Sympathies – 16th June 2025

June 16, 2025June 14, 2025 ~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 11 Comments

thetenzenmen · Sympathies

I neither cared for you one way or the other,
your virtues and character were unknown;
Ambivalently sympathetic to your suffering
after all the horrible things I’d been shown;

But slowly you were revealed by yourself
to be equally similar devils in disguise;
Impossible to be unaware of the irony
of your actions and repeated ridiculous lies;

And if you were not hated before this
you are now surely bound to be;
To inflict a holocaust for any reason
removes all goodwill and previous sympathy;

There are those who still sit complicit
in their silence, they are justifying;
As if their own fingers pulled the trigger
and, not so quietly, cause all those dying;

What goes around will again come around,
this is the beginning of your own demise;
With no moral high ground to stand upon
there’ll be no one left to sympathise.

Final Solution – 10th June 2025

June 10, 2025November 23, 2025 ~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 3 Comments

thetenzenmen · Final Solution

Inspired by a thought (‘magic blood’) from the Change My Mind Substack here.
* Repurposed from Chris’s poem ‘The Phoenix Tree Writes’

I am born of the magic blood
and God made his promises to me;
Envy and hatred are my razors,
the disease of nations lurches towards
a final solution.

I’ll not fight for your freedom
when there’s still history to be written;
Blessed for one thousand years,
one thousand years nearer to
a final solution.

Rough drafts scratched with dead desires;*
my maps are majestic cities in the mud;
The great insignificance, smaller than a secret
must not be told to a reliable witness of
the final solution.

Thomas On The Fence – 26th October 2024

October 26, 2024March 31, 2026 ~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 2 Comments

I don’t know what I believe anymore
The fence gets more comfortable every day
The Holocaust, massacres and genocides
Did they really happen that way?

Is it all a facade, my own Truman Show?
Is the grass actually greener over there?
To discover my world was built on lies
I wish to remain blissfully unaware

Now reality assaults me at every turn
Left guilty and helpless at the pain
Paralysed by the bystander syndrome
The fence is where I choose to remain

Today I’m feeling:

Pretty good, though not enough sleep as we were up and in a rush to get to Chiang Mai.

Almost 1pm and only now getting my first coffee! I’m a little tired and thirsty and it’s sticky hot.

(Later) The coffee and Kao Soi lunch (not a good taste combo) kicked my ass and I felt great as we drove around and then up to the Doi Suthep temple, where we took photos and wandered around.

After that, though we all felt heat-tired and we drove to our hotel for a quick air-conditioned break before heading out to the night market.

Health:

Physical: 7
Mental: 7

Today I’m grateful for:

A safe journey from home to Chiang Mai despite all the roadworks and dodgy roads. Amy treated Almy to a wash just after we picked up her old flatmate, Crisia, from the airport.

The best thing about today was:

Feeling happy and playful with Amy after the coffee kick and then driving up the mountain to get a view all across Chiang Mai.

What was out of your control today and how did you handle it?

Amy complained and whined a lot as we were driving this morning and it was just about things that she had no control over, so I didn’t feel inclined to say anything and just felt amused.

Something I learned today?

Lanna means ‘a million farms’. This made me realise that it is a good way to remember that ‘lan’ is the word for million (not that I have much use for this word!)

Review your acts, Good and bad.

I’m sorry to the lady who tried to help me at Tops with the self-serve machine. There were so many steps to be able to pay by QR code and it was only 36 baht, that I decided not to bother buying anything. I wasn’t upset or anything but Amy said that I should at least say ‘Thanks for helping and don’t worry about it’ to the staff. She was right.

I took this picture to celebrate going back up the mountain in Chiang Mai again. The last time we were here was before we were married.

Vendetta Generation – 25th July 2024

July 25, 2024July 25, 2025 ~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Voices trembling, yet as one to sing
A collected mind travels the crow road
Where prayers and prophets seek to bring
The moon silk dreams once borrowed

A shatter as the violence worshipped returns
A zigzag missile homes in on the heart
Faced with the darkness, the torment burns
The moon silk dreams soon fall apart

Submitted to The Sunday Whirl Wordle 664 wordlist.

Today I’m feeling:

I woke up with the light before 5 am and knew I wasn’t going to get enough sleep, so I reset my alarm for a little bit later.

Even then, I still felt like I could go back to sleep easily, even after breakfast, driving to school and coffee!

As it was a special event day today, though (Thai Language Day), I soon perked up walking around school and talking with students. There were very few classes going on, so there was a fair amount of excitement in the air.

I cancelled my grade 12 class, giving them a small assignment to do instead and took it easy with the grade 8s in the afternoon.

The best thing about today was:

Chatting with students Jee and Pemai this afternoon. It started off with their gossip about Freya and helped me understand their point of view about her behaviour. More interesting, though, was discussing differences between schools in Thailand and the West and also talking about some of the teachers and other students that they like and admire.

Something I learned today?

Amy’s mum has shingles on the right side of her face. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the effects before but it looks really bad and painful. I need to investigate more about it so that I can try and avoid ever having it too!