The dawn is a gray silent sea
And as a cold fog invades me
I see a green paddock
Without a horizon
Vanishing into oblivion
I see a ghostly power-source
Hang without opposition
Vanishing into oblivion
I see a ghastly concrete Czar
Without compassion
Disappearing into oblivion
Ivor Steven © May 2022
Continuing on from yesterday’s Ekphrastic poetry workshop, here is my poetic response to Shirley Drayton’s creative piece of textile artwork “Golden Sunflowers”
A Banner Of Sunflowers
look!
up there
above the War’s
darkest clouds
there is a blue banner
embroided with sunflowers
swaying
through a hole
in the eastern sky
bearing a message
of ‘Hello’
or is it ‘Goodbye’?
a sweeping reminder
from our Ancestors
“we feel your suffering and pain
from the merciless hard rain
blood filled rivers and cratered plains
smoke filled skylines and cracked windowpanes”
“however, we also know
beyond the broken horizon
the sunflower seeds of hope
will germinate again
and future seeds for peace
will regenerate a new campaign“
Ivor Steven (c) May 2022
Over at Weekly Prompts, the monthly Colour Challenge for May is: Mellow Yellow. Please go and visit their fabulous site by clicking >> Here . Below is my “Tanka” response to their ‘Colour Prompt’ ..
Sunflower Seeds (a Tanka)
Blue skies were mellow
Fields were peaceful and yellow
Sunflowers grew free
Then foreign tanks squashed their seeds
On tomorrow’s scarred harrows
Ivor Steven (c) May 2022
Autumn has been dry and warm
And the earth remains cracked
Providing cosy homes for the field critters
The brown crickets are thriving
And hopping along shared tracks
Innocently dancing there
Beyond the murdering arms of war
Mushrooms are sprouting on the verges
Stoically poised on stumpy stems
Under sheltering white caps
Nature’s nutritional ground fruit
Innocently standing there
Beyond the murdering arms of war
Ivor Steven (c) April 2022
There is a greyness filling the sky
Made up of sick tongues and lies
Death and destruction in a dirty disguise
Enquiries from worldwide continue to ask why
So many innocent people must die
While fleeing the greyest of Eastern skies
Ivor Steven (c) April 2022
Hello dear readers and followers, as you may know, I now write for “Coffee House Writers” magazine on a fortnightly basis, and my poem “Day One”, is in this weeks edition of Coffee House Writers Magazine. … please click on the link below to read my poem, at Coffee House Writers >> https://coffeehousewriters.com/day-one/
Ivor Steven (c) April 2022
A cold morning dew
The Sun filters through torn blinds
My alarm’s on snooze
Ivor Steven April 2022
Did you see the sunrise this morning?
The horizon was like a golden blind
Did you read the news at lunchtime?
The headlines were dark and unkind
Did you watch the night sky fall this evening?
The stars looked like yellow pieces of shrapnel
Do you know our planet earth?
Exists only as a moment in time
Do you know that the universe?
Created all reason and rhyme
Do you understand Mr Shootin’ Putin?
That you are the world’s worst crime
Heartlessly deaf, cruelly dumb, and compassionately blind
Ivor Steven (c) April 2022
I am one human
Why are you so inhumane?
Can you see the light?
Shine over humanity
You! One ion-less atom
Ivor Steven (c) April 2022
Hello dear readers and followers, as you may know, I now write for “Coffee House Writers” magazine on a fortnightly basis, and my poem “A Seventy-Year-Old Mind”, is in this weeks edition of Coffee House Writers Magazine. … please click on the link below to read my poem, at Coffee House Writers >> https://coffeehousewriters.com/a-seventy-year-old-mind/
Ivor Steven (c) April 2022
