Tag: garden

The Bull Remains – 30th September 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 4 Comments

The rain makes the dragonflies dance
Across the green rice field sea
Stalks quivering under droplets weight
Bent to the breeze in a quiet tango
Four rainbows beam from the mountain
Tin rooves announcing progress
Animals seek out shelter
Yet the bull remains, unamused

4th Sep 2024 – Submitted to Moonwashed Weekly Prompt

In recent seasons of being, I have had occasion to reflect on the utterly improbable trajectory of my life, plotted not by planning, but by living.

Carl Jung

For vinyl pre-order: cowman.bandcamp.com/album/slaughter

Hand-numbered limited edition of 50. The first 10 include a copy of “Eye”, a handwritten and numbered book (handmade in Nepal) of aphorisms and poems.

For tape release (available soon): cruelnaturerecordings.bandcamp.com

Everyone involved in this release:
cowman.bandcamp.com/album/slaughter
cojurecords.wordpress.com
cruelnaturerecordings.bandcamp.com
www.inguerecords.com/cowman.html

released September 30, 2022

Recorded and mixed at the Slaughterhouse
January-February 2022
Mastered masterfully by Carl Saff

♥Juju, Steve, Cruel Nature, Lucie, Audrey, Gyeong-ryeong, Fai, George, birdbath, Ingue, Simon, Shaun, Tenzenmen, Seb, Dan, James, Tong-ann, Yuting, EBSN and my Mum

Today I’m feeling:
Happy and relaxed.
Today I’m grateful for:
The coconut shop that makes delicious iced coconut water drinks. They are delicious but disappear too quickly like good things are supposed to.
The best thing about today was:
As I was walking to the coconut shop a school van pulled up, the door opened and I heard ‘teacher!’ and it was my student Baipad, who I found out lives next door but one to Black Smooth cafe. I think there are a couple of other students in my village but Baipad is the first I’ve actually seen around and all because I decided to walk instead of going by motorbike.

I took this picture because it was only by chance that I saw these strange star-shaped flowers on this cactus. Pretty and pretty interesting.

So It Goes – 29th September 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

Moulded from broken sticks and mud
Bones wrapped in skin and filled with blood
Then lightning sparked man’s first feeling
And his survival seemed to be appealing

First, they fought over each other’s bread
Dashing rocks upon the head
Next, they fought over bits of dirt
The winners inflicting the most hurt

Then they fought over their beliefs
Despite the meetings of bigger chiefs
Fought and fought, spilt so much blood
Until the last was buried back in the mud

Not everything is something.

?

Today I’m feeling:
Tired but contented.
Today I’m grateful for:
My hammock, where I could enjoy a little cooling breeze as I did some school work and read a little before having a snooze.
The best thing about today was:
Sitting in the chair at the front of the house as the sun set and the sky darkened, as I drank a refreshing lemonade and enjoyed the neutral air on my skin. I sat and savoured this time as it may never happen again.
What three things did I accomplish today?
1. I finished adding attendance records for all my classes for the whole semester even though it was such short notice.
2. I finished reading A Portrait of Shunkin, a strange short story from Japan. It was evocative and provocative. I loved it.
3. I fixed up a little bit more in the garden. I’m too slow to keep it under control but I like to do a little bit here and there.

I took this picture because Anchan wanted more selfies but the main point here is that I was telling my students here about Hayden, as they asked me questions about my family. Yok is the boy sitting opposite me at the back and he was especially curious. He asked when I last saw Hayden and I said it was 3 years ago. Yok wrote (all this was using translation) that he was sorry and that he was rooting for me) and then he asked if I loved Hayden (presumably because it had been so long since seeing him) and I said ‘yes of course.’ Sadly, Yok then told me that his parents don’t care about him at all. I replied in translation ‘your teacher is rooting for you.’

The Diary That Was – 31st December 1979

Turn It Around – 26th July 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Struggling flowers reaching up high
Searching for light in the grey sky
Meekly accepting and no question why
Quiet as a mouse skittering away
Always saying something yet nothing to say
Hard to get and refusing to play
A uniform mask and a poker face
Friendless in this friendly place
Self-excluded from any competitive race
One day to shine, to rise up high
Their blinding light will pierce the sky
Leaving everyone else to wonder why

A tragedy, when a mature mind and a romantic heart are in the same body.

Nizar Qabbani

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for the little plants Bruno gave me to see if I can use them to grow a border along our path.

The Biggest Rug – 22nd July 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 2 Comments

Now that news is entertainment
There’s nothing worth knowing
It’s there to serve a purpose
To prevent your knowledge growing

A movie star’s divorce
Is more newsworthy than war
When the injured are at home
And understand what the fighting is for

The rug is getting bigger
Where all the garbage is brushed
Tricked to believe in freedom
Whilst watching it being crushed

9th May 2024 – Submitted to Word of the Day Challenge – Garbage
26th Sep 2024 – Submitted to Weekly Prompts Wednesday Challenge – Supersize

We need each other to become ourselves.

Abraham Kaplan

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for our crazy passionfruit plants that are providing me with so much fruit to enjoy. Then there’s the crazy pumpkin that also may actually give us food that doesn’t get eaten by insects this year.

The Devil’s Despair – 22nd June 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

Scrabbling around in the emptiness
Finding only scraps of dust and hair
Searching for long-buried treasure
To sate the devil’s despair
Concentrating all the kindness
Praying for a new light to shine
Longing for a fuller measure
To shiver on down my spine

As any gardener knows, the vitality of a garden does not end with a harvest. It simply takes another form. Gardens do not ‘die’ in the winter but quietly prepare for another season.

James Carse, Finite and Infinite Games

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful that there were banana cupcakes left at work yesterday so that I could fill up as I knew I would get home late.

The Week That Was – 2nd September 1979

For A Moment – 10th June 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Softened by the sounds of reminiscence
Wrinkles remain around teary eyes
Grateful to hear words of confirmation
Previously hidden in reluctant compromise

Inspired by my students telling me that they wanted me back as their teacher.

What possible good can come from ignorance about other people?

Robert Greene

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to the gardeners who transformed the out-of-control garden in exchange for cash and Amy’s parents who oversaw them and left me delicious food.

Legion S01E01 – 1st June 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

That kiss was a powerful thing
Difficult to know what it really meant
A transference of being
Within this reality spent
Rescued by inception
Trying to make some sense of it all
A face fades and friends die
Unable to escape the wall

The feeling of power you get from hard-fought experience is stronger than the urge to change your mind, even when it’s necessary.

Morgan Housel

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to Amy’s parents again as they come and do bits and pieces around the garden.

Mark My Words – 19th May 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

It’s a messy room to live
Misunderstood and bent sinister
Yet never felt better in its life
Your future are missing winner
Heads rolled, sure they did
A grotesque psykick dancehall
A triad-plus hip preist
The Smiths predict the fall
Always seen Totale’s turning
A solvent wax to levitate
It’s a caustic user syndrome
A kurious work to extricate
Mangled language perverted
A sublingual tablet bends
From the click of the country
To experiments of frenz
From the time the north was hit
The house was full of ghosts
A mesmerising miasma
A dream lie fiery jack a-toasts

Listening through the Hanley brothers ‘Oh! Brother’ podcast and falling in love with English accents.

The empire is not worries about the spread of disinformation, they’re worried about the spread of information.

Caitlin Johnstone

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to see all the birds in the garden, eating all the newborn insects, which come in their millions.

The Week That Was – 29th July 1979

Smug – 15th May 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Shake yourself out of smug satisfaction
Are you perfectly formed? Happy and disgraced
Apply the training beyond your aspiration
The destination always remains misplaced

True action, food and radiant action…grows out of the suffering which you have not yet learned to suffer.

Hermann Hesse

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for the tree-cutting tool Amy’s dad brought yesterday. making it easier to hack away some branches that needed doing.