Featured Image Above: Again, a big thank you to Derrick Knight for allowing me to use his fascinating photo of ‘soggy soft toys hanging on a gate’ . Visit his article via this link >> An Arboreal Charnel House – derrickjknight
Sogginess Sets In
Old soggy soft toys
Once cuddled with joy
Outside hanging around
Tears caress vacant sounds
Searching for the tenderness
Of yesterday’s missing fondness
Ivor Steven (c) May 2021
Surprise, Surprise !! The Red Wolf Journal has just published a “2nd” poem of mine, for their Fall Anthology, ‘My Dream Of You’ .. Now I am doubly grateful to the editors Irene and Tawnya accepting this piece too …
Cascading Snowflakes
by Ivor Steven
A morning blizzard of hailstones
Smothers my old frozen bones
Polarized, I am shivering head to spine
Chilling my chasms of hard lines
Daily coldness unwrapping
Mid-morning thawing, eventually happening
Melting, my eternal iceberg breaks
Into an avalanche of cascading snowflakes
Covering me in a white blanket of crystal firestones
Gradually warming my lonesome bones
Turning my purple blood into glowing red
Clearing heavy fogginess from my head.
Ivor Steven was formerly an Industrial Chemist, then a Plumber, and has been writing poetry for 19 years. His book, Tullawalla, was recently published. He has had numerous poems published in anthologies, and on-line magazines. He is an active member of the Geelong Writers Inc.(Australia), and is a team member/barista with the on-line magazine, Go Dog Go Cafe (America).
My poem “Time Strolls” is up at Red Wolf Journal. I am grateful to the editors Irene and Tawnya for accepting this piece for their Fall anthology, ‘My Dream Of You’
Time Strolls
by Ivor Steven
I am no sleepy koala
Nor a pretty brolga
I am stoic and ancient, like Mount Olga
An old scribe from Tullawalla
You cannot feel my heart
Nor can you see my star chart
I am an astronaut without a spacecraft
An old pilot from the lost Ark
I am not flying alone in the dark
Nor will I swim among the hungry sharks
I am a dreamer fishing for humanities restart
An old disciple waiting to disembark
Ivor Steven was formerly an Industrial Chemist, then a Plumber, and has been writing poetry for 19 years. His book, Tullawalla, was recently published. He has had numerous poems published in anthologies, and on-line magazines. He is an active member of the Geelong Writers Inc.(Australia), and is a team member/barista with the on-line magazine, Go Dog Go Cafe (America).
Today’s poem I wrote after an interesting conversation with the ‘witty’ poet Don Matthews >> The Flippant, Comic, and Serious – The poetry etc of Don Matthews (donmatthewspoetry.com)
Featured Image Above: SPRING FESTIVAL – Fantasy & Abstract Background Wallpapers on Desktop Nexus (Image 716964)
Wonderland
In between never ever happy
And always blissfully happy
There swings a world of happiness
Not for from the seesaw of tenderness
Living together upon a sandy sea of friendly hands
Near a mysteriously lost planet called Wonderland
Ivor Steven (c) May 2021
Dear readers and followers, here’s a great opportunity for your writings to be read by other writers, and also to find and meet other writers. You are very welcome to participate, come along and visit our writer friendly site…..by clicking on the link at the bottom of this article >>
View Original Post…
Welcome toPromote Yourself Monday. All Go Dog Go Cafe community members are invited to postonelink to one specific piece of their writing (600 words or less please!) they have published on their blog, Facebook page, or Instagram feed into the comments section below.
If you post a link, be sure to read some of the other great writing people have linked to.
When I was a toddler, I remember asking my mum, “Why is God a man” … and now 65 years later, I am left with the same question !! …
Today’s poem is a mixture of 4 different stanzas, that somehow they seemed to flow together, and I would like to thank, V.J Knutson, Colleen, and Susi, for inspiring these snippets that I wrote on their posts. (3 women blogger friends !!) … and please readers do not try to read too much into my poem, the piece is a mixture of different thoughts, on different days … but maybe my thoughts were all leading to the same stairway !!
“Her” Stairs
Push forward across the sand
Towards that promised land
Be guided by Her red right hand … V.J.
Some sad moments, you will delve deep
Other times you will feel the breeze’s cool sweep
Of mother nature sending you her heart beat … Colleen
Then indeed you are there
Between somewhere
And Her eternal stairs … Colleen
Where baby eyes open and cry
Life’s eyes cry and say goodbye
And old eyes run dry and die … Susi
Ivor Steven (c) May 2021
I happy to report that “Tullawalla” on Amazon eBook sales, still seems to be doing well on the Australian & Oceania ratings today … at #6 on ‘Hot New Release’ … and at #31 on the ‘Best Sellers in Australian & Oceania Poetry’ …
Still waiting patiently (or impatiently) for Tullawalla to get back into print at Barnes & Noble …
I know our time will come soon
I know Tullawalla is ready to play her tune
Ready to fly back from her orbiting moon
Ivor Steven (c) May 2021
There is hope
There is compassion
There is love
There in the hands of all that be
From under the glorious wings
Of my mythical dove
I visualize serene lands
And calm seas, on a world of love
There lives hope
There lives compassion
There lives love
There in the hearts of all that be
Featured Image Above; pinterest.co.uk
Ivor Steven (c) May 2021
A big thank you from Ivor, and Kerri, to Colleen, Eugenia, and Heather for their fabulous reviews of ‘our’ book “Tullawalla” … our hearts are overwhelmed with joy …
C F Brown 5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful Emotion. Reviewed in the United States on April 22nd, 2021
Mr. Steven fills these pages with his passions and his love. Travel with him through his dream inspired and love inspired poetry and prose.
amanda1 (Eugenia) 5.0 out of 5 stars Lovely and Heartfelt. Reviewed in the United States on May 20, 2021
A beautifully illustrated book of poetry and prose. Heartfelt words of love, inspiration, and melancholia reflected in each and every poem by the author, Ivor Steven.
Heather Hancock 4.0 out of 5 stars A Mosaic of Poetry. Reviewed in Canada on May 20, 2021
This collection brings the reader into Australia and a life lived fully. This is a mosaic collection of a lifetime of experiences and emotions.
Ivor Steven (c) May 2021
Whoops .. the ‘Go Dog Go Cafe’ reblog action didn’t work again, so here is a copy & paste version of my article on GDGC ...
During the last 2 weeks I have posted a few poems about the futility of war … I’m not very accomplished at writing about the wars of the world, I get far too angry and confused to write something sensible, but this is a poem I wrote about my recollections of the “Gulf War” in 1990.
Return the Bullets
The mind awakens to secret cannons shattering my bed
All the violence of the worlds pounding inside my head
The killing and the maiming of all the innocents who fled
What happens when all the little lambs are slaughtered?
When the peoples of all religions and creed are dead
And we cannot return the murdering bullets back into the barrel
I am afraid
The backyard stairway is far too steep to climb
The handrails are way out of reach to find
And the public change-room windows are covered with bars
Now encircling the city hall, the security backdoor is ajar
Entering the marble aisle, the White room appears vacant
And guileful leaders have run, leaving a chasm of gloomy dark
I am wandering
Where to go, the healing house is full of ugly holes
The citizens cowering in shadows behind splintered lighting poles
And the crumbling streets are awash with rivers of leftover blood
Now the warring bosses have to fight amongst themselves
Throwing poison pens and paper darts at each other
Niether bruised nor battered, using ivory towers as cover
I am terrified
The dusty mushroom cloud slowly settles on the barren ground
With sands of distant lands, shifting into every nook and cranny
We need the good Doctor, to help us cure these alien scourges
And foreigners arriving upon waves of our neighbouring seas
The deathly TV images, wrongly implanted for all to see
As the press only gossip and drivel with selfish glee
I am stupefied
The guns of freedom lands haven’t even stopped the cull
Death to friends or foe, no matter, to the rulers from above
Their only rules, the poor and weak to be kept totally downtrodden
One day the surviving meek shall inherit their radioactive dirt
The rich will feast upon their own contaminated bread
But we will never return the murdering bullets back into the barrel
Ivor Steven (c) May 2021
Ivor.Plumber/Poet 