Frankie’s Weekend

Saturday: My brother’s birthday party day

Frankie loves catching up with Aunty Tum

The birthday party feast

Frankie is impressed with the birthday cake.


Frankie makes himself comfortable after the party

Sunday: Ballarat’s Botanical Gardens & Lake Wendouree


It was time to visit the spectacular Botanical Gardens

With Frankie of course

The Picturesque Lake Wendouree

Frankie chats to the swan. Lawrie, Frankie, & me, sitting beside the Lake

Monday: Going back home to Geelong

Frankie’s happy in his car seat. The old Lal Lal Railway Station. The Lal Lal Falls Hotel

Frankie’s in his car seat. The historic Elaine Hotel. Elaine’s new Roadhouse Grocery Store.

The wind turbines near Elaine … but ironically, I’m running out of puff. It’s now 11.15pm Monday here in Geelong, and to produce this post has been a task on my little TV Computer … My desktop computer is back in Ballarat being repaired by my brother and the process could take a while …



My brother turned 71`and I turned 72 back in July, so this old Neil Young song seems appropriate for “Frankie’s Weekend”




Ivor Steven (c) October 2023

Trees Weep

Today’s poem was inspired by Dwight’s thought provoking post this morning >> https://rothpoetry.wordpress.com/2023/10/07/embedded-pain

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Trees Weep

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Barbwire scrapes and creeps

Their wounds run deep

Trees stand there and weep

Humans turn a blind eye and sleep

Upon their own rusty scrapheap

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Ivor Steven (c) October 2023

Shangri La, Volume 4, A Timeless Zone

FREE PDF COPY >>> Links Below

Hello, dear readers and followers, as you might know I stopped producing my “Tullawalla Booklets” at # 31, because that was the house number of our family’s Tullawalla Homestead.
But the booklet formats are a superb way for me to catalogue the vast number of poems that I produce and as the saying goes “I Am Turning Another Page”. Here I have begun a new series of poem booklets, and they are called “Shangri La” which is the name of my little Villa, and is my piece of “earthly paradise, a retreat from the pressures of modern civilization”.
Incredibly, I now have a total of “1547” Poems filed in these booklet formats!!
Click on >> HERE  for the link to your FREE: PDF Copy of “Shangri La, Volume 4. A Timeless Zone“




A Timeless Zone


I stood alone in my second-hand clothes

holding her worn out soul

gently, I slid her urn

into that hollow

inside the brick wall


a moment of heartache

hidden in a chasm of pain

stone-faced again

I stood alone in my timeless zone

not wanting to go home






Ivor Steven (c) October 2023

Timeworn, is in this Week’s Coffee House Writers Magazine

Hello dear readers and followers, I am now writing for “Coffee House Writers” magazine on a fortnightly basis, and my poem “Timeworn”, is in this week’s edition of Coffee House Writers Magazine.
To Read my poem, please click on the link below to visit the article, at Coffee House Writers Magazine.
>> https://coffeehousewriters.com/timeworn/



“Timeworn” … An interesting song by the French group ‘Wildpath’ to accompany my thought-provoking poem.




Ivor Steven (c) October 2023

The Forest Monarch

Hello dear readers, this weekend, I am going to Ballarat for my brother’s Birthday, and I’ll be taking my ‘Duck Muck’ computer box with me. Hopefully, my whizz brother will be able to repair it. So, that means I’ll be relatively quiet here on my ‘website’ until my errant computer is up and running again.
Feature Images: The gorgeous photos of the horse wearing ‘a crown and necklace’ is reproduced here on my poetry site with the kind permission of Derrick Knight >> https://derrickjknight.com/2023/09/27/polishing-the-car/

Pony wearing a fern necklace





The Forest Monarch


She roams New Forest

Like a natural born monarch

A true native of the land


She’s glamorous and charismatic

A perfect heir for nature’s game of thrones

A noble horse for our country’s warring forces







Ivor Steven © October 2023

Throwback Friday, Epilogue, My Cloudy Vision

Today I am presenting the Epilogue’ poem that will be appearing in my new book “Until Eyes Hear Sound”. and “My Cloudy Vision” is a poem I wrote in September 2018, and it will be the finale piece in the Book.
Please Note: the photo attached below, is the proposed cover design for my new book “Until Eyes Hear Sound”, created by my niece Kerri Costello – Philadelphia.



Epilogue. My Cloudy Vision

I am trying to write myself a Mission Statement 
Feels like a speech I need to practice in the basement 
I have never been good at making speeches 
They are messy, like eating mushy peaches 

When I first began writing poetry 
My main aim was to teach myself to read and write again 
Several years ago, I suffered a Stroke 
Times become tough, depression drowned this bloke 

Poetry became a form of self-therapy 
I listened to music and inspirational lyrics 
Leonard Cohen’s songs were always playing 
I fervently keep writing 

My life became centered inside a small sphere 
While also caring for my lovely wife, her MS was severe 
Writing was my retreat, a place of solace 
My world was narrow, I was skating on thin ice 

Ten years ago, my wife did pass 
My heart turned to water on glass 
Then I heard Leonard singing again 
His music and words were not in vain 

I resumed drafting my poems 
Grieving, words were sad and solemn 
Healing takes time 
Soulfully I wrote more rhyme 

I joined local writers’ groups 
My words were out there, under readers boots 
On a prompt, I started a website six years ago 
My confidence grew, I came in from the snow 

Wondering what my goal is, where do I go 
There are many answers, I do not know 
In the future, I believe a poetry book or two 
I have volumes of poems waiting in the queue 

This is my story 
My life’s journey 
Of cloudy visions 
My words, my mission 







Ivor Steven (c) October 2023

Anti-Rust

Over at Weekly Prompts the Wednesday Challenge word is: Time . To visit their fabulous site, please click on >> Here … my poem “Anti-Rust” spans twenty-three years of “Time”…


Anti-Rust


Twenty-three years have gone

Since I suffered my first stroke

I remember being cold and scared

I awoke the next day in hospital

Feeling like my limbs were full of rust

And my confused mind

Was locked inside a sleepwalking man

Disorientated and not to be trusted


Twenty-three years on

And two more strokes later

My body is still full of rust

But with the wonders of modern medicine

And some plucky self determination

I have recovered my cognitive abilities

And with the aid of anti-rust drugs

I am active enough to type up my canny poems





The Rust, Sivert Hoyem . Lyrics

Twenty hours he is gone
Another time she’s waiting for him
When he comes home
He’s in terrible state
He’s just sitting there by the window
With his hate

A rusty bathtub in the garden
Seven cars are in the yard
And only one that is running
Life is spout??? in the wilderness
But in his heart

It’s not a place for new beginnings
Everything you make make just falls apart

Sometimes she thinks
It’s the rust that eats the soul
In the winter time the sky is burning
Purple orange and gold

So one night like any other
She takes her bags out to the car
She passes a minute
Then she starts down the road
You can get anywhere
On the full tank of fuel
And on an empty heart

It’s not a place for new beginnings
Everything you make just falls apart
The house neglected and forbidden
???
???

Just thinking about it breaks your heart
???? from the ceiling
??? burning stars
So decay and the rust that eats the soul
The winter sky burns eternally
But people come and people go





Ivor Steven (c) October 2023

The Snail and Jack Frost





The Snail and Jack Frost


My life as a snail is plain

Slithering alone in the hard rain

I ask, “Have I been deceived

where are the new geranium leaves?”


It is time to go nomadic

Leave this withered garden bed

Look for a greener paddock

With a big cabbage spread


“Am I climbing the right causeway?

this windowpane is no entree

and the flyscreen ahead

looks like moldy cornbread”


My life as a snail is no paradise

Everything is topsy turvy and I am lost

And I need to wait here for advice

From my friend Jack Frost








Ivor Steven (c) October 2023

What Happened to Motherland?, is up at Coffee House Writers Magazine

Hello dear readers and followers, I now write for “Coffee House Writers” magazine on a fortnightly basis, and my poem “What Happened to Motherland”, is in this week’s edition of Coffee House Writers Magazine. please click on the link below to read my poem, at Coffee House Writers >>

https://coffeehousewriters.com/what-happened-to-motherland/






Ivor Steven (c) June 2022