Tag: literature

Mind Your Step – 7th May 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 45 Comments

in your head
in your mind

mind full of thought
mindful of thoughts

thoughts that make no sense
thoughts unexpected

unexpected and anxious
unexpected and rising

rising day after day
rising repeated

repeated becomes practised
repeated again and again

again it’s been learned
again this vicious circle

circle ever decreasing
circle takes the square

square it all up at the end
square off with yourself

yourself your significant other
yourself true to form

form from your comprehension
form from understanding

understanding what’s real
understanding your truth

truth from facts
truth beats the lies

lies were your past
lies that you remember

remember those dark days
remember searching, tentative

tentative feet forward
tentative outstretched hands

hands over fist
hands pulling taut

taut the tendon deep
taut to hold together

together you and yours
together finding the way

way down was then
way to go now found

found yourself a ribbon
found yourself a hold

hold on to the guardrails
hold on to the future

future never feared
future finds your step

step into the light
step out of the darkness

darkness
light

Shared with What Do You See #287 and inspired by this post by Nilofer Neubert using the Blitz form, which has this stack of rules:
Line 1 should be one short phrase or image (like “build a boat”)
Line 2 should be another short phrase or image using the same first word as the first word in Line 1 (something like “build a house”)
Lines 3 and 4 should be short phrases or images using the last word of Line 2 as their first words (so Line 3 might be “house for sale” and Line 4 might be “house for rent”)
Lines 5 and 6 should be short phrases or images using the last word of Line 4 as their first words, and so on until you’ve made it through 48 lines
Line 49 should be the last word of Line 48
Line 50 should be the last word of Line 47
The title of the poem should be three words long and follow this format: (first word of Line 3) (preposition or conjunction) (first word of line 47)
There should be no punctuation

8th Aug 2025 – Shared with Poets and Storytellers United #189

The Poems of a Ridiculous Man – 7th August 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

So here’s the last of my Dostoevsky cool quotes for now, this time from the fantastic The Dream of a Ridiculous Man. Despite being quite dark and moody I feel like my poems came out a little more on the positive side – perhaps a reflection on how I was feeling when I wrote the poems compared with when I was inspired by the quotes as I was reading the story.

Acknowledgement to Husker Du and Rob Crow/Heavy Vegetable for some relevant phrases and ideas and, as before, the poems borrow heavily from the text.

Searching for a picture for this post also lead me to finding this hand painted animation of the story.

Ah, it’s so hard to be the only one to know the truth! But they won’t understand it. No, they won’t.

No Truth

Only I know the truth
They sure won’t understand
I carry this burden
It is just as I planned
Truth is in the saying
The truth will set you free
But I will never share
The truth is just for me

Maybe it was the result of the conviction that dawned upon me quite independently of my will that nothing made any difference in this world.

Conviction

I tried and tried and tried and tried
To make a difference before I died
Close to the end a sudden dawning
Independently and without warning
Your time is pointless, meaning, none
A pinprick in millions more to come
So make the best and start believing
Despite the sentence we’re all receiving

…eternally dear to the hearts of her most ungrateful children.

Realm

This earthly realm
Where it all starts
Never ending, eternally
Dear to the hearts
….of her most ungrateful children

We can truly love only with suffering and through suffering. We don’t know how to love otherwise; we don’t know any other love. I want to suffer so that I may love.

Love and Suffering

I wanted it all, wanted it so badly
Staring out of misted windows like a fool
To love this love is to suffer it gladly
Our twisted hearts make us look so cruel
This love, true love, it knows no other way
Crushed and broken hearts not spoken thereof
Life lived without it, not for another day
I must, I want to suffer so that I may love

My hatred for the people of our earth had always contained a feeling of despair – why couldn’t I hate them without loving them?

World of Masochism

My hatred for the people of our earth
Has always contained a feeling of despair
Why couldn’t I hate them without loving them?
Why did I have to care?
Some days I’m just in KEN Mode
A rage of pure hate and seething
Other days I wish for utopia
A paradise full of our dreaming
Which way will it go today?
Which side of the bed did I wake?
Every thought is masochism
No matter which path I take

They grew to appreciate the beauty of untruth…the germ of the lie penetrated their hearts, and they took a fancy to it.

A Good Lie

Sometimes a lie is like a lover
A beauty to be believed
The untruth penetrates the heart
Willingly deceived

…they experienced suffering, and came to love it; they declared that suffering was the only way to Truth. Then science spread among them.

To Suffer

He felt he’d suffered enough
So the Buddhist jumped from the roof
Science says ‘he’s dead’
He thought it the way to truth

Each became so jealous of his individuality that he had to do his best to belittle and humble the individuality of others….

Tall Poppy

You’ve reached the greatest height
Like it’s some crowning achievement
Society brings you down to earth
Where everyone is in agreement

Voluntary slavery in which the weak submitted to the strong of their own free will, if only in order to gain their support to oppress those who were even weaker than themselves.

Shit Trickles Down

Submit to the strong by your own free will
Eat the shit until you’ve had your fill
So you may enslave those below you
Pass on the shit your master throws you
The human centipede, a fitting analogy
A voluntary agreement to this economy
A vicious circle made of 7 billion pieces
The pyramid scheme of human faeces

We’re striving for the same things; we’re all, from the sage to the worst criminal, making our way toward the same objective. Only we’re trying to get there by different roads.

Different Roads

You take the high, I’ll take the low
It’s the same whichever way you go
You take the low, I’ll take the high
Arriving together, just in time to die

Let’s say paradise will never come about! I know myself it won’t – yet I’ll still go on preaching.

Right Turn

Never stop believing
Counter negative traits
Never stop the search
Paradise awaits
It will never come
In your lifetime’s fight
You know what is right
Be doing what is right

Afterword:

Man’s desires are not reasonable and often make him act against his own interest and common sense, but they are what makes him human.

Contradictions

I am respectable, yet not reasonable
My flaws are the things that make me
My desires maybe contradictions
This human interest will not break me

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for the daily struggle of thinking of something to write here, without repeating myself. During the day something will pop into my mind to write but when I sit down to do it I struggle to remember. As days are somewhat repetitive at the moment I keep coming up with the same ideas. So anyway, I am grateful that I have this first-world problem.

Astolfo Sulla Luna – Ψ² – 1st January 2016

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Cat #: 178TZM

Astolfo Sulla Luna is an Italian trio with a natural inclination to researching combinations between literature and mathematics. The approach to composition is similar to classical music, but taking sounds and attitude from the underground scene, from noise to post hardcore, from math rock to jazz core.

After two EPs, Moti Browniani (2011) and Cancroregina (2012), they released their first LP on November 2015, Ψ², a work filled with noises, sounds of the sea and clock’s tickings, chess games and battles against one’s self.

I don’t understand a word she says, she’s on my side – 23rd June 1994

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Time moves on, ticking by. Stars collide, weather changes.

I get a haircut and finish reading Nick Cave’s ‘And the Ass Saw the Angel’. This book being the reason for my lack of entries over the past two days. That feeling of time running out, that feeling of just another page, egging you on at quarter to the midnight hour (before the football starts). Just another twist of plot to intrigue and entice further inspection. To tease tired eyes onwards.

And now I’m empty of literature – dispensed it all out of my mind as soon as it went in and now in need of another fix. Like a junkie looking for a needle, I was looking through our small book collection. Think I may start on a reread of Hunter S Thompson’s ‘The Great Shark Hunt’.

Football, of course, has kept my brain stimulated and Broni has quested on a fitness regime at the gym and pool while I slob in front of the TV, egging my teams on (whoever they maybe). I won’t bore you with scores, old memory, but see if you can drag up that Italy vs Norway match when Italy’s keeper got sent off and remarkably their coach opted to sacrifice Roberto Baggio (one of the world’s best players) and eventually his gamble paid off.

Much, much more to look forward to on the football front but now I must devote some time to my sweetheart – a companion worthy of my attention. A lover worthy of my desire. I love her and want her and she forgives me all the shit I give her in my way.

Sometimes I don’t understand my way. In fact I don’t think it’s meant for me to understand but for people looking in – for you. I hope you don’t judge me purely on my way – in fact, try not to judge me at all (I’ll try not to judge). You are you, you be your way – that’s okay. I am my way. I think you’re beginning to get my drift.

All’s you need to know, diary friend, is she is special to me,