I can hear the echoes from Tullawalla sounding closer …
My night’s sleep was calm and sound
Despite the deafening noise of echo’s lost a found
I heard the midnight owl singing
Replaying tunes, of last year’s bells ringing
My blankets had not been disturbed
As if my shadow had slept unperturbed
And my mind had been emptied of yesterday’s wind burns
Then my morning song whispered the words, “sunshine returns”
Ivor Steven (c) August 2022
Not really a humourous Limerick, this one is quite melancholy, reflecting my back pain over these last few weeks …
Ukraine is in Pain (a Limerick)
There was an old poet in pain
Who had been struck down by hard rain
He felt thorns in his back
Like a missile attack
Misguided shrapnel from Ukraine
Ivor Steven (c) August 2022
Jaymah Press
COMING SOON! 10 SEPTEMBER 2022
Tullawalla A Meeting Place Where My Empty Hands Are Full of Memories and Rhymes
Poetry by Ivor Steven. Artwork by Kerri Costello
A Crack in The Wall
Placing yesteryear’s photos
In that bygone album
Cutting window holes
In today’s front door
Pasting forgotten memories
In the Bible, so forlorn
Packing tomorrows cases
Full of dusty dreams
Clutching torn curtains
Darkened to the outside world
Passing a crumbling brick wall
Weakened by the original fall
Ivor Steven (c) August 2022
Tullawalla:
Illustration by Kerri Costello
Chapter 4
Humour, Wit, Sarcasm, And Christmas Stories
If Only Walls Could Talk
It’s true you know
Walls can talk
So I’ve been told
By a beautiful Rose
You’ll have to listen
Listen very closely
Put your ear against the wall
Use a stethoscope if you must
Listen to the wooden heart
Standing proud and tall
A rough soul rendered smooth
Layers of paint, every hue
Covering up dusty memories
Of hearts lost through years of cavities
Like the old Wailing Wall
You’re walking along a history hall
Your secrets, one and all
They’ve heard every gasp
Your children’s moans
And your lover’s groans
Ivor Steven (c) August 2022
Here is her incredible drawing for Tullawalla’s Epilogue
And here is my Epilogue poem ….
Ivor Steven (c) August 2022
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my late wife Carole
Spiralling
I look
upwards
there
on spiralling
warm air
a white petal
fluttering
like a dove
between
here and there
hovering
on a cloud of love
there
waving
from above
my angel
forever
faithful
I wave
“oh, my love,
aren’t you tired yet?”
Ivor Steven (c) August 2022
This is one of my ranting/protesting poems, where the world’s weird ways and woes are vividly pictured in my dreams/nightmares … (June 2019) … Or maybe my ‘Alien Back Pain’ has me angry and grumpy, and I am just desperate for some interplanetary respite.
My Alien Eyes Have Seen Enough
I’m scattering stardust, upon sorrow and grace
Tip toeing through a desert of dying tulips
Before my species vacate this miserable place
Blasting away from here, in my Itmims* spaceship
Flying back into the depths of dark space
To regenerate and revive, from this trying trip
Sadly, we gathered nothing of any value
From this warring human race
Their radioactive sky, was once bright blue
Vast oceans are full of their own waste
They breathe thin air made of sticky glue
And the earth they walk on, is a garbage tip disgrace
Their concrete graveyards, are the warlords database
Women and children, dead, casualties of religious lunatics
My alien eyes have seen enough, I’m leaving without a trace
Political gamer’s never learn, they’re still reusing old septic ice-picks
Ivor Steven (c) June 2019
Another repost while I am laying down with my sore back … written when I had my third stroke, and I was laying in hospital 31st January 2019 …
Apologies to my readers and followers for not blogging and responding to your articles with my usual zest, my debilitating back pain doesn’t allow me to sit at my computer … hopefully the situation will improve soon.
Wall of Thorns (a Haiku)
My bed of roses
Is scaling a wall of thorns
Perpetually
Ivor Steven (c) 2019
Another older poem from February 2021, while I am slowly recovering from my painful back soreness…
The Lighthouse
I am afloat
In between
Here and there
Am I lost?
My ship clock
Is a sundial
Using the moon
To reflect on time
I hear the waves
Pounding white hooves
A heavy sound
Of many moods
Is the sea growing wider?
Is the light glowing brighter?
Ivor Steven (c) Feb 2021
A poem about a painful procedure I had a few years ago … sadly my back pain today is feeling very similar 🤗🌏
Pain and Tears
I was curled up like a baby
Exposing my arched back
Firstly an aching anesthetic needle
Then a probing harpoon
They were digging deep beneath
I was gritting my teeth
They had missed the spot
Hitting bone, not forgiving or soft
I screamed in pain
My tears poured like rain
Finally the probe was extracted
And with another injection of anesthetic
A second probing spear
The next failure I did fear
I’m biting that imaginary bullet
My tears poured like rain
They pulled out the rod again
One more go, they deemed
Is the procedure a bad dream
More anesthetic went in
Followed by that probing rod
Relief, they find the core’s spot
The spinal fluid is drained
Happily, my tears stopped again
Ivor Steven (c) Feb 2019
Ivor.Plumber/Poet 