G’day dear readers and followers. After the hetic situation of my book launch yesterday, I am taking a well earned break and holiday at my brother’s place in Ballarat … I’ll just be posting older poems, or poems from Tullawalla for a little while. The Featured Image above; is from my brothers balcony looking across to Mt Warrenheip …
Here I have photograph the poem from my copy of Tullawalla.
Ivor Steven (c) October 2022
“Every picture tells a story” … I told the stories, and the warm smiles on everyones faces was my reward.
Judy, my publisher (Jaymah Press) …. My front table presentation
Reciting my poems, ‘Dreams of the Heart’, ‘Decades of Storms’, and ‘Coffee, Lamingtons, Life is a Serviette’
Mingling with the patrons at my book launch, from left to right, Neil & Andrea, Guenter (President of Geelong Writers Inc) … TJ (lowercase poetry, Daryl, my siblings, Miffy & Lawrie, me & Michaela, and Pip, whose wedding I went to “50” years ago
Judy, Joshua (Analogue Academy, and Marg & Pip, who were at my wedding “46” years ago.
I signed lots of books, here with Mickaela (lowercase poetry)
Ivor Steven (c) October 2022
My book launch for “Tullawalla” is on Saturday, and appropriately one of the poems I am going to read at the event will be “Coffee, Lamingtons, Life is a Serviette”
Coffee, Lamingtons, Life Is A Serviette (Tullawalla, page 59)
I’m beginning to enjoy the ride
Black-ice used to scour my track
I’m wryly visualizing the other side
There’s no more turning back
Life is like a roller-coaster ride
Around the old amusement park
Slow and bumpy on the way up
The scenery is romantic at the top
Suddenly the frightening downhills test my grip
Eventually grinding to a smooth halt
Arriving at the bottom, I step out of my capsule
I yell out, “Wow that was fun, let’s do it again”
And that is my life
Jumping back on board my star-ship
For another flipping and dipping trip
Staring down through alien eyes and letting it rip
Ivor Steven (c) October 2022
Hello dear readers and followers, I now write for “Coffee House Writers” magazine on a fortnightly basis, and my poem “After Memoria”, is in this week’s edition of Coffee House Writers Magazine. … please click on the link below and visit my poem, at Coffee House Writers.
>> https://coffeehousewriters.com/after-memoria/
After Memoria
Sliding into euphoria
After falling out of Memoria
Where to start
When there is no beginning
The judges guns remain loaded
But there is no-one on the causeway
Why is the coldest mountain?
In the middle of the desert
How to climb the lowest alps?
Below the deepest ocean
How to soar and fly?
Without wings in a vacant sky
Can the old river be paddled?
After the bath runs dry
Where to find happiness
After falling in the marathon
How to slide into euphoria
After falling out of Memoria
Ivor Steven (c) October 2022
On Saturday morning I visited the the local “Pop Up Creatives Market”. The artwork at the “Wild Woodland Warrior” stall, run by Stephanie had many excellent paintings, and I bought a intriguing print “Library of Possibilities” … we had a nice chat, she likes poetry and we had a mutual poet friend in Jeremy Palmer … and she has an exhibition running at the momont at the Analogue Academy, the venue of my book launch next Saturday November 22nd … My poem below, “The Closing Chapter” was inspired her painting in Featured Image Above
The Closing Chapter
After the first page was turned
The saga progressed slowly
Unopened books were lost
Unused words were found
New novels had to be read
The search for more
Went on, and on
Adventure volumes were added
Library expansion soared upwards
Higher than fiction could fly
Fluttering beyond
The ladder’s last rung
Where the quest for more
Was out of reach
And the tale of uncharted possibility
Remained the unfinished story
Of the closing chapter
Ivor Steven (c) October 2022
This week, the Weekend Challenge from Weekly Prompts is the word: Compare. Please go over and visit their fabulous site by clicking on >> HERE …
In my poem below I have tried to ‘Compare’ the big pond created by our recent heavy rain, with the big, big pond that the “Apollo 13” space capsule had to find in 1970, when their mission to the moon was aborted due to an on board explosion half to the moon …
Golden Pond
Last night I watched an old movie
A dramatic true story
About the Apollo 13 mission
To the moon
During the film
I could hear the pounding
Of heavy rain on my iron roof
In the morning
Despite the water-logged ground
I went for my walk
And found a muddy golden pond
Had flooded the forest floor
In ankle deep water
I stood and wondered
About the Apollo 13 astronauts
Who had failed in their quest
To walk on the moon
Despite the traumatic problems
Of the aborted journey
They miraculously managed to return safely
And land the space capsule
Upon the earth’s golden pond
Ivor Steven (c) October 2022
A Poem I wrote in May 2020, which now appears in my book “Tullawalla”. The poem is in “Chapter 9, Not Horror, But Weird”, on page 140.
Poetry in Motion
I was searching for words
Maybe the script’s lost in celluloid
I’ve a pile of empty poems
Frustratingly strewn
Here, there and everywhere
But I hear them whispering
“We’re not finished yet
Do not leave us for dead
Under this thick biblical heap
Please tend to your lost sheep”
The mound of poetry pages
Began chanting louder
And I was silently listening
To their distant preaching
But I’m not that proud
And I quickly lit the gunpowder
Ivor Steven (c) May 2020
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…
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A big thank you to Colleen for inspiring these words
>> https://bikecolleenbrown.wordpress.com/2022/10/12/into-the-warmth/
Intoxicating (a Haiku)
To breathe the cool breeze
Pass under my verandah
Intoxicates me
Ivor Steven (c) October 2022
Featured Image Above: Photo by Derick Knight, and I have used the photo once before in another poem (>> https://ivors20.wordpress.com/2021/12/01/time-watches-over-us/) . Again, thank you to Derrick for allowing me to use his photos on my site.
>> https://derrickjknight.com/
I Did Not Hear The Midday Chime
I slyly look up
In silent amusement
At the old chiseled face
Of my grandfather clock
And I see his shaky hands of time
Are too meek and tired
To strike the midday chime
I slowly close my eyes
Overused muscles are cramping
Weakened bones feel brittle
This complicated mind is exhausted
And my dream needs to sleep
Before I am able to write another rhyme
Ivor Steven (c) October 2022
My Neighbour Wasn’t Mowing His Lawn (Tullawalla, page 144)
I saw a broad sign, painted by His hand
the words, I did not understand
I thought why? Put another brick in wall
ascending the crooked ladder, too afraid to fall
there I stood alone, and stared
above the galaxy’s glare
my retinas were burning
last night’s moon had fallen
beyond the broad blue dawn
and my neighbour wasn’t mowing his lawn
I then saw in our narrowing crevasse
the universe, in a blade of grass
Ivor Steven © October 2022
Ivor.Plumber/Poet 