Tag: poem

In Silence – 14th October 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 13 Comments

Inspired and paraphrased from the Red Hand Files (again!) #337 and for the GloProWriMo Day 20 prompt:
write a poem informed by musical phrasing or melody that employs some form of soundplay (rhyme, meter, assonance, alliteration). Also, the poem ‘In Evening Air by Theodore Roethke was suggested as an example, and I used the rhyming form, which I found quite pleasant and I think worked very well.

18th Dec 2025 – shared with What’s Going On – Silence

Maybe not a helpful admission,
I’m not sure where I stand these days;
as the ground shifts
exposing each other’s rifts,
it hardens without permission
and uncertainty sings its praise.

The world, beautiful but broken;
my temperament wishes no further harm;
no left or right
or centre might
have, to me, truly spoken
and guided me towards a calm.

My reason searches for the true
to ease the burden of each other’s sorrow;
how easy it is to break,
to forget to give and take;
cautious and careful in what I do
when nothing is certain tomorrow.

Not knowing what I’m talking about;
does the world need to hear that voice?
Listening to all divergent views
makes me ever more confused
so that when still filled with doubt
silence is my choice.

So maybe I just stand with my art,
valuing the deed over the word;
to the fragile flickering spirit bring
a striving for such praise to sing;
At least, it’s a place to start
so that the silence will still be heard.

Charlie Zero The Poet Music picks & Reviews #24 and my quick thoughts:

MockART – Some nice noise here that is keeping my brain active whilst trying to download an upload for my computer so that I can practice guitar again, since something has messed up one of the apps I like to use.  Not sure that I would listen to this at any other time though!

Wet Nurse – Fractured and somewhat scary energy here.  It’s interesting for sure but a bit too disturbing for me these days.  About 20 years ago I would’ve been all over this.

Meira Asher – Interesting punk hip hop that reminds me of some similar weird freaks I met from Japan in the 00s.  I like the more rhythmic tracks over the atmospheric ones.

Half Empty Glasshouse – I have their albums already but had forgotten about them.  Lots of time changes and genre warping.  This is my kinda jam for sure.

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum – ditto

Sostenuto Monotetra – 13th October 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Melodies found within the pain

Lift it up, put it down again


Black or white, they will both remain



Hold and sustain, hold and sustain




Things may not go as you had planned





Falling apart and out of hand







Like counting every grain of sand









Keeping on and….keeping on and….




I’m slowly visiting GloPoWriMo prompts from April, as I didn’t follow them at the time. This prompt, from April 1st, was to use a musical term previously unknown to the writer, in my case sostenuto and for extra inspiration, I searched for a form that I hadn’t used before, too – monotetra.

October’s Monologue – 12th October 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 8 Comments

Shared with Poets and Storytellers United – October. Looks like I kinda wrote another autumn/seasonal poem!

A woodsmoky voice and an air of damp earth,
I am the fight between fire and frost.
A necessary surrender to long days of mirth;
it’s dizzying green confidence slowly lost.

I am taught by the balance of the equinox,
a perfect tipping point towards the dark.
Opposites are revealed in the winding of clocks
to set the woods ablaze with a beautiful spark.

A misunderstood beauty is admired in release;
your confessions lay your architecture bare. 
A thousand papery secrets fall with caprice,
then forgotten like a quietly whispered prayer.

At the door, I tell, ‘Rest now, your work is done.’
To love something means you must also let it go.
Do not mourn when the truth cannot be outrun;
just look me in the eye and enjoy my show.

Breakthrough – 11th October 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

mind wandering
down the road
surrounded
by boredom

the crossroads
a hazy mirage
in the distance

breaking through
to find
the rainbow’s end

on this road
the same road
connections
will synchronise

the crossroads, mind wandering, in the distance, breaking through, a hazy mirage, down the road, the rainbow’s end, by boredom, on this road, surrounded, to find, connections, the same road, will synchronise

a hazy mirage, will synchronise, connections, down the road, the rainbow’s end, mind wandering, in the distance, breaking through, the same road, by boredom, the crossroads, surrounded, on this road, to find
breaking through, on this road, the same road, a hazy mirage, in the distance, by boredom, mind wandering, surrounded, the crossroads, down the road, will synchronise, connections, to find, the rainbow’s end

I wrote this poem in a small space in a notebook and could see that many of the lines still worked together, mixed around, so that’s what I did, perhaps ending up with four poems, though I liked to reiterate the point of looking further on down the road.

Through The Nine Circles – 10th October 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 13 Comments

Written for the NaPoWriMo day 13 prompt (from back in April):
Donald Justice invented a form that has six-line stanzas that use lines of twelve syllables, and while they don’t use rhyme, they repeat end words. Specifically, the second and fourth lines of each stanza repeat an end-word or syllable; the fifth and sixth lines also repeat their end-word or syllable.
This poem uses for inspiration and some paraphrasing of a piece, Penumbra, by Sunra Rainz here, along with some key lines from other poems

1 – from Elongated Ellipsis by Sanaa
2 – from Be Careful Who You S(c)hpritz by Dwight Roth
3 – from Penumbra by Sunra Rainz
4 – from What the Rain Brings by Ariel Kings

Shared with dVerse OLN #393

A small town thinker where days arrive dressed as debts1;
drowning in the shallow end of dirty waters
and he who chases two rabbits catches neither;
it’s been this way since we arose from those waters;
Letting your words fly loosely, they never come back2,
spinning out on a spider’s web from front to back.

But within lies an unmuttering of whispers3,
embalmed and buried until called for by demons;
they’ve paid the rent and brought a suitcase of gloom4,
unbalanced, unsure if they’re angels or demons;
The shadow self whoops its way under softer skin,
The bottom of the bottle rendering the skin.

Deader longer than anyone can remember
secrets are no longer kept so close to the heart;
new worlds will be sung alive by an old guitar
and a choir of old vultures pecking at the heart;
The waters rise again, to which we must return;
When they recede once more, we shall never return.

October Again – 9th October 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 20 Comments

You keep on coming back for more
Every year, the change is the same
I shouldn’t be keeping the score
There are no winners, it’s no game

Every time you keep coming back
Has started meaning less and less
And as my skin begins to slack
I’ve stopped caring, I must confess

I’m still wishing for more returns
Even if they’re filled with dread
To just keep on is what one learns
Cos it’s better than being dead

Shared with dVerse – Poetics: October

Stone The Crows – 6th October 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 3 Comments

Save your scratch in a small vase

Paris, they say, is better in pairs

Arcs of triumph encircled by cars

Scare the children, and no one cares

State your case to the makers of taste
The eyes on you and me, they see

Heats the spring into summer’s haste

Ate alfresco with a steeping tea


Cider salted by the tears we cried

Peach perfume bought on the cheap
Tired of all the cobbled streets tried

Peek at all these secrets to keep

Rat rummaged garbage made art
Night is made of stuff and thing

Earth must reveal its true heart
Sign the road along where angels sing


Atoms burn bridges over the moats

Stone the crows, we’re taking notes

Written for prompt #7 at the Chimeric Poetry Scavenger Hunt:
An (extended) shadow sonnet, where the shadow words are anagrammatical (because, why make it easy?)! This took a long time, even with help from AI to find the anagrams that may also rhyme. This is also why it is extended, as I couldn’t figure out what to trim after all that effort. Did my ideas translate well enough through all the restrictions?