Tag: dVerse

Hourglass – 16th April 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 26 Comments

Where did you go?

You were still there
as I tried to get each
grain of sand back
inside the hourglass
I’d smashed.

Our hearts no longer full
yet still far from empty.
When shared with another
did you disappear?
I can still feel you here.

Where did you go,
shuffling away so slowly?
I still see your trails
on every new horizon
I’ve chased.

Memories morphed
deeper within
the longer valleys between us,
old sun making shadows
of that time.

Where did you go?
My love.

Written for dVerse Poetics: Where does love go? and GloPoWriMo 2026 Day 15:
Write a poem that muses on love, but isn’t a traditional love poem in the sense of expressing love between romantic partners.

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

Observe Cause And Effect

Learn to identify the thoughts
 and behaviours that are destructive
Cause and effect are sorts
 where patterns are observed constructive

Interpolation – 9th April 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 20 Comments

The word cracks once,
 “Ceasefire!”
A fish bone lodges in a gasping throat
 but below, the fuses sputter: more wire, more fire,
 the relentless drums of war’s dark choir.

“Ceasefire!”
 – a child’s chalk-drawn heart,
 fading on a smoke-choked boulevard.
The sniper reloads to the lullaby’s lie,
 innocence fades, and children die.

“Ceasefire!”
 says the treaty ink,
 still wet, and bleeding into the desert sand.
The general’s watch ticks, a relentless drone,
 overrun, smashed upon the bloodied stone.

“Ceasefire!”
 a mother’s whisper,
 stitched into a flak-vest’s hollow glow.
The drone’s low hum, a discordant hymn,
 targeted through the night’s darkened brim.

“Ceasefire!”
 carves the chaplain’s tongue,
 while the armoury turns its key.
Counting shells like rosaries, again,
 the earth remembers its red, relentless stain.

On the evening news once more,
 “Ceasefire!”
 a graphic, three seconds, soon buried in mirth.
The bomb dreams of a birthday’s cheer,
while peace remains distant and fragile here.

But let the untouched voices rise,
 through the static and blustering press.
Not for victory,
 but the peace we desire,
– “Ceasefire.”

Shared with dVerse Poetics – imperative and GloPoWriMo 2026 Day 8:
use a simple phrase repeatedly, and then make statements that invert or contradict that phrase.
Current events made this too easy!

Today’s Daily Stoic poem

Test Your Impressions

A harsh impression is all you are
And not at all what you appear to be
I’ll not entertain you so far
If not in my control – you mean nothing to me

April 6th And Other Illusions – 7th April 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 8 Comments

We’re all weird,
      and it’s a weird world,
held together
      by shoestrings and bubblegum.

What did I dream last night
      when I was awake?
I know that I was there
      and those things happened,
but try explaining that
      to my psychiatrist.

The farmer burns his fields
      and the wind blows my way.
I want to get high on helium
      and bloody his face.

What did I dream last night
      when I was awake?
A dog in a mask
      chasing a cat with leukaemia…
Wait!
      That actually did happen.

There was another April 6th 2026
       but it wasn’t a Groundhog Day.
No parallel universe,
       just another April 6th 2026.

What did I dream last night
      when I was awake?
I wanted to sleep badly,
      but I was facing resistance
from the soggy pillow
      and my crooked neck.

69 kph through a red light,
      getting frisky on a motorbike.
I told her don’t grow up too quickly,
      but she was busy taking selfies.

What did I dream last night
      when I was awake?
There’s a fine line between
      what is real and what is acceptable.
All this happened,
      more or less.

Shared with GloPoWriMo 2026 – Day 6:
try writing with a breezy, conversational tone, while including at least one thing that could only happen in a dream.

Also written for Punam’s dVerse prompt from a couple of months ago, utilising the first line of a book as the last line of a poem: “All this happened, more or less.” Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

All of this happened and all of it was dreamt.

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

Expect To Change Your Opinions

Honour what you don’t know
You are not so smart and wise
Everyone has the room to grow
Arrogance is where opinion cries

Love Of Language – 22nd March 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 16 Comments

A name acrostic (start and end) shared with dVerse MTB

kalima – Arabic for word
gharāmī – Arabic for my passion/deep love
qalb – Arabic for heart
Al-Rabitah al-Qalamiyya – Arabic name for The Pen League

Kalima comes to life with learning
Haskell, patron to his gharāmī
Almustapha, The Prophet, his qalb
Literary love, spirit, The Forerunner
Immigrant Al-Rabitah al-Qalamiyya
Lebanon, still home – sweet Lebanon

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

The Sign Of True Education

Once the paper has been earned
To show all what was learned
Amounts to little if not understood
And reflected on for the greater good

The Poetics of Plumbing – 18th March 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 5 Comments

Within the quiet, I withhold the pain
My muse compels me forward to explain
The pushing of the pen, pulling at truth
I prostrated at each fountain of youth

My muse compels me forward to explain
Yet my words are wrestling within this art
A secret lodged between the lines and heart

The pushing of the pen, pulling at truth
To release my demons, open the cage
A relentless filling of every page

I prostrated at each fountain of youth
All in search of a tap of flowing ink
I write this sitting in the kitchen sink

A trimeric poem, inspired by Dora’s recent use of the form and another poem, belatedly written for Punam’s dVerse prompt, which asked us to use opening lines from books as closing lines to poems. This one is “I write this sitting in the kitchen sink,” from I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith.

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

Impossible Without Your Consent

When the circumstances seem to crush
Throw them out as poor assumptions
When the outside is painted with a frustrating brush
The inside must not consent to these disruptions

The Hills Outside Zoro – 16th March 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 13 Comments

I’m no fan of trigger warnings – this is real and happening in the world. We NEED to deal with it.

~~

without conjecture
without further classifications
they were HUMAN BEINGS

– two ‘girls’
– two ‘foreign’ girls
– possibly ‘runaways’, ‘problem’ children

one thing can be classified though
and that was the act
– ‘rough fetish’ sex –
(useful adverbs, not useless adjectives)
yet fetish implies consent

and how do we know?
because Mister E. said so
casually
describing how the bodies were buried
in the hills outside Zoro
after being strangled to death
during the act.

this is no longer ‘A Serbian Film’

“please arrange payment
to this Bitcoin address
3cr9tpvegeg4zg ppeddzmmc94hzusebhn”

Shared with dVerse OLN #403. Angry.

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

That Sacred Part Of You

Blessed, we are, with reason
to navigate all circumstance
To improve ourselves is sacred
Responsibility doesn’t favour chance

Sydney Harbour Blues – 14th March 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 32 Comments

Shared with dVerse Poetics – landscape. This one took a turn and describes the mixed feelings I have about one of the most beautiful cities in the world, one that I very much enjoyed meeting and living in for twenty-plus years.

Let me tell you a story,
one that denies what is seen;
because my eyes were open
without understanding what had been.

The lemon eucalyptus was unknown
to those such as me;
star-eyed sailors
on a voyage of discovery.

By the time of my arrival
all the murdering was done,
so I celebrated the widest skies
while never holding a gun.

The abundant harbour waters
the bridges that were since built,
were symbols more than cricket
to hide away our guilt.

Where the forest meets the city,
right down to the water’s edge,
all the sorries were insincere –
the surf repeats its pounding pledge.

The floods and fires – lost control –
so nature’s revenge befits;
glass houses return to the rocks,
like an opera that never quits.

I can hold you in my mind’s eye
now that I’m so far away.
Learned that anywhere is everywhere
and everything is nothing anyway.

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

Self-Deception Is Our Enemy

When we think we already know
We’ve halted our chance to grow
Meet ego with hostility and contempt
24 hours a day – no one is exempt

Few Feathers – 13th March 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 27 Comments

I’ll never say that I miss you,

the bird that left few feathers for my pillow,

an ache I will never confess,
but whoever runs their fingers along my bones 

will feel your name etched on each one 

with a cornerstone of soiled sentiments.

This poem is really a collaboration, with only a little input on my part. Lines 1, 4, 5 and 6 were written by EC at the erroneous choices blog, in a short piece titled ‘lies we live under’. It stood out to me as a brilliant, poetic little paragraph that I thought I could use the idea, along with the last two words, as an alliterative full stop. EC was gracious enough to allow me to use it in full and so here it is, with my two added lines, shared for the dVerse quadrille prompt – bird.

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

One Day It Will All Make Sense

It seemed like a disaster
But became a lucky break
We are a terrible forecaster
But reason makes no mistake