Compose! And just let it sit