A Throwback Friday Poem – Page 9

Throwback Friday, Fiery Pearls and an Ambient Eye

I wrote this six-line poem back in July 2022, and as is my way, today, I have slightly altered the wording.

“Since I don’t believe in anything
I can pretend about everything” … (anonymous)

Fiery Pearls and an Ambient Eye (Revised)

The stars are the universe’s fiery pearls

And when smoke falls into my eyes

Her leftover embers rekindle my heart

The silver moon is my world’s ambient eye

And when my mind falls out of focus

Her warrior radiance enlightens my soul

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Tullawalla is Available From

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Ivor Steven: email, ivorrs20@gmail.com

Amazon: search via, ‘Tullawalla by Ivor Steven’

AND
Perceptions is Now Available via:

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OR: email me directly for a signed copy – ivorrs20@gmail.com

Ivor Steven (c) April 2024

Throwback Friday, Grumpy Bears in Chains

A poem I wrote in Nov 2020, which now appears in my new book “Until Eyes Hear Sound”

Grumpy Bears in Chains

The crashing noise started after midnight

When the growling thunder gave darkness a fright

I was shaken by the storms furious hard rain

Sounding like grumpy bears in chains

Thumping my iron roof with their heavy paws

And lashing at the awnings with their steely claws

Then the giant drops turned into falling ice blocks

And I rushed back inside to shelter behind the dog box

Until Eyes Hear Sound is NOW Available From,

Lulu Books: https://www.lulu.com/shop/ivor-steven/until-eyes-hear-sound/paperback/product-jeev886.html?page=1&pageSize=4

Tullawalla is Available From

Jaymah Press:https://www.jaymahpress.com.au/

Ivor Steven: email, ivorrs20@gmail.com

Amazon: search via, ‘Tullawalla by Ivor Steven’

AND
Perceptions is Now Available via:

Amazon: https://amzn.asia/d/4yFHWrT

Jaymah Press: https://www.jaymahpress.com.au/

Lulu Books: https://www.lulu.com/shop/ivor-steven-and-derrick-knight/perceptions/hardcover/product-2pwqe4.html?q=Perceptions+by+Ivor+Steven&page=1&pageSize=4

OR: email me directly for a signed copy – ivorrs20@gmail.com

Ivor Steven (c) March 2024

Throwback Friday, Purple Tomatoe Ferns

I found a poem in my old files yesterday, from September 2018. Here I have revised the wording slightly, but without losing any of the original’s impressive imagery.

Dear friends and followers, as you read my article today, I am on my way to the “Clunes Booktown Festival” and won’t be back until Monday afternoon. But, I have been busy writing and have ‘Scheduled’ a post each day while I am away, but my blogging ‘Comments’ will be minimal … >> https://www.clunesbooktown.com.au/

Purple Tomatoe Ferns (Revised)

I have hallucinations of Vikings sailing in the cold

Plundering forgotten hearts and pilfering gold

I am dreaming of the old farmer’s wife

Milking cows, cleaning, and baking for life

I have feelings for the king, in his isolated castle

Looking forlornly upon his drawbridge, a foodless trestle

I am wandering through an empty paddock

Kicking dew off the grass, searching for a lover’s locket

I have plans for the planet’s desolate future

Growing purple tomatoe ferns until they are mature

I remember her bravery, her ever-lasting smile

Crawling over jagged garden beds, every painful mile

I have finished falling under her broken sky

Claiming peace among tomorrow’s butterflies

Ivor Steven (c) March 2024

Throwback Friday, Moon Blossom

A “Moon” poem that I originally wrote in June 2019.

Moon Blossom

The old moon knows

After a bitterly cold winter

There’s never a false spring

And Eve’s apple tree always blossoms

Then the full moon shyly shines

Casting moon-shadows upon sacred ground

And asks about the planet’s fading designs

“Where have all the ancient spirits gone”

However, the new moon remains alluring

And his moonbeams spoon our imagination

Yellow ripples shimmering across blue lagoons

Casting moon-shadows over lovers’ bedrooms

And love eventually conquers us all

When moon blossom ringlets gently fall

Ivor Steven (c) March 2024

Throwback Friday, Did You Hear the Moon Call?

I have written and posted a number of “moon” poems lately, and there will be a full moon tomorrow night. So, my Throwback Friday Poem is another Moon Poem, “Did You Hear the Moon Call?, from September 2021

Did You Hear the Moon Call?

Time is an eternal sundial

The sun rises, and the sun sets

Tides roll in, tides go out

The rivers ebb and flow

And the gray clouds of life

Continue to fly on by

Curtains open, and curtains fall

The audience wants more

Feel the crowd roar

Last night, did you hear the moon call?

Until Eyes Hear Sound
Not available on Lulu or Amazon yet … but you may purchase it from me, via this web page or my email >> ivorrs20@gmail.com

Tullawalla is Available From

Jaymah Press:https://www.jaymahpress.com.au/

Ivor Steven: email, ivorrs20@gmail.com

Amazon: search via, ‘Tullawalla by Ivor Steven’

AND
Perceptions is Now Available via:

Amazon: https://amzn.asia/d/4yFHWrT

Jaymah Press: https://www.jaymahpress.com.au/

Lulu Books: https://www.lulu.com/shop/ivor-steven-and-derrick-knight/perceptions/hardcover/product-2pwqe4.html?q=Perceptions+by+Ivor+Steven&page=1&pageSize=4

OR: email me directly for a signed copy – ivorrs20@gmail.com

Ivor Steven (c) February 2024

Throwback Friday, Just a Call Away

A poem from my WP archives (March 2018), that I’ve tinkered with, and rehashed a number of times over the years. The original poem was written years before Carole passed (12 years ago), so the wording is quite ambiguous and introverted, and I’ll leave it up to your imaginations to interpret my thoughts …

Just A Call Away (Revised #2)

Waiting, when is she to summon me

Pondering what might have been

Writing to one and all, a finale

Pen to paper, wanting her to see

How I survived the Tasman Sea

While searching for her freedom tree

Wondering if it’s a selfish sin

To wear my second skin

Under an invisible coat of tin

Ivor Steven (c) December 2023

Throwback Friday, Living On a Wooden Bridge (Revised)

Today’s Throwback Friday poem is a rewrite of a piece original called “Living On a Knife Edge”(Feb 2019). This poem was one of two, that I submitted to be published in March 2020 , but the other poem was accepted ahead of this piece, and here today I have again revised the 2020 poem.

Living On a Wooden Bridge (Revised)

Fire, fire, there’s raging fires

I need help to stamp out the flames

Burning down this old timber bridge

A traveler’s last causeway to the edge

Carrying today’s harsh realities

Spanning a lifetime of dreams and fantasies

Rain, rain, there’s a Noah’s flood

I need help to stop the cascading suds

Fill the sandbags with riverbed mud

Plug the leakages with woolly rugs

Ring out qualms and doubts

And accept the charity handouts

Warning, warning, there’s a heatwave

I need help to see through the shimmering haze

And peer into nature’s fiery atmosphere tonight

Where millions of her fireflies are alight

Forcing eyes to hear the sound of flashing delights

Gathering above the bridge to be the world’s new sunlight

“The Hosting Of The Shee” a poem by William B Yeats, sung by the Waterboys

The host is riding from Knocknarea
And over the grave of Clooth-na-Bare
Caoilte tossing his burning hair
And Niamh calling: ‘Away, come away’
‘Away, come away, away, away’.

The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round
Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound
Our breasts are heaving, our eyes are agleam
Empty your heart of its mortal dream.

The host is riding from Knocknarea
And over the grave of Clooth-na-Bare
Caoilte tossing his burning hair
And Niamh calling: ‘Away, come away’
‘Away, come away, away, away’.

Our armsa-wave, our lips are apart
And if anything gaze on our rushing band
We come between him and the hope of his heart
We come between him and the deed of his hand.

The host is riding from Knocknarea
And over the grave of Clooth-na-Bare
Caoilte tossing his burning hair
And Niamh calling: ‘Away, come away’
‘Away, come away, away, away, away, away…’.

Ivor Steven (c) November 2023

Throwback Friday, The Poet’s Grotto

Today’s Throwback poem is a rewrite of an old piece called “Paper Tigers” (Feb 2019)

The Poet’s Grotto

My writer’s studio, is the littered part of my bedroom

A paper tiger’s haven, has become a messy grotto

I am ruefully feeling muddled and befuddled

Pieces of paper and cardboard kites

Scatter the atmosphere like withered autumn leaves

Falling upon my untidy and cluttered archives

Scribbled words are yet to be decoded

Foolscap pages overwritten and eroded

Undefined and unlisted

Out of focus and twisted

Upside down and inside out

Uncategorized and full of self-doubt

My desk’s dreamy picture postcard

Looks like a moonscape’s junkyard

My poetic writing quill has been the mythological ruler

Showing no regard for my bedroom’s demeanour

I am sleeping covered in my hurdy gurdy verses

I cannot penetrate the stack of obscure foreign addresses

It is time to cast out the pretentious cosmic curses

Free myself of all unpublished jabberwocky

And let my imagination create a new poetic hard copy

Ivor Steven (c) October 2023

Throwback Friday, Who Has the Foggiest? (a Limerick)

Today I am presenting another poem that will be appearing in my new book “Until Eyes Hear Sound”. The ‘Limerick’ is also a relatively new poem format for me, and “Who Has the Foggiest” is a poem I wrote in May 2022, and it will be the opening piece in the ‘Other’ section of Chapter 10. Short Poems: Haiku, Senryu, Tanka, and Others

Who Has the Foggiest? (a Limerick)

I could not see the morning moon

There’s no sunshine in my breakfast spoon

The heaviest of fogs falls

I cannot hear the birds calls

Has our world condemned nature’s tune

Tullawalla is Available From

Jaymah Press:https://www.jaymahpress.com.au/

Ivor Steven: email, ivorrs20@gmail.com

Amazon: search via, ‘Tullawalla by Ivor Steven’

AND
Perceptions is Now Available via:

Amazon: https://amzn.asia/d/4yFHWrT

Jaymah Press: https://www.jaymahpress.com.au/

Lulu Books: https://www.lulu.com/shop/ivor-steven-and-derrick-knight/perceptions/hardcover/product-2pwqe4.html?q=Perceptions+by+Ivor+Steven&page=1&pageSize=4

OR: email me directly for a signed copy – ivorrs20@gmail.com

Ivor Steven (c) September 2023

Throwback Friday, Wonderment Rings True

Today I am presenting another poem that will be appearing in my new book “Until Eyes Hear Sound”. I wrote ‘Wonderment Rings True’ in September 2020, and the poem will be the opening piece in the Fantasy Section, of Chapter 9. Humour, Fantasy, Faeries, and Weird.

Wonderment Rings True

My imagination’s beaming

Alive and dreaming

Even when I’m sleeping

Tired eyes are peeping

Searching for the milky-way

Flying there, on my open sleigh

And sailing the air-waves

High above broadway

Steering my spacecraft, Itmims**

While reading The Brothers Grimm

And playing a tune on my old violin

The theme from ‘Lord of the Rings’

I’m a visionary sky Pilot

With a handful of violets

Travelling beyond a silvery moon

To float upon our blue lagoon

**Itmims … “Ivor’s Time Machine In Micro Space”

Tullawalla is Available From

Jaymah Press:https://www.jaymahpress.com.au/

Ivor Steven: email, ivorrs20@gmail.com

Amazon: search via, ‘Tullawalla by Ivor Steven’

AND
Perceptions is Now Available via:

Amazon: https://amzn.asia/d/4yFHWrT

Jaymah Press: https://www.jaymahpress.com.au/

Lulu Books: https://www.lulu.com/shop/ivor-steven-and-derrick-knight/perceptions/hardcover/product-2pwqe4.html?q=Perceptions+by+Ivor+Steven&page=1&pageSize=4

OR: email me directly for a signed copy – ivorrs20@gmail.com

Ivor Steven (c) August 2023