Spring has sprung again
With a burst of sunshine
Between old storm clouds and new rain
While life’s decor is being redesigned
Winter’s open wounds
Are washed clean
Last year’s fragile blooms
Are due back on the scene
Ivor Steven (c) October 2021
Spring has sprung again
With a burst of sunshine
Between old storm clouds and new rain
While life’s decor is being redesigned
Winter’s open wounds
Are washed clean
Last year’s fragile blooms
Are due back on the scene
Ivor Steven (c) October 2021
Featured Image Above: A big thank you to Derrick Knight for allowing me to use his magnificent ‘Sunset’ photo … see his link attached below …
Today’s poem is a combination of three, haiku/ukiah/haiku, that I made on, Colleen, Kate, and Derrick’s articles yesterday and today.
“Truth” (a Haiku for Colleen) https://bikecolleenbrown.wordpress.com/2021/10/11/the-truth-is-yours/
“A Rainbow Dance” (a Ukiah for Kate) https://aroused.blog/2021/10/11/ukiah/
“Sunset” (a Haiku for Derrick) https://derrickjknight.com/2021/10/11/todays-hobbyhorses/
Is It True? “That Rainbows Dance At Sunset”
Your soul knows the truth
Within, feel the power grow
Live, breath, touch the flow
At the end of the rainbow
We shall dance and glow
On nature’s golden plateau
Blazing, the sky sinks
Sunset kisses everything
Fall’s finale crown
Ivor Steven (c) October 2021
‘Birds Of A Feather’ is poem I wrote a few years ago, and I’m proudly reposting the words here to coincide with the “Indigenous Peoples Day” holiday in America on Monday 11th of October…
Below I have attached a song by Australia’s indigenous singer/songwriter Xavier Rudd … his famous classic “Spirit Bird” …
Birds Of A Feather
to colour us all tanned
black or white
didn’t seem right
even a humorous sight
maybe blue and green
would’ve been a better blight
and I’ve been told orange
is a preferred skin tone
best we have more colours
I’ll go buy the paint drums
toss them together
shaken, not stirred
into one huge cocktail dish
and use a whale-hair paint brush
we’ll all be covered the same
a faded colour purple
like tarnished rain clouds
not too dark
not too proud
not too white
just bright enough
to see the light
Please Note: The featured image above, is called ‘Four Birds’, by an Australian artist, Patsy Anguburra Lulpunda, at the Aboriginal Art Gallery
Ivor Steven (c) October 2021
I have thirteen available chairs
Here at the bottom of His stairs
And a dozen of them are still empty
Despite the neon sign saying “No- Vacancy”
Obviously the advance bookings
Were quickly taken
Wisely heeding the prediction
That our world was breaking
Ivor Steven (c) October 2021

A Courtyard Song
The spring morn is crisp
Sun-rays cling onto my chest
Porridge and lemon-ginger tea
Refresh my sleepy soul
Courtyard flowers arouse my eyes
Music vibrates the air
With a piano tune from Ludovico Einaudi
And Frankie quietly watches on
I write a comment for Derrick
His home in England needs a plumber
Then I send a song to Susi in America
To compliment her lovely ‘Fall’ poem
Carolyn’s words enrich my heart
But she will need her tissues
When she plays the video/music song
Only 8.00 am, and my message box is full
And now, the old poet’s day begins
Ivor Steven (c) October 2021
To see a lark soar
High above the rainbow arch
Reignites my spark
Despite the afternoon dark
Of cold hailstones, hard and sharp
Ivor Steven (c) October 2021
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
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
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
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