Tag: poem

Watts Right – 27th May 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

1. Cinquain

The rock

Cold, unyielding

The best contribution

Sits watching a world in turmoil

Solid

2. Quatrain

Airs punctured by gasoline,
a perfume of our cancers;
shout out, the suffering scream
louder than any answers.

Once unseen, I will surprise;
smash me, I will not succumb;
bitter salts anaesthetise,
remaining forever numb.

Stagnant water starts to clear
passing through old time’s filter;
endlessly, year after year,
re-righting the Earth’s kilter.

I meditate in silence,
breathing calmly, taking stock;
to counteract the violence,
I am an island, a rock.

Submitted for a final AllPoetry assignment. I tried to incorporate the senses into this poem more than I would normally do. This whole poem is also inspired by an Alan Watts quote:

“As muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone, it could be argued that those who sit quietly and do nothing are making one of the best possible contributions to a world in turmoil.”

For the last line – apologies to Simon and Garfunkel.

Syllable count per line – quatrain : 7
Rhyme scheme: Quatrain – alternating rhyme and Cinquain
Rhyme types: mostly perfect rhyme
Personification: I am a rock!
Senses: smell (gasoline/perfume), sound (shout/scream), sight (unseen) touch (smash me/numb), taste (bitter salts)
Alliteration: shout/suffering/scream, any/answers, unseen/surprise/smash/succumb
Assonance: shout out/louder, unseen/surprise/succumb, stagnant/starts, I/silence, meditate/in, counteract/the, am/an/a
Consonance: salts anaesthetise, re-righting
Metaphor/simile: The first stanza is a metaphor for the chaos of the world. ‘Once unseen’ – rocks are not something noticed but always there. ‘Bitter salts’ – lick a rock, it tastes salty. ‘Numb’ – rocks have no feelings. “passing through old time’s filter” – mineral water cleaned as it passes through rocks. “re-righting the Earth’s kilter” – no matter what mankind does, the Earth will sort itself out.

Myopia – 26th May 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 13 Comments

Written for W3 Prompt #160:
Pick a single abstract noun that carries weight, mystery, or tension for you—something like liberty, danger, truth, love, exile, justice, forgiveness, joy, grief, silence…
Don’t use it until your poem’s final line.
Start each line with a description or action that leads us toward the noun, not from it. This is called left-branching syntax—it means delaying the main subject or verb.
You’re working with delay, accumulation, and unfolding. The noun you’ve chosen arrives only at the end. Until then, build around it, toward it, beneath it. Let readers feel its shape before they hear its name.
From Deepseek:
The word “opia” is a fascinating and relatively obscure abstract noun that captures a very specific, almost paradoxical feeling. It refers to the ambiguous intensity of eye contact—that unsettling, electric sensation when you lock eyes with someone, and the moment feels both intimate and invasive, vulnerable and powerful.

as wolf eyes in the gloom,

catching light,

a subtle, fleeting stare;


a mirror ball shaken by each boom,

a wincing fright,

enraptured to suddenly share;




is it a gander or a gawk?

tension-charged,

a piercing wonder;


translating a silent talk,

pupils enlarged,

enraptured to suddenly ponder;




uncertain at the exchange,

intimate invasion,

objectified by the gaze;


spine-tingling and strange,

a powerful persuasion,

enraptured to suddenly amaze;




a possibility of aggression,

observer and observed,

at the edge of scopophobia;


or a dance towards affection,

both slightly unnerved,

enraptured in this sudden opia.

Faith, Hope and Courage – 24th May 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 11 Comments

Constant communiqués of despair
The end of times always kept in mind
The hollow rings of Happy New Year
Distracting us from our daily grind
We become living embodiments
Of the catastrophes we’ve foretold
Trapped within these dark environments
Hopes are fading for the dreams we’re sold

Embolden the heart! Be courageous!
Inspire action to defend the world
Sell, not be sold to, is contagious
Flags of faith, hope and courage unfurled
Hope becomes the energy of change
A radical audacious duty
With optimism, we can arrange
Our thoughts towards a life of beauty

Inspired and paraphrased (one more time) by Nick Cave at The Red Hand Files #308. The title is also a play on words of Nick Cave’s album Faith, Hope and Carnage.
9th Mar 2026 – Shared with Reena’s Xploration Challenge #420

Limited The Limitless – 23rd May 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

This word I give myself
I gift to you
The label on the package
I’ve told as true
Has captured the infinite
To be contained
Now nought but a thought
Easily explained

A paraphrasing of this quote

As soon as you believe that a label you’ve put on yourself is true, you’ve limited something that is literally limitless, you’ve limited who you are into nothing but a thought.

Adyashanti

A Pause – 22nd May 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 6 Comments

Longer days,

a child’s return;

each breath, a moment

of life.


Tranquil dreams,

soft and silent;

shushed to doze, stilled by

slumber.


Soundless sleep,

a peaceful rest;

before the full stop…..

a pause.


Hushed by night,

lulled to the end;

forever resting

in peace.

Another attempt at dVerse Quadrille #224 – quiet, this time inspired by a couple of other existing entries, one from Punam, whose line I reversed in the third stanza and one from Lona, who introduced the Divided Quadrille and so I thought I’d give it a crack!



Making Merit – 20th May 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

Remember,
Democracy dies
When blinded
By dollars
To machinations of men
With a big wallet

Promises
Broken with such ease
Both sides hold
Useless hope
No merit to former deeds
That have passed the test

Qualified
A proven record
Words are made
Meaningful
With actions louder than words
Republic ideal

All knowing
Philosopher kings
Guardians
Of kingdoms
No justice with corruption
Merit, not money

A shadorma inspired by many poetic responses to events in the dying empire of the USA.

Mythmakers – 18th May 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

*Let’s gather our friends and make a storm,
to a circle of dreams, surrendered.
Our silhouettes in firelight perform;
Are the dead glad to be remembered?

We live again in celebration,
barreling through centuries of secrets.
The rites of our reincarnation
will render us forever sleepless.

We are the dragons of the mountains;
we may be sleeping one thousand years,
yet once drunk on youth from the fountains,
we all become willing volunteers.

The dead are glad to be remembered
by those of us creating the storm,
when to all our dreams we surrendered;
so they live on within us; reborn.

*I don’t think I wrote this line but, yet again, I forget where it came from. I often take notes of lines I like and come back to them much later. Sometimes I remember to put the source too. Sometimes not!

This poem was submitted to an AllPoetry assignment and was actually a bit of a struggle to write despite the assignment being based on rhyme, which is what am I most used to writing. Trying to include all the elements learned in the course so far sometimes makes me think too much about it and so I don’t get the flow that I would like.

I haven’t got feedback on this assignment as I write this but I’m guessing that they will respond that it’s not exactly clear what this poem is about, and that’s a fair enough assessment. To be honest, I had the first and fourth lines jotted down and then tried to write rhymes around them and see what came out of that as the subject.

It seems to be about remembrance and celebration of those who came before us. I was imagining tribal dances around fires at night and the myths we make in remembrance of our elders. Hopefully, that came through before you read this section!