Tag: quadrille

Few Feathers – 13th March 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 26 Comments

I’ll never say that I miss you,

the bird that left few feathers for my pillow,

an ache I will never confess,
but whoever runs their fingers along my bones 

will feel your name etched on each one 

with a cornerstone of soiled sentiments.

This poem is really a collaboration, with only a little input on my part. Lines 1, 4, 5 and 6 were written by EC at the erroneous choices blog, in a short piece titled ‘lies we live under’. It stood out to me as a brilliant, poetic little paragraph that I thought I could use the idea, along with the last two words, as an alliterative full stop. EC was gracious enough to allow me to use it in full and so here it is, with my two added lines, shared for the dVerse quadrille prompt – bird.

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

One Day It Will All Make Sense

It seemed like a disaster
But became a lucky break
We are a terrible forecaster
But reason makes no mistake

μακάριος – 25th February 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 14 Comments

Shared with dVerse Quadrille #242 – hunger
μακάριος (makarios) is the Greek word for blessed.

I would fill my hollow leg
with all the libraries’ best
To wave the wolves away
at my open doors

My fire burns through these leaves
in cultivation of curiosity

Grafting facts, pruning the fat (…)

Blessed are they which do hunger
until elegant sufficiency.

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

The Smoke And Dust Of Myth

Castles of sand are soon erased
The peasant buried next to the king
To our emotions we become enslaved
When in reality – it’s all just nothing

Fateful Feeling – 11th February 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 13 Comments

parenthesis

spring approves wholly
lady, my flowers, blood kisses
will to wisdom, a life a fool pays

swear by syntax
this fate of paragraph

for my world pays
better never feeling the things

first is
blood kisses, my lady, flowers
death approves wholly

parenthesis

Shared with dVerse Quadrille #241 – flowers. A poem formed only using words from e.e. cummings ‘since feeling is first’.

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

Hero Or Nero?

The king attends to honour and health
While the tyrant overindulges their wealth
Can you counter the many temptations
That gather to trouble your foundations?

Not My Beach – 29th January 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 5 Comments

Pixels, faith, dust

Beaches I will never swim,
blue and bright;
Mock me with your gourmet food
under the moonlight.

You thrust a quiet knife in
with each sunset post;
As I eat my thinning stew
with old dry toast.

Share if you must

Shared with dVerse Quadrille #240 – trip. I didn’t use the word ‘trip’ in this, but ‘sunset’ could be easily replaced with ‘trip’s’. I prefer it this way, though. This poem is a reference to complaints about people posting their holiday photos online without regard for how that might affect others. I personally don’t know how I feel about this either way but that could be because I have been in a position to be able to experience beautiful beaches and gourmet food.

Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

Keep It Simple

Everything can be as simple as said
This problem may be your last
The complexities are all in your head
How soon it has all passed

You Can’t See Me When I Close My Eyes – 17th December 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 25 Comments

Shared with dVerse Quadrille #238 – hibernate.
The initial line is taken from Jae Rose’s poem ‘Coax’.

It is hard to
live fully above ground.
The nail that sticks
up gets hammered down.

Protected in silent procrastination
like a seasonal hibernation,
sleeping through until cessation.

When things settle down
I’ll return once more,
But until then, I’m
waiting for the thaw.

A Little Too Much – 10th September 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 16 Comments

When does so much become so little?

Believing it’s always your turn


Your debt to yourself is catching up

Your life is empty (as such)

Left with no thing:


Just sand slipping through your fingers

Tell me
When does too little become too much?

This quadrille is a reworking of my poem Taking Stock, a cascading poem itself based on the lyrics (italicised) from the Nomeansno song Stocktaking. Shared with dVerse Quadrille #231 – much