Tag: poetry

Who Started It? – 25th September 1984

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

I don’t know how I manage to do it
No one wants to see me through it
All I ever got were questions to which I could not reply
‘Do you love me?’, ‘Say you do’, “I wanna know why?’
It doesn’t matter who started this affair
All that matters is that we still care
Although all is over and is said and done
Don’t look at me as though I’m the only one
There were things I could never explain to you
I didn’t think I was getting through
Now I just want you to remain a friend
And we can be like that to the end

1st July 2023 – This must have been about Zoe from Northampton, whom I had met in the summer (in 83?) when she was on holiday with her family. We wrote to each other and sometimes talked to each other on the phone and at one point she came and stayed for a few days. During that time, I had my first sexual experiences though I remained a virgin as we were both afraid of her getting pregnant.
The distance between teenage lovers was too much for me to deal with and perhaps I also, deludedly, believed I could do better. I couldn’t.

Miners Strike – 23rd September 1984

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

No one listens to each other
Everyone quiet, all keeping mother
Until you get to the lines
And you shout mine, mine, mines
Talk round the table doesn’t get very far
The miners just smashed another car
Don’t you understand what each other is saying?
You know that you’ll both end up paying

1st July 2023 – I only had vague ideas about the realities of the miners and their strikes against nationalisation in the 80s. I guessed it was a battle between a. government and its people and I sided with the people. From the outside, it must have felt like a dispute that would never resolve as no one was prepared to give up anything.

Veggie – 21st September 1984

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

You call me veggie cos I don’t eat meat
So I can call you animal cos you think it’s a treat
Blood is pouring off your sterilised plate
But you can never sterilise my hate
You animal
Meat means murder
So what if you’ve heard it before
You never thought twice
Cos you don’t listen anymore

29th June 2023 – I was a staunch inarticulate vegetarian at this time. In small-town England alternative views were a battleground and expressing anything like this could see you vilified or beaten. I’m not militant about eating a vegetarian diet these days and slowly more people are conscious of the suffering their own lifestyles bring to other beings. Do what you can.

Noah’s Slaughterhouse – 19th September 1984

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

The animals went in two by two
One for me and one for you
Ending as a carcass lying on your plate
Dripping blood, well, no thanks mate

Cos their slaughter is your meat
Your life is their death

Well, life holds much more for me
Cos you can let those animals free
Ten to a pen as the farmers do it again
See what the slaughter is doing to them

Flesh is unnecessary for a healthy life
So take away the murderer’s knife
That rapes the bodies of innocence
Surely, life makes sense?
Their life for your death? An eye for an eye?
Your death is inevitable, but who wants to eat you
Brand these children with a fire made of their bones
Prepare them to face a stun so we can slit their throats
So we can chew at their insides
And then brandish their hides
As fashionable coats
And goats? Fuck the goats!