An Old Plumber, An Ex-Carer, An Amateur Poet, Words From The Heart
Author: ivor20
G'day, and welcome to my blog site. My name is Ivor Steven, I live in Geelong, Australia. I'm an ex-industrial chemist, and a retired plumber, and a former Carer of my wife(Carole), for 30 years, who suffered from severe MS. I Write poetry about those personal thoughts, throughout and beyond my life as a Carer.
I've been blogging for over 2 years, and writing poems for 19 years. Of course a lot of my poems are about my favourite subject Carole, but since I've been blogging my writings have become quite varied, humourous, mystical, observational, and even a few monster/horror poems.
Spring arrived today with a quiet kind of joy — a bird lifting into the morning light, gulls gliding above the bay, and a flowering tree catching the sun just right. On my walk to the café, these small moments gathered around me, each one adding its own note to the season’s first song. By the time I sat down with my coffee, a Tanka had already begun to bloom — shaped by the warm promise of the new season.
Spring is Singing (a Tanka)
Daylight’s kissing earth, Its warm glow hugs everything, And the midday sun Thaws my once‑wavering wings — Now nature’s choir is singing
As spring begins to rise, a tender melody of warmth and light to accompany the season’s first song.
“To frozen clods even spring’s invisible law returns with grass and flowers and summer fruits and corn” … Walt Whitman
Hello, dear readers and followers. I contribute to Coffee House Writers Magazine (USA) every second week, and I’m delighted to share that my latest poem,“Spring Will Never Vanish (a Villanelle),” appears in the new issue. You can read it by following the link below. >> Spring Will Never Vanish – Coffee House Writers
As Whitman knew and this villanelle remembers, spring’s law always returns — and Tom Waits sings it home.
Just before midnight, I wandered through Nancy’s whimsical corner of The Elephant’s Trunk, where her poetic mischief nudged me over the fence of common sense. In that soft hour, a playful spark took hold — and this anecdotal poem tumbled out as my midnight excuse. For Nancy >> Poet’s Excuse – The Elephant’s Trunk
And because midnight rarely behaves itself, here’s Nick Cave’s “Night Raid” slipping in with its dark velvet mood before the poem leaps the fence again.
There Are No ‘Cents’ in Pretense
None of it needs to make sense no matter present tense or past tense
Your quill has a license to leap the pretense fence — forget about common sense
And write delicious nonsense in future tense with imaginative effulgence
And to round out this midnight ramble, here’s the song I shared with Nancy — Leonard Cohen’s wonderfully unusual “Ballad of the Absent Mare,” a wandering little masterpiece that trots alongside any poet willing to leap the fence of pretense.
Morning wanderings often gift me small mysteries — a snail tracing Olympic rings across the cold pavement, a chalk‑scribbled “One Day” left by some early riser, and the quiet frost that makes creatures reconsider their usual routes. Today, Steve the Snail seemed to have a message for me… and perhaps for anyone feeling a little twisted by winter’s chill.
Over at Weekly Prompts, it’s the final weekend of August, and it’s time for the One Day Prompt. Please visit their fabulous site by clicking on >> Here
Steve the Snail’s Twisted Trail
I’m wondering if Steve the Snail is lost, discombobulated by the morning frost
He usually leaves a straight-lined trail from the rose garden to the window rail
But today his trail looked like Olympic rings — perhaps a note left by his frozen shoestrings.
A gentle, pressing reminder letter: “Hey Ivor … where’s my new winter sweater?”
For this frosty morning’s whimsical trail, I’ve paired Steve’s looping, Olympic‑ring wanderings with Nive Nielsen’s ethereal “Are You Ready” — a song that drifts like cold breath and whispers back at the paths we leave behind.
The late afternoon moon often feels like a reminder — a quiet presence tracing its way across the sky while we trace our own paths below. In its soft light, every line in our hands and every mark on the land seems to carry a story of where we’ve been and where we’re still going. This poem rests inside that moment of reflection, asking what it means to follow the lines that shape our lives.
Tracing the Lines
There you are, all of you, way out there, full and aware – tracing the lines in my hands.
And there are no new brands on the land; every grain of sand still understands.
There’s a crack in everything – in all of you out there, feeling open and bare – tracing the lines in my full glare.
A recently released piece, carrying the same gentle pull of the moon’s slow journey across the sky
Cohen Noir: Celebrating the Music, Words & Legacy of Leonard Cohen
There’s a quiet thrill in the air today — Maree and I have just secured our tickets to Cohen Noir: Celebrating the Music, Words & Legacy of Leonard Cohen, live at the Melbourne Recital Centre on Saturday, 26th September.
It’s only four weeks away, but the mood is already settling in: that velvet‑dark Cohen atmosphere, the poetry, the ache, the humour, the songs that have followed us through decades. To step into a hall shaped for his voice — even through the hands of others — feels like a gift waiting patiently on the horizon.
A wonderful night ahead… and I’m looking forward to sharing the experience with you all.
And as we count down the four short weeks to Cohen Noir, I keep returning to the night we saw Leonard himself in Melbourne back in 2009 — a concert that still hums in the heart. To set the mood, here’s his wonderfully cheeky and soulful Tower of Song, live from London in 2008.
Continuing the Leonard Cohen thread from yesterday, today’s Throwback Friday poem, Destination (June 2024), began as a “writing between the lines” exercise for our Dome Poets group here in Geelong. Using Cohen’s The Goal as my guide (shared below), I tried to shape a companion poem that sits quietly between each of his lines.
Destination, by Ivor Steven
The curtains are open The front door is ajar So, I can hear her sing From her distant star
I do not own much My soul is a gold mine I haven’t lost my touch My heart is kind
I share what I have I have hope and love Couldn’t stop the flood Couldn’t hold her glove
I walk alone I look content Regrets are few Despair ferments
I push on and on I do not complain I’m still alive I’m numb to the pain
No one asks No one knows About finality Under the snow
“I wish I could say everything in one word. I hate all the things that can happen between the beginning of a sentence and the end.” … Leonard Cohen
Tonight, at the launch of naXOs — Geelong Writers’ new anthology of resonant, experimental poetry — I was invited to read my piece The Portrait That Found Me. Now that the book is in my hands, I’m delighted to share the poem here as it appears in the collection. It grew from a quiet, unexpected moment, the kind of encounter that shifts its own boundaries and finds you before you find it — a fitting addition to an anthology that celebrates fresh connections through image, language, and form.
Moments from tonight’s naXOs anthology launch — my reading of The Portrait That Found Me, shared among friends, voices, and a generous audience.
The poem as published in thenaXOsanthology.
And to end the night, a final nod to the voice that steadied my steps — Leonard Cohen, Field Commander of the tender and true
Sometimes a single flight can carry more meaning than the landscape beneath it. This morning’s mudlark — lifting from foreign sands, gliding toward familiar green, then swept off course by an unexpected breeze — became the quiet messenger behind this piece. Its journey echoed the fragile paths we all take toward understanding, toward apology, toward peace. What followed was a poem shaped by wings, weather, and the distant hum of icy choirs.
Winging Toward Peace
Swooping out past the sands of foreign ground Then flying toward the green, bushy trees of that once-fabled promised land — only to be diverted by a bold eastern breeze that buckled my wings and trembling knees and sent me falling into the Arctic freeze, where icy choirs continue the cheers still singing in the hush of sub‑zero seas
There, huddling inside an iceberg’s solitary marque, all the compassionate delegates from overseas gathered to hear pleas for apologies and guarantees from Greenland’s patient, peaceful trustees.
From foreign sands to frozen seas, the journey ends where quiet voices still know the weight of peace. And so, in Greenland’s calm, the final note on harmonious independence lingers.
Last night’s twilight slipped across the sky in muted layers — a quiet blend of fading colour, soft cloud, and the half‑moon’s pale glow behind drifting haze. Standing there with the camera, I felt the day thinning into something slower, dimmer, almost weightless. From that hush, this small poem emerged — a reflection on how light, taste, and time blur at the edges as evening diffuses into night.
What Do You See 355 For WDYS, Sadje offers us a photo by Lensloji (Pexels) of a murmuration of birds forming a shifting pattern above a city skyline and minaret at sunset.
Opaqueness
Time is colourless, yet daytime becomes darkness as evening clouds advertise twilight’s transient demise.
Time is tasteless, yet midnight is infused with blackness except for the half-moon’s translucent loving spoonful of notilucence.
And in the quiet blur between knowing and not knowing, this song finds its way.
Ivor.Plumber/Poet 