Category: Life/lifestyle

My Book Launch, for Tullawalla

“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

Coffee, Lamingtons, Life Is A Serviette, or, Preparing For My Book Launch on Saturday

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

After Memoria

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


The Closing Chapter

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


Golden Pond

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

Throwback Friday, Poetry in Motion, by Ivor Steven

ivor20's avatarGo Dog Go Café

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…

View original post 70 more words

I Did Not Hear The Midday Chime

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





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

Here Comes the Sun Again, is up at Coffee House Writers Magazine

Hello dear readers and followers, I now write for “Coffee House Writers” magazine on a fortnightly basis, and my poem “Here Comes the Sun Again”, is in this week’s edition of Coffee House Writers Magazine. … please click on the link below to read my poem, at Coffee House Writers.
>> https://coffeehousewriters.com/here-comes-the-sun-again/











Ivor Steven ©  October 2022