Tag: dVerse

You Can’t See Me When I Close My Eyes – 17th December 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 21 Comments

Shared with dVerse Quadrille #238 – hibernate.
The initial line is taken from Jae Rose’s poem ‘Coax’.

It is hard to
live fully above ground.
The nail that sticks
up gets hammered down.

Protected in silent procrastination
like a seasonal hibernation,
sleeping through until cessation.

When things settle down
I’ll return once more,
But until then, I’m
waiting for the thaw.

Plateau – 15th December 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 2 Comments

What is a tableau?
Quick searching Google
brought me a surprise;
expecting paintings,
all I got was graphs
exploring data.

So the world has changed,
words have new meanings.
I wanted pictures
frozen at a time
of great importance,
to inspire a write.

Shared with dVerse MTB – tableau.
I know what a tableau is but went searching for something in particular to write about. I guess, in one way, I found it.

So, This Is The Free Country – 21st November 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 14 Comments

Shared with dVerse Poetics – ‘So This Is…’

Prathet Thai (ประเทศไทย) literally ‘free nation’
Phra Athit (พระอาทิตย์) The Celestial Emperor.
Mae Khong (แม่ของ) River known as the Mekong in the West.
Mae Posop (แม่โพสพ) The Rice Goddess
The Naga (พญานาค) The Great Serpent
Mae Suay Dawan (แม่สวยดาวัน) The sun seeking reflection.
Nang Ron (นางร้อน) Invisible but felt everywhere.
Krungthep (กรุงเทพ) Bangkok
Phee WaeLa (ผีเวลา) The embodiment of lazy afternoons

Phra Athit, celestial emperor,
leads his royal procession each day
across the shimmering sky.
Breathing life into the rice paddies,
his golden robes gild temple roofs
and commands the reverence of the Mae Khong.

The hardy must endure his midday glare
until a truce is brokered
with Mae Posop and the Naga,
and so the seasons share the throne.

Mae Suay Dawan brushes pastel dawn
over the Andaman Sea
jewels of dew at her feet,
a gown woven from the first warm hush of morning.
Her quiet radiance outshines
the golden trumpet trees.

Nang Ron, lazy and playful trickster,
throws a heavy, humid blanket
over the melting asphalt of Krungthep.
Mirages rise like whispered promises of cool,
eyelids sag with heat;
she lulls us gently toward our hammocks.

The chef grills the city in a giant wok,
the rent is paid in sweat.

Phee Waela draws out the drones
of the cicadas
melting away afternoons.
The breath of the slumbering dragon,
an endless exhale.

Cat Flyer – 20th November 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 7 Comments
Reba Spike on Unsplash.

Who coaxed the cat to the sky?
Watched it fly away like that
Spectators wonder just why
Some rat did that to a cat

And now, how to coax it down?
As it floats around so free
So absurd that it could drown
Chasing birds out to the sea

Maybe meow a message
Learn how to coax a human
To shoot down this odd carriage
From reknown to solution!

Shared with dVerse Q236 (but not a quadrille) – coax and Melissa’s FFFC #347 image prompt above.

Every Dog – 16th November 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 20 Comments

Shared with dVerse MTB: The Roundel
*’The USA has met its enemy and it is the USA’ was taken from a Substack article I was reading but forgot to note the link.

The USA has met its enemy
and it is the USA, every day.
No one wants to play with the USA.

The truth is there for everyone to see.
All that’s left are the dreams of yesterday.
The USA has met its enemy
and it is the USA, every day.

They’ve been beaten at their own game, you see,
there’s none left outside for them to betray,
and so the empire is fading away.
The USA has met its enemy
and it is the USA, every day.
No one wants to play with the USA.

Container Drivers (Version) – 14th November 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 14 Comments

Let’s heighten tensions with China
We’ve got to keep them down
Grey caps and grey trousers
Sweatshops will keep them down
We are containers, we are the drivers

Sideways perception
Allied ascension
Maintained low wages
Increased production
Therefore profit margins
We are the containers, and the drivers

The rhetoric was for two days
Maintained headlines for two days
Militarised, cold and grey
And sold so many papers
We are containers, we are the drivers

This is not our town
Alienation came from the ground
Hard work did not keep them down
Hard work bought them the town
With their containers and their drivers

J. Ma’s a distant relation
Of 1 billion full-time workers
So they all said ‘no thanks’
In commune and closed ranks
With their containers and their drivers

A wound self-inflicted
Partnerships invalidated
FOIP – branded strategy
Diplomatic engagements ended
With AI containers and robot drivers

Shared with dVerse Poetics – Pivot referencing the USA’s Pivot To Asia. For some reason, I had the Fall’s ‘Container Drivers’ stuck in my head and so the poem can be sung along in time with that (if you wish!)

Carving – 6th November 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 16 Comments

the shaper of my own world
from imagination
both triumphs and failures arise

reflections in quiet glass
the storm and calm
of my hands

eyes are open
viewing the rain
from here, inside

the thought
that changed the scene
all upside down
from the devil’s intention

light split
through the prisms
of truth
i see

if the building breaks
i’ll start with new bricks
the carving is the conversation

Shared with dVerse Poetics – craft and how we shape our own realities

Mise en Abyme – 2nd November 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 16 Comments

*The old librarian still searches for
himself among the shelves. Glasses half-cocked,
hanging on to his nose, rubbing eyes, sore
from a thousand years of dust, sunlight blocked,
but his thirst for knowledge cannot be stopped.
Owlish and wizened with yellowy skin,
slowly but surely, the light will seep in
and he’ll remain his days meditating
on the fact he’s just about to begin
the journey for which he has been waiting.

Shared with dVerse: dizain.
*I had noted down this first sentence from Björn’s poem ‘The Past at Present’ last month, thinking that I would use this idea for something new. Having then forgotten about it until today, I ended up using it word for word to launch this particular write.