Category: Photos

Bird on a Ladder





Bird on a Ladder


 
 
I am a blackbird on a circus ladder 

Singing about how the world is feeling sadder 

Or should I sing, “becoming madder” 


Here on the last rung, I stand 

Below, I see a treeless land 

Above, I hear a breathless sky 

After the show, I untangle my necktie 

And I ask you why 

“Does it matter, when I leap, what route do I fly?”  








Tullawalla is Available From

Jaymah Press:https://www.jaymahpress.com.au/

Ivor Steven: email, ivorrs20@gmail.com

Amazon: search via, ‘Tullawalla by Ivor Steven’


AND
Perceptions is Now Available via:

Amazon: https://amzn.asia/d/4yFHWrT

Jaymah Press: https://www.jaymahpress.com.au/

Lulu Books: https://www.lulu.com/shop/ivor-steven-and-derrick-knight/perceptions/hardcover/product-2pwqe4.html?q=Perceptions+by+Ivor+Steven&page=1&pageSize=4

OR: email me directly for a signed copy – ivorrs20@gmail.com  




Ivor Steven (c) May 2023

Swans Gliding By

The weekend monthly Colour Challenge, at Weekly Prompts is: Blues! Please go and visit their fabulous site by clicking on >> Here … My poem below mentions ‘Blue’




Swans Gliding By




The showy morning clouds

Are my gregarious pantomime


Their grey fluffy curves

Dance across the sky’s blue stage

Like Ballerina Swans

Gracefully gliding by








Tullawalla is Available From

Jaymah Press:https://www.jaymahpress.com.au/

Ivor Steven: email, ivorrs20@gmail.com

Amazon: search via, ‘Tullawalla by Ivor Steven’


AND
Perceptions is Now Available via:

Amazon: https://amzn.asia/d/4yFHWrT

Jaymah Press: https://www.jaymahpress.com.au/

Lulu Books: https://www.lulu.com/shop/ivor-steven-and-derrick-knight/perceptions/hardcover/product-2pwqe4.html?q=Perceptions+by+Ivor+Steven&page=1&pageSize=4

OR: email me directly for a signed copy – ivorrs20@gmail.com  




Ivor Steven (c) May 2023

Lines To Nowhere, is up at Spillwords Magazine

I am ecstatic that my poem “Lines To Nowhere”, has been accepted and published in Spillwords Magazine today, and I am very grateful to the editor Dagmara for selecting my piece … Please go over and visit my poem at Spillwords and if you wish, leave a 💗 for my article, by clicking on this link >>

Lines To Nowhere









Ivor Steven (c) June 2nd 2023

Throwback Friday, Tomorrow’s Cake

I’m still stuck at home with my friendly ‘covid’ bug, and my Senryu from June 2022 seems to be quite appropriate for today.


Tomorrow’s Cake (a Senryu)




the future tastes like 

yesterday’s cake, covered with 

venom from today








Tullawalla is Available From

Jaymah Press:https://www.jaymahpress.com.au/

Ivor Steven: email, ivorrs20@gmail.com

Amazon: search via, ‘Tullawalla by Ivor Steven’


AND
Perceptions is Now Available via:

Amazon: https://amzn.asia/d/4yFHWrT

Jaymah Press: https://www.jaymahpress.com.au/

Lulu Books: https://www.lulu.com/shop/ivor-steven-and-derrick-knight/perceptions/hardcover/product-2pwqe4.html?q=Perceptions+by+Ivor+Steven&page=1&pageSize=4

OR: email me directly for a signed copy – ivorrs20@gmail.com  




Ivor Steven (c) May 2023

Words Are Free


 “Dear Reader, beware. You think you’re reading my poems, but in truth, they are reading you. My words are mirrors and windows. Your reaction is merely a reflection of your own nature and experiences.” — John Mark Green



A Ten-Word Poem (Words Are Free)

A bewitched heart 

Savagely eaten by vultures 

Cannot be restitched  




FREE, a PDF Copy of my poetry booklet; Shangri La, Volume 2. The Other Side of Yesterday
Click >> HERE






Ivor Steven (c) June 2023

Behind Your Mirror, Is in this weeks Coffee House Magazine


Hello dear readers and followers, I am now back writing for “Coffee House Writers” magazine, after a 6 weak self-enforced break due to my personally hectic schedule during April and May. Luckily, I had my article ready for publication before I contracted ‘Covid’, and my poem “Behind Your Mirror”, is in this week’s edition of Coffee House Writers Magazine. … please click on the link below to view my poem, at Coffee House Writers. >> https://coffeehousewriters.com/behind-your-mirror/








Ivor Steven (c) May 2023

Boy in a Bubble (Revised)

Another covid/isolation poem from March 2020, although my revised version here is almost a complete rewrite. Good news, today I made a small but noticeable improvement




Boy in a Bubble (Revised)


I’m living inside a bubble, unable to flee

Shadows are drifting away from me

Shivering silhouettes are beyond arms reach

I’m an isolated grain of sand from yesterday’s beach


I’m sleeping alone within my crazy daydreams

Thinking of life and wishing to be with my honey and cream*

This commonwealth of man has isolated the birds and bees

Now I’m sleepwalking, toward the forest’s hugging tree







*Honey and Cream: refers to “Cream and Honey” a poem from my book “Tullawalla”, >> https://www.amazon.com.au/s?k=Tullawalla&crid=1FWSLQYMP5NLQ&sprefix=tullawalla%2Caps%2C300&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Cream and Honey

I dream of what might have been
Dream of what I have not seen
Snow on top of lover’s hill
Cream filling my empty till

I had forgotten what could have been
Forgotten what I had already seen
Flowers on top of her wooden bier
Honey kisses, and my empty fear

I am dreaming of where I have been
Dreaming of what no-one is ever seen
Snowflakes silently melting in her palm
Cream and honey, my lover’s balm




Ivor Steven (c)  March 2020

Survive Again

Another poem from those “Covid/Lockdown” times, March 2020 …
My Doctor has me on an anti-viral/covid medication to stop my situation from worsening, and hopefully, I’ll be improving soon …




Survive Again – (March 2020)


I’m here, in my writers room

Secure in this single cocoon

But my active mind’s wondering

And dreams, of freely wandering


Be patient I am told

Remember those bad days of old

When your body turned cold

Dead from a unworldly mould


You’re to be a good patient again

Remember those months of pain

When clots and spots invaded your brain

And how you survived, to see your spirit reign









Tullawalla is Available From

Jaymah Press:https://www.jaymahpress.com.au/

Ivor Steven: email, ivorrs20@gmail.com

Amazon: search via, ‘Tullawalla by Ivor Steven’


AND
Perceptions is Now Available via:

Amazon: https://amzn.asia/d/4yFHWrT

Jaymah Press: https://www.jaymahpress.com.au/

Lulu Books: https://www.lulu.com/shop/ivor-steven-and-derrick-knight/perceptions/hardcover/product-2pwqe4.html?q=Perceptions+by+Ivor+Steven&page=1&pageSize=4

OR: email me directly for a signed copy – ivorrs20@gmail.com  




Ivor Steven (c) May 2023

Throwback Friday, A Forever Coat (Revised)

Hi dear readers, unfortunately, I have tested “Positive” with ‘Covid’ … and will be resting up for a few weeks


A Forever Coat (Revised) 


Her favourite coat still hangs in my wardrobe 

Every time I open the robe’s door 

I inherently see her family heirloom 

A gift that was handed down from her grandmother 

However, a gift she was not able to wear after her sickness began 

Not once, over the next thirty years of her failing frailty


 

Sadly the declining illness brought about her finality

And nostalgically I held onto her favourite coat  

I knew! We all knew. She was amazing

However, she is not going to mystically reappear

And the coat’s warmth will never again cover her gentle shoulders




Consciously I am not sure, why the coat remains 

I have tried to give the coat away 

To a deserving charity, and even a local actor’s group 

Fortuitously her coat has not been accepted 

Here in the wardrobe, the glorious fur coat stays 

Along with the other trinkets of her forever spirit 







Ivor Steven (c) May 2023

Defying the Odds

Featured Images: were taken at the local Kindergarten, where the school’s gardener lovingly maintains the beautiful garden, and she excitedly pointed out that, despite it being the start of winter, there were 2 sunflower plants ‘defying the odds’. and actually thriving and blooming … I smiled at her joyful enthusiasm, however inwardly I was silently weeping for those still suffereing in wartorn Ukraine.
So here today I am reposting “5” of my “Sunflower” poems relating to the “Ukrainian” war.

We Are the Carrier Pigeons


 
Are our Sunflowers wilting? 

Can they survive, prosper, and regrow? 

They will need more  

Genuine assistance 

Our promissory words 

And tuneless birdsongs 

Are not enough 

We cannot forget them 

We all need to speak up 

Let our world of voices be heard 

Draft a poem, a letter 

Of protest, today, tomorrow 

We are the carrier pigeons 

May our messages for peace 

Chime over the people of Russia 


Defiantly (a Haiku)

Sunflowers do bloom

Through the war of destruction

Bravely defiant


An Unseeded Renewal (a Tanka)



Sunflowers of peace

We have not forgotten you

The war has not stopped

Killing fields are still on fire

Young stems need help to survive


A Banner of Sunflowers

Bann
look!

up there

above the War’s

darkest clouds

there is a blue banner

embroided with sunflowers

swaying

through a hole

in the eastern sky

bearing a message

of ‘Hello’

or is it ‘Goodbye’?

a sweeping reminder

from our Ancestors

“we feel your suffering and pain

from the merciless hard rain

blood filled rivers and cratered plains

smoke filled skylines and cracked windowpanes”

“however, we also know

beyond the broken horizon

the sunflower seeds of hope

will germinate again

and future seeds for peace

will regenerate a new campaign“




Sunflower Seeds (a Tanka)

Blue skies were mellow

Fields were peaceful and yellow

Sunflowers grew free

Then foreign tanks squashed their seeds

On tomorrow’s scarred harrows







Ivor Steven (c) May 2023