The late afternoon moon often feels like a reminder — a quiet presence tracing its way across the sky while we trace our own paths below. In its soft light, every line in our hands and every mark on the land seems to carry a story of where we’ve been and where we’re still going. This poem rests inside that moment of reflection, asking what it means to follow the lines that shape our lives.
Tracing the Lines
There you are, all of you, way out there, full and aware – tracing the lines in my hands.
And there are no new brands on the land; every grain of sand still understands.
There’s a crack in everything – in all of you out there, feeling open and bare – tracing the lines in my full glare.
A recently released piece, carrying the same gentle pull of the moon’s slow journey across the sky
Continuing the Leonard Cohen thread from yesterday, today’s Throwback Friday poem, Destination (June 2024), began as a “writing between the lines” exercise for our Dome Poets group here in Geelong. Using Cohen’s The Goal as my guide (shared below), I tried to shape a companion poem that sits quietly between each of his lines.
Destination, by Ivor Steven
The curtains are open The front door is ajar So, I can hear her sing From her distant star
I do not own much My soul is a gold mine I haven’t lost my touch My heart is kind
I share what I have I have hope and love Couldn’t stop the flood Couldn’t hold her glove
I walk alone I look content Regrets are few Despair ferments
I push on and on I do not complain I’m still alive I’m numb to the pain
No one asks No one knows About finality Under the snow
“I wish I could say everything in one word. I hate all the things that can happen between the beginning of a sentence and the end.” … Leonard Cohen
Tonight, at the launch of naXOs — Geelong Writers’ new anthology of resonant, experimental poetry — I was invited to read my piece The Portrait That Found Me. Now that the book is in my hands, I’m delighted to share the poem here as it appears in the collection. It grew from a quiet, unexpected moment, the kind of encounter that shifts its own boundaries and finds you before you find it — a fitting addition to an anthology that celebrates fresh connections through image, language, and form.
Moments from tonight’s naXOs anthology launch — my reading of The Portrait That Found Me, shared among friends, voices, and a generous audience.
The poem as published in thenaXOsanthology.
And to end the night, a final nod to the voice that steadied my steps — Leonard Cohen, Field Commander of the tender and true
Sometimes a single flight can carry more meaning than the landscape beneath it. This morning’s mudlark — lifting from foreign sands, gliding toward familiar green, then swept off course by an unexpected breeze — became the quiet messenger behind this piece. Its journey echoed the fragile paths we all take toward understanding, toward apology, toward peace. What followed was a poem shaped by wings, weather, and the distant hum of icy choirs.
Winging Toward Peace
Swooping out past the sands of foreign ground Then flying toward the green, bushy trees of that once-fabled promised land — only to be diverted by a bold eastern breeze that buckled my wings and trembling knees and sent me falling into the Arctic freeze, where icy choirs continue the cheers still singing in the hush of sub‑zero seas
There, huddling inside an iceberg’s solitary marque, all the compassionate delegates from overseas gathered to hear pleas for apologies and guarantees from Greenland’s patient, peaceful trustees.
From foreign sands to frozen seas, the journey ends where quiet voices still know the weight of peace. And so, in Greenland’s calm, the final note on harmonious independence lingers.
Last night’s twilight slipped across the sky in muted layers — a quiet blend of fading colour, soft cloud, and the half‑moon’s pale glow behind drifting haze. Standing there with the camera, I felt the day thinning into something slower, dimmer, almost weightless. From that hush, this small poem emerged — a reflection on how light, taste, and time blur at the edges as evening diffuses into night.
What Do You See 355 For WDYS, Sadje offers us a photo by Lensloji (Pexels) of a murmuration of birds forming a shifting pattern above a city skyline and minaret at sunset.
Opaqueness
Time is colourless, yet daytime becomes darkness as evening clouds advertise twilight’s transient demise.
Time is tasteless, yet midnight is infused with blackness except for the half-moon’s translucent loving spoonful of notilucence.
And in the quiet blur between knowing and not knowing, this song finds its way.
These stunning silhouettes stopped me in my tracks — quiet guardians perched above a fragile world. Their calm presence sparked the environmental protest tone of the four couplets below, a reminder of what remains pure when we look up and listen.
The Overseer
I am the overseer of my kingdom, a global realm without a dome.
No barbed-wire fences, only sky, beyond mankind’s envious eyes.
No landmines, only trees, to house and shelter me.
No hard rain, only the sun, glowing, to enlighten everyone
“And now, let the sky speak, where the light continues in sound, with a final glow of gentle music.”
Sometimes the morning gifts me a little magic. Yesterday’s wander with Frankie brought a flurry of feathered moments — a Fantail on a rail, a Magpie mid‑grumble, a Mudlark caught in a swirl of tiny bravado. These images arrived with such charm and mischief that the words followed instantly, light as a breeze. What began as a simple set of photos quickly turned into a playful tale of one tiny bird bossing the bigger ones about, all in good humour and whimsy.
The cheeky Fantail and the grumpy Magpie
The twirling Fantail and the brave Mudlark
A Fantail’s Flighty Tale, or a Tricky Tail
I’m not a fiendish tax collector, nor a fat company director. I’m not a bossy dictator, nor a busy Choir conductor.
I’m just a flighty tiny fella who flits around like a flirty ballerina — a cheeky little Fantail who unfurls on the breeze, commander of curls; Magpie stumbles, Mudlark sighs — yet all obey my mischievous eyes.
A burst of bright, buoyant energy to match my cheeky Fantail’s playful world — Nick Cave’s “Joy” feels like the perfect musical wink to close this whimsical tale.
In keeping with this week’s theme on clouds, light, and the quiet mysteries of the universe, I’m revisiting a reflective poem from August 2018. I’ve made a few small word changes — gentle adjustments that preserve the essence of the original piece.
Soundless (Revised)
My celestial dusk is earthward bound. Evening clouds are not making a sound. I cannot hear her moon shadows hit the ground, and our silent night is being slowly drowned. Then my midnight queen arises, to be crowned — the Goddess of Light … and I am spellbound.
A soft companion piece, echoing the poem’s silence, carried on a gentle breath of light.
A heavy sky greeted us before breakfast, the clouds shifting and uncertain as we walked beneath the trees. Yet even in that muted light, something brighter seemed to stir behind the grey — a quiet reminder that beyond the darkness, a softer universe is always waiting to break through.
Universe of Light (a Tanka)
Above nature’s trees Behind life’s wavering clouds Beyond the darkness There’s a universe of light Waiting to caress your soul
Where the glow waits behind every wavering cloud. Even here, the universe of light begins to open.
The sky felt unsettled today — light pushing through cloud, a lone bird cutting across the haze, and the sun straining behind its thinning veil. These moments stayed with me, each one a quiet reminder of how fragile our atmosphere has become. From those three glimpses of the day, this small protest poem emerged, carrying both concern and hope for the blue we’re slowly losing.
Alongside that moment of sky and flight, two other images stayed with me today — another glimpse of the unsettled light above, and a quote from The Book Bird notice board. Richard Flanagan’s words felt uncannily aligned with the mood of this piece, reminding me how writing can step beyond politics and speak from a deeper, more human place. Together, these images helped shape the protest thread running through The Blue Fescue.
The Blue Fescue
Above Earth’s governing clouds, beyond the atmosphere’s atomic shrouds, I hear the sun’s white veneer pulsating from inside the sky’s diminishing blue.
There hiding — teary-eyed — waiting for an overdue enlightening breakthrough to cure the world’s stewed blue fescue.
A song for the shifting sky — a reminder that even in the blur between heroes and villains, we’re still searching for the light that carries us forward.
Ivor.Plumber/Poet 