Tag: Moonwashed Weekly Prompt

Her Name – 6th March 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 18 Comments

Her considered sophisticated smile
careful
An enticing night time jasmine
perfume
Her rosy porcelain skin, fine
china
Her eyes shine bright the prize
clearly
It was all in her name
Allure

The original poem is below, and above is a re-write for dVerse using the WaltMarie form. A convenient coincidence that these two prompts came in the same week.

Her name was Allure
It was in her eyes
– Bright and unclouded
She made herself the prize

Her name was Allure
It was in her skin
– Rosy and yielding
Fashioned from porcelain

Her name was Allure
It was in her perfume
– Curious and enticing
A night time jasmine bloom

Her name was Allure
It was in her smile
– Careful and considered
A sophisticated style

When I was studying to teach English, there were folks from all around the world in the class. One young Chinese lady had taken the English name Allure, which I found quite intriguing. She was a pretty lady, and I’m sure many people did find her name appropriate.
Shared with Moonwashed Weekly Prompt – using the word allure

ตามสบาย – 1st March 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 3 Comments

I told her ‘It’s up to you’
She said ‘That’s damn right!’
Yet she knows not what to do
It’s always fight or flight

And so it was she ran
Too immature to explain
Until her awakening began
And she’s welcomed back again

A real conversation I had a couple of years ago with rebel student Feije, who subsequently left my school for elsewhere but I discovered yesterday that she will come back for grade 10. I liked her feistiness and stayed in occasional contact with her.
Shared with Moonwashed Weekly Prompt – writer’s choice.

When Incommunicable, Stay This Way – 19th January 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 2 Comments

Cyanide words in hot Julys
Sticky skin and fireflies
Warm and breezy, pulled outside
Golden hours of calm collide

Sweet and bold youth is claimed
Self-reflections blush ashamed
Come back again once gone astray
Beg the child to stay this way

The war that comes forces change
In adolescence turning strange
The inner child is shutting doors
To light dancing across the floors

To find the love in light tonight
To find the words burning bright
Experiments in consciousness
The honesty earned to confess

To the streets, to the skies
Cyanide words in hot Julys

Inspired and paraphrased by this post at Spinning Visions
19th Feb 2025 – Shared with Moonwashed Weekly Prompt prompted by the word unpretending.

Simples – 16th January 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 6 Comments

Along the path, a muddy slip
Into the mediocre field
Or to sit under a tree for a bit
Until the bloodied knuckle healed

A bite of the hanging fruits
A nap before pulling on
The still-muddied boots
And trek where travellers belong

Looking for the complicated
Blinded all to common sense
The simple to be contemplated
To ensure the least expense

Inspired by this email from The Stoa Letter
Shared with Moonwashed Weekly Prompt – simplicity

A Splendid Winter Wood – 5th December 2024

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 12 Comments

It’s a splendid winter wood
– On a chilly December morning
– – The crunchy road straight
– – Towards the gnarly wooden gate
– Unhinged a snowy warning
Where splendid walls once stood

It’s a splendid moss a-growing
– To shade this dewy frost
– – Ray’s barely breaking through
– – Another turn remained true
– At a further year’s cost
Awaiting the splendid summer’s glowing

Shared with Moonwashed Weekly Prompt – splendid and WDYS #265 picture prompt

Round Holes – 30th November 2024

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 9 Comments

Often bewildered
A cultural disconnect
I don’t belong here
I don’t belong anywhere
A choice I made long ago

Another planet
Aliens walk among us
A sideways side-eye
Weird welcomes may be hiding
Daggers and fists held in check

Heads down and bum up
The square pegs will never fit
Scared of the unknown
A slow assimilation
Under cover of the night

Who am I to say?
I’m not one but the other
Out in the wide-open
Searching for a hole to hide
Keep quiet, wait for my moment

It’s us versus them
Until accommodated
Compelled to fit in
Or stay along the margins
Til my tribe reveals itself

Often bewildered
Aliens walk among us
Scared of the unknown
Searching for a hole to hide
Til my tribe reveals itself

A garland tanka shared with the Moonwashed Weekly Prompt – Otherness

It Was Told – 19th November 2024

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 5 Comments

Time out of mind, the rock of ages
The time of our lives was to be had
Foretold on ageing faded pages
Three heads good, foreheads bad

Sands a-trickle made to measure
Losing track as the dawn is cracking
Always racing towards some leisure
Begged and borrowed to be slacking

It’s up, beyond a blue moon hiding
To weave a future, past and pleasant
Dropped stitches will do their biding
When Nick manifests in the present

Shared with No Theme Thursday picture prompt (above) and Moonwashed Weekly Prompt – Foretelling

My Compass – 11th October 2024

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 24 Comments

Uncertainty filled
Troublesome future begins
The big questions unanswered

Yet you bring to me
A much-needed light to shine
My compass, my map and guide

Shared with Tanka Tuesday (life change) and Moonwashed Weekly Prompt (where I’ve taken Eugi’s words and added to them).

Mondo poems are often very brief collaborative affairs (usually written by two poets) that present a question. (The question needs to be open-ended and poignant and should be a test of the answerer’s wit). The answer is written in the style of trying to glean meaning from nature. My poem doesn’t quite fit this requirement but let’s use our imagination.

Mondos can be as short as a one-liner or as long as two 5-7-7 syllable stanzas.

The first stanza presents the question; the second stanza gives the answer. We usually write this form in the spirit of Zen, responsive through meditation and observation of natural surroundings.