Tag: W3

Obsolete Wonder – 19th December 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 6 Comments

The world clicks by in screens of graphic gain,
each hour refined for either profit, loss, or trend.
Praising the sharpest tools ever made to explain,
yet wondering why these days refuse to bend.

I walk beneath the wires and silent trees
and feel a hunger numbers cannot feed.
Our minds seem full of malaise and disease,
which is surely something none of us need.

I’d trade this clever age, so sure it’s new,
to be a Pagan suckled in a creed outworn*,
to hear a god breathe as the wind blows through,
and see the ocean settle for a new dawn.

These times, obsolete is the wonder, not belief;
The myth awakes where certainty may sleep.

Shared with W3 #190 – quoting Wordsworth*

Humbled – 12th December 2026

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 16 Comments

Made of smokestacks and trusses,
interlocking and rectilinear;
Naves are wandering the new brick streets,
humbled by shelter, by pressure.

Solidarity in civic identity,
iron tasted on the tongue;
Dwarfed by an engineered order,
humbled by progress, by claustrophobia.

Such industry held up on hills,
dormitories are bent and sooty brown;
Anonymous postures pause conversations,
humbled by pride, by fatigue.

Shared with W3 #189 – picture prompt

A Minor Role – 23rd November 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 33 Comments

There’s a dead mosquito on my dashboard,
on her back, legs pointing up in the air;
Perhaps overfed, on my blood engorged;
I’m not sure how long she’s been lying there.

I’ve never been one for cleaning my cars;
something that my wife cannot comprehend.
A minor role to play in my memoirs;
I don’t know her history, only her end.

Would it be so weird to give her a name,
something infused with deeper meaning?
Well, no matter, there’s nothing to explain;
she’ll be gone once my wife does the cleaning.

Shared with W3 #186 – an unimportant thing. This is an ongoing true story.

Treefalls – 31st October 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 20 Comments

Shared with W3 #183 – mystery.

Could we be quantum
under the bunkum?
Is the clock really ticking?
No one saw the moon.
Uri bent no spoon;
the mind is there for tricking.

The book that’s unread,
ideas never spread;
stuck in Zeno’s Paradox.
Paths we never walked,
thoughts flashed by untalked;
Schrodinger’s cat in a box.

It’s one hand clapping;
a deaf dog yapping
Says, ‘What colour is the sky?’
Unreal perception,
sold self-deception;
it’s the who, what, when, and why.

Big Toe Blues – 24th October 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 28 Comments

If you could talk, what would you say?

You’re the one that keeps me stable,

not wobbling in a doubtful sway.

If you could talk, what would you say?

When I stub you and swear away

at that stupid fucking table.

If you could talk, what would you say?

You’re supposed to keep me stable!

Shared with W3 #182 – a triolet about something ordinary.

Some Surrender – 19th October 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 16 Comments

The both of me are struggling inside

One wants to just enjoy the ride

A hedonist with parties to attend

A firestorm with fuel to spend

Better to burn out than fade away?

So, tonight is the time to play

…Tomorrow, I’ll write down everything…

The both of me, struggling to get out

The anxious side, processing doubt

Every word needs to be remembered
So that some time must be surrendered

If all this savouring gets rephrased

Will it be somehow falsely praised?

Did it really happen as we say?

The feeling is that it must be done today…

…Tomorrow, I’ll write down everything…

The both of me are struggling to win
A desperate balance being fought within
This happiness must be documented

Not pass by forgotten and lamented
So tonight I’ll simply sigh and say
That if it cannot be done today

…Tomorrow, I’ll write down everything…

Shared with W3 #181 – a bop poem. This poem was inspired by this week’s dVerse prompt, using a line from a Günter Grass poem as a refrain. I saw this line, “…Tomorrow, I’ll write down everything…” used in the poem ‘Tomorrow’ and along with the word ‘bop’, this reminded me (again!) of the dilemma Jack Kerouac would face when having fun with his friends but wanting to rush home to write it down before it got forgotten to the mists of time. I see that I have written this poem before, too! Perhaps this is part two?
In the first stanza, I reference Firestorm, a DC comic character that at one time was two different people inside one body, often struggling with decisions. This came to mind as I had been reading it last night.

For The Love Of Gods – 4th October 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 10 Comments

Eros

Passionate desire

A longing fire

Philia
Loyalty, trust

Respect: a must


Storge
Familiar foundations

Comfortable bonded relations


Agape
Grace unconditional

Compassion by principle

Ludus
Playful flirtation

Light dance relation


Pragma

Invested practicality

Commitment and compatibility

Philautia

Understanding self-care
Balanced and fair



Mania
Tormented obsession
Jealous dependent possession

Shared with W3 prompt #179:
Write 5 separate Hay(na)ku poems, each about a different aspect of love, including but not limited to:
Romantic love, familial love, self-love, unrequited love, enduring/timeless love.
Each poem should stand alone but together create a layered meditation on love.

After reading through others’ entries for this prompt, I was inspired to give it another try, particularly after learning more about the Greek Gods of love. Above is the new entry, below the original (titled Curriculum).

~~~

initiation
matures, understanding
flourishing above beasts

~~~

comforted
unconditional inspiration
release and return

~~~

within
mind open
education, experience, esteem

~~~

unanswered
time expands
changes one’s perspective

~~~

beyond
last orders
through all seasons

~~~

Eros

Passionate desire

A longing fire

Philia
Loyalty, trust

Respect: a must


Storge
Familiar foundations

Comfortable bonded relations


Agape
Grace unconditional

Compassion by principle

Ludus
Playful flirtation

Light dance relation


Pragma

Invested practicality

Commitment and compatibility

Philautia

Understanding self-care
Balanced and fair



Mania
Tormented obsession
Jealous dependent possession

The Balance of Things – 26th September 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 20 Comments

I was working on this poem when the W3 prompt arrived to write about silence and I have somewhat jammed my poem into it, so it doesn’t quite fully meet the criteria but here it is anyway. Above, formatted as desired and below is what WordPress decides to display it like.

Some days are made for speaking, others for silence;
a stride into the spotlight,
a tiptoe back into the shadows.

Some moments call for stepping forward, others for stillness;
a bull entering the ring,
the matador focused.

…….and

Some moments call for stillness, others for stepping forward;
the river doesn’t share any secrets
until it finds the waterfall.

Some days are made for silence, others for speaking;
the words are lost in wonder
until the whisper becomes a roar.

Énouement – 16th August 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 16 Comments

The past is a room seen from outside,
with a one-way door, immovable;
I tried to whisper across the divide
but my truths then were not provable.

I watched the days wearing thin,
exchanged for worries worn on my brow;
Choosing to let so little light in
until knowing the things I know now.

My story, at last, has been laid flat
by the wisdom I’ve accumulated;
of discovery I was always where I was at
and feeling so frustrated.

All along I held the design,
as flawed as it may have been;
All the sorrows are still mine
now I’ve seen all the things I’ve seen.

Written for the W3 weekly prompt #172 using the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Énouement n.
the bittersweetness of having arrived here in the future, finally learning the answers to how things turned out but being unable to tell your past self.

French énouer, to pluck defective bits from a stretch of cloth + dénouement, the final part of a story, in which all the threads of the plot are drawn together and everything is explained. Pronounced “ey-noo-mahn.”