Throwback Friday, It Was Time To Leave

Cousin Lynn and Robin with Mungo and Kelly

Cousin Maureen and doggies Z-Z and Co-Co

Cousin Penny, and then Dave, Penny, and Ivor

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Here I am on a Jet Plane, somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. Therefore today’s Throwback Friday poem is a very appropriate finale piece, to coincide with my amazing adventures in Canada over the past 21 days.

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It Was Time To Leave (Revised)

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It’s time to tidy up my mess
Clean up the room and get dressed
It’s time to pack my suitcase
Fill the travel bag and vacate this place
It’s time to put on my famous rocker shoes
And walk away from this dream come true
It’s time to say heartfelt goodbyes
To these wonderful Canadian guys
It’s time for final hugs and kisses
Sad farewells and best wishes
It’s time for my usual emotional tears
Separate myself from these every day cheers
It’s time to flyaway from a land of berries and fairies
Leave this magical world of faraway families
It’s time to say a million thank you’s
For making my stay a Really Real great do
It’s time for me to travel back home
With glorious memories of this magical Astrodome

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Ivor Steven (c) September 2025

LatinosUSA, Poetry Bookshelf, Featuring «Until Eyes Hear Sounds» by Ivor Steven

Featured Image Above: Cover art by Kerri Costello — a guitar hidden in the island’s reflection, just as Barbara describes.

Featuring «Until Eyes Hear Sounds» by Ivor Steven

Over the weekend, I received a lovely surprise: LatinosUSA’s Poetry Bookshelf, curated by editor Meelosmom (Barbara), has featured my book Until Eyes Hear Sounds. I’m honoured by the care she took in presenting the poems, the themes, and the story behind the book. It’s always humbling to see my work through someone else’s eyes, and I’m grateful for the thoughtful attention this feature brings.

LatinosUSA’s Poetry Bookshelf, curated by editor Meelosmom (Barbara), has published a full feature on Until Eyes Hear Sounds. The article highlights the book’s imaginative structure, its thematic breadth, and the creative collaboration behind it.

The feature explores the symbolism of the cover design by Kerri Costello, noting how the island’s reflection forms the shape of a guitar with a little imagination. The book is presented as a journey through ten diverse chapters, each paired with one of Kerri’s drawings.

Barbara also reflects on the meaning of the title, suggesting it can be read as a metaphor, a poetic expression, or a state of deep inner focus. She writes that my poems do not claim to have the answers, but instead invite readers to think about the environment, existence, and our place in the universe.

The article includes three poems from the book — Bird on a Ladder, Time Strolls, and Flying Bricks of War — and closes with a short biography of my writing life and creative background.

To read the article at LatinosUSA, please click >> Here

My sincere thanks to Barbara for this beautifully presented feature. Your thoughtful reading of the poems and themes means a great deal to me, and I’m grateful for the care you’ve taken in sharing my work with your readers.




Tonight’s accompanying song is Enya’s “The Humming” — a gentle meditation on the rhythms beneath our everyday world.




Ivor Steven  ©  February 2026

Wading in Dry Ice

Featured Image Above: A quiet stretch of the Moorabool, holding its breath in the summer heat.”

Nancy >> RDP Thursday: river – The Elephant’s Trunk
Nancy’s haiku about winter’s thin ice stirred something in me this morning. Her quiet image of a fragile river set my thoughts drifting back home, where our waterways are thinning for a very different reason. Her words nudged me toward the dry, sunburnt world I’ve been watching all summer, and this poem arrived as my response





Wading in Dry Ice

Hardly a drop of rain
Has fallen on our sunburnt plains
Rivers are slimy drains
No fields of grain
Nor wading cranes
Only dusty stains
On the windowpanes

And again
Dry ice runs through my veins
While the windmill vanes
Rotate in vain




“I’ve always felt this song holds the heartbeat of a parched Australian summer. It seemed the right companion for these words.”





Ivor Steven  ©  February 2026

Yet to be Found

A fallen flowering bush caught my eye on the way back from our morning walk — knocked flat by last night’s storm, yet still holding colour. The sight struck a familiar chord, and the words came quickly, shaped by that quiet recognition of what it means to be brought down and still not done.





Yet to be Found

I’m lying on the ground.
The overnight storm knocked me down.
I’m feeling flat and unsound;
my flowers are turning brown.
When will I be found?

Do they know, I need to be reset?
I’m still bound to this mound –
and I’m not dead yet!






Ivor Steven  ©  February 2026

Throwback Friday, Sadness (a Senryu)

Today’s Throwback Friday poem (originally written in July 2023) is drawn from my upcoming book, Time Hears No Sound. It appears as the first poem in the Senryu section of Chapter 10, Time’s Short Poems: Haiku, Tanka, etc.
A small return to 2023, where shadows still had something to teach me.




Sadness (a Senryu)


Below the grayness
Naked emotions stumble
Between the shadows



For a soundtrack to this quiet ache, here’s Leonard Cohen’s Show Me the Place — a voice searching through the same shadows.”





Ivor Steven  ©  February 2026

Our Cafe to the Rescue (a Haiku)

Featured Image Above: Recouping composure, one café moment at a time.


Frankie and I, settling into the calm, captured in little snapshots from our café breather.



Our Cafe to the Rescue (a Haiku)

It’s time to relax
And recoup our composure
A place without hooks






Ivor Steven  ©  February 2026

Above and Beyond the Horizon


Where the cloud‑horizon meets the fading sun, twilight balances its colours on the edge of evening


Above and Beyond the Horizon


Here, beneath the twilight zone’s archway,
I see a phenomenal golden causeway.

There, above the horizon’s sentinal treeline
and below the cloudbank’s grigio plateau –
like another parallel pseudo-horizon –

mysteriously, the yellow band of light
momentarily emerges,
despite the fading sun folding into night.








Ivor Steven  ©  February 2026

A Blackbird’s Night

Featured Image Above: Was created by Copilot and me.





A Blackbird’s Night


Not everything said
understands the light
within our heads.

On a Wolf Moon night,
what I write,
in black and white,
is not always right –
slumber darkens my sight.

I am no white knight,
nor a feathery kite.
And despite
my comfy campsite,

the world’s warring blight
incites me to always fight
for what is right
in black and white.




Footnote: I’m pleased to report that last week’s plumbing job was completed today. Even though I was tired and it was nearly dark, we still managed to go for our walkie …




Ivor Steven  ©  January 2026

The Earth and the Sky

Featured Image Above: Created by Copilot and me. Where light breaks through, and wings find their path.





The Earth and the Sky


“Good morning, Earth,”
Said the solar sky
To my little piece of the universe,
Where I see our illustrious Sun
Illuminating the waning Half-moon.

And there, below the umbrella of cosmic light,
the birds are embracing their empyrean life.





A moment that stunned me into stillness — sky, bird, and song all speaking the same truth.





Ivor Steven ©  February 2026