Category: Music

Sogginess Sets In

Featured Image Above: Again, a big thank you to Derrick Knight for allowing me to use his fascinating photo of ‘soggy soft toys hanging on a gate’ . Visit his article via this link >> An Arboreal Charnel House – derrickjknight



Sogginess Sets In



Old soggy soft toys

Once cuddled with joy

Outside hanging around

Tears caress vacant sounds

Searching for the tenderness

Of yesterday’s missing fondness





Ivor Steven (c) May 2021

Wonderland

Today’s poem I wrote after an interesting conversation with the ‘witty’ poet Don Matthews >> The Flippant, Comic, and Serious – The poetry etc of Don Matthews (donmatthewspoetry.com)

Featured Image Above: SPRING FESTIVAL – Fantasy & Abstract Background Wallpapers on Desktop Nexus (Image 716964)

Wonderland


In between never ever happy

And always blissfully happy

There swings a world of happiness

Not for from the seesaw of tenderness

Living together upon a sandy sea of friendly hands

Near a mysteriously lost planet called Wonderland





Ivor Steven (c) May 2021

“Her” Stairs

When I was a toddler, I remember asking my mum, “Why is God a man” … and now 65 years later, I am left with the same question !! …
Today’s poem is a mixture of 4 different stanzas, that somehow they seemed to flow together, and I would like to thank, V.J Knutson, Colleen, and Susi, for inspiring these snippets that I wrote on their posts. (3 women blogger friends !!) … and please readers do not try to read too much into my poem, the piece is a mixture of different thoughts, on different days … but maybe my thoughts were all leading to the same stairway !!

“Her” Stairs


Push forward across the sand

Towards that promised land

Be guided by Her red right hand … V.J.


Some sad moments, you will delve deep

Other times you will feel the breeze’s cool sweep

Of mother nature sending you her heart beat … Colleen


Then indeed you are there

Between somewhere

And Her eternal stairs … Colleen


Where baby eyes open and cry

Life’s eyes cry and say goodbye

And old eyes run dry and die … Susi





Ivor Steven (c) May 2021

Throwback Friday, Return the Bullets, by Ivor Steven

Whoops .. the ‘Go Dog Go Cafe’ reblog action didn’t work again, so here is a copy & paste version of my article on GDGC ...

During the last 2 weeks I have posted a few poems about the futility of war … I’m not very accomplished at writing about the wars of the world, I get far too angry and confused to write something sensible, but this is a poem I wrote about my recollections of the “Gulf War” in 1990.

Return the Bullets

The mind awakens to secret cannons shattering my bed

All the violence of the worlds pounding inside my head

The killing and the maiming of all the innocents who fled

What happens when all the little lambs are slaughtered?

When the peoples of all religions and creed are dead

And we cannot return the murdering bullets back into the barrel

I am afraid

The backyard stairway is far too steep to climb

The handrails are way out of reach to find

And the public change-room windows are covered with bars

Now encircling the city hall, the security backdoor is ajar

Entering the marble aisle, the White room appears vacant

And guileful leaders have run, leaving a chasm of gloomy dark

I am wandering

Where to go, the healing house is full of ugly holes

The citizens cowering in shadows behind splintered lighting poles

And the crumbling streets are awash with rivers of leftover blood

Now the warring bosses have to fight amongst themselves

Throwing poison pens and paper darts at each other

Niether bruised nor battered, using ivory towers as cover

I am terrified

The dusty mushroom cloud slowly settles on the barren ground

With sands of distant lands, shifting into every nook and cranny

We need the good Doctor, to help us cure these alien scourges

And foreigners arriving upon waves of our neighbouring seas

The deathly TV images, wrongly implanted for all to see

As the press only gossip and drivel with selfish glee

I am stupefied

The guns of freedom lands haven’t even stopped the cull

Death to friends or foe, no matter, to the rulers from above

Their only rules, the poor and weak to be kept totally downtrodden

One day the surviving meek shall inherit their radioactive dirt

The rich will feast upon their own contaminated bread

But we will never return the murdering bullets back into the barrel 






Ivor Steven (c) May 2021


Horses for Courses

The world is a pool of people, some are sick, some are poor, some want more, and some are at war … The Featured Image Above: by Derrick Knight, and thank you to Derrick for letting me use his photo here …

Horses for Courses


there is something about the freedom of horses

beyond green pastures and steeple courses


there is something about the purity of life’s sources

from the snowy mountains down the river courses


there is something about the madness of wartime choices

beyond bloodstained lands of the killing forces


there is something about death’s silent voices

riding in wooden coffins down the hearse’s brief courses





Ivor Steven (c) May 2021

Flying Bricks

Featured ImageAbove: Gaza Strip border, Kibbutz Netiv Ha’Asara, Israel © Kai Wiendenhofer


Flying Bricks


There is a divisive brick wall

That stands harsh and tall

To stop people breaking their fall


Then the leaders in ivory towers

Ceased talking about peace and flowers

And hurled bricks into that sandy strip

One brick after another brick

Flew from one side to the other

Crashing innocent children and mothers


Flying bricks crumbling to dust

Creating dirty clouds of mistrust


The walls of Babylon fall again

As brick upon brick adds to the strain

Brick upon brick fills the bloody drains

Brick upon brick kills and maims







Ivor Steven (c) May 2021