Category: Music

Illumination (a Tanka)


The “Weekly Prompts” Wednesday’s Challenge is; QUIET PLACES. Please go over and visit their fabulous site by clicking >> Here . My poem Illumination is in response to the prompt




Illumination (a Tanka)


A sunny spring sky 

Softly caresses my thighs  

Displacing old lies 

And illuminates my eye  

To the universe’s dye 





Ivor Steven (c) October 2021

The Reincarnation of a Pumpkin

Here is a poem I wrote last year, and today I am posting the piece as my response to “Go Dog Go Cafe’s” Halloween-themed Prompt Challenge (Guest Submissions), and you are welcome to participate via this link … > https://godoggocafe.com/2021/10/01/halloween-themed-prompt-challenge-guest-submissions/





The Reincarnation of a Pumpkin


My locked bubble is about to go boom

A year I’ve been a stranger in my own tomb

Under a pumpkin lid, hiding my gloom

Where my world was a rotting cave of doom



Now these orange walls are my life-giving womb

Being reborn like a smiling old groom

I’m breaking away from the master’s dead blooms

Escaping on the green witch’s magical broom



Flying over the full moon of autumn

Where I’ll be able to wear my mask and costume

Hidden under my orange Kaftan from Khartoum

And I’ll invade the newsrooms, and all the children’s bedrooms




Ivor Steven (c) October 2020

Cast In Marble (is up at Coffee House Writers Magazine)

Hello dear readers and followers, as you may know, I now write for “Coffee House Writers” magazine on a fortnightly basis, and my poem “Cast In Marble”, 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/cast-in-marble/









Ivor Steven (c) October 2021

Dreams Unseen



Dreams Unseen


I cannot run no more

And I cannot swim the sea

But I can fly

In my sky of dreams


I have stopped climbing trees

And I cannot move mountains

But the highest peaks

Are not in my dreams


I have not embraced the mystery

Of my universe

Nor found my shining star

But I am here today

Floating on my ocean of dreams






Ivor Steven (c) October 2021

Tullawalla #24, I Softly Walk

Hello dear readers and followers … amazingly, I have still managed to produce my “Twenty Forth Tullawalla” Poetry Booklet….. For new readers that don’t know about these booklets, they are basically the reason why I write poetry. I produce these ‘home-printed’ booklets for the sole purpose of raising funds for my favourite charity organisation, the MS Society, in Australia via the MS Charity Shop here in Geelong. And actually all money’s I receive for any of my poetry .via, submissions, I donate to the MS Society…. I’m proud to announce, that the sale of my “Tullawalla Booklets”, have now gone pass $1500.00, … to all the lovely readers, who have donated, to help achieve such a wonderful amount, a big heartfelt thank you, from “us” and the MS Society … …..Incredibly, there is now a total of “1015 poems”, Yep over “A Thousand Poems” in my collection/series of 24 Tullawalla Booklets. After 4 months, this booklet is finally completed, and ready for sale now !! As always, they are available for purchase, either as a hard copy ‘Booklet’, or a PDF format….. All proceeds go to the MS Charity Shop, here in Geelong West….. Please contact me here through my website page and I can chat about arrangements from there…. Oh, the booklet is called “Tullawalla, I Softly Walk”… And here is the link to my website >> https://ivors20.wordpress.com



Softly I Walk


My sensitive old pen

Bleeds words of why and when

And scrawls blue lines now and then


Life and love have left me breathless

However, my empty body is not heartless

Nor is my tired soul sightless


I hear the crusty sky softly walk

And I listen to my angel’s wings quietly talk

About when her universe turned into chalk





Ivor Steven (c) October 20212

Throwback Friday, Tea Leaf’s, by Ivor Steven

Whoops… Again the reblog button at “Go Dog Go Cafe” didn’t work, so this is a ‘copy & paste’ post today … You may visit my article at GDGC by clicking on the link >>
http://godoggocafe.com/2021/10/01/throwback-friday-tea-leafs-by-ivor-steven/

Today’s poem is one that I have revised a couple of times, and this edition is from November 2019



Tea Leaf’s (Revised)




It’s early morn, time to break away

From last night’s, dream-time soiree

But first, I must make my bed

“Yes, just like Mum said”

Oh, I gratefully do remember

As I straighten the quilt cover

And I like to fluff-up my pillows

Ready for an evening’s bout with stupid cupid’s arrows





I’ve a long storage bedhead shelf

However I’m smiling, satisfied within myself

It’s always untidy and in disarray

And last nights scribbles are all on display

I gather up this multitude of loose words

The mess of my midnight songbirds

Snippets of my subconscious memories

Pieces of forgotten wistful dreams

And I begin to decode my jumbled site

Then emotionally, I start to rewrite

About the tea-leaf’s, floating on a calm sea

Forming love letters, from her to me





Ivor Steven (c)  Nov 2019

Mad-hatters, No Matter the Season

On “Weekly Prompts” the Wednesday Challenge is, AUTUMN MAGIC. Please go and visit their fabulous site by clicking >> Here and the below poem is my response to their ‘prompt’ ..

Mad-hatters, No Matter the Season


The latter of matter

Did not scale the ladder

The origin of matter 

Is in our hearts pitter-patter


Matter is neither flatter nor fatter 

“What does it matter 

If we are all mad-hatters”?


We are but leaves and twigs of the ground 

Awaiting nature’s beckoning sounds





Ivor Steven (c) Sept 2021

Home is the Air I Breathe,

Published at Free Verse Revolution Magazine, Issue III, ‘hestia’

Again, many thanks to the editor Kristiana for accepting my poems, and for all her hard work in producing this beautiful anthology. The publication features the work of many talented poets, and I can’t wait to read my copy!
Issue III: hestia (hearth & home) is now available to download!

The digital download is completely free but if you wish to donate/pay as you feel, you can do so through the Donate tab.

Issue III: hestia (hearth & home) explores what home means to us all through poetry, prose, photography & artwork. Contributors reveal how it feels to belong, how we are defined by people and places and how Hestia’s legacy lives on.

Below, Home is the Air I Breathe, is the 2nd of my two contributions to this fabulous magazine




Home Is the Air I Breathe


welcome to our home

the house of rustic timber and stone

home is where my heart is now

and now I live here alone

but I am comfortable

wearing the same old shoes

walking her every mile

she’s in every corner stone

she’s in the marrow of my bones

we share the air I breathe

inhaling her gracious spirit

capturing her living essence

absorbing her love into my blood

pumping through my empty veins

cascading upon my open heart

caressing my solitary core

embracing our souls as one





Ivor Steven (c) Sept 2021