Featured Image Above: was created by Copilot and me.
Late afternoon light, a crescent moon rising, and one bold dragonfly with something to say…
The Crescent Moon and the Dragonfly (a Tanka)
“Hello, Mister Moon –
why are you so small today?”
“You should not throw stones
Pipsqueak. You’re just an insect.
I can’t even see your wings.”
A little music to settle beneath the crescent moon…
Ivor Steven © January 2026
Feature Image Above: was created by Copilot and me.
Over at Weekly Prompts, the Weekend Challenge is the word “Squish”
To visit their fabulous site, please click >>Here … and I think everything about censorship is awfully “Squishy.”
Nancy’s story on The Elephant’s Trunk [https://theelephantstrunk.org/2026/01/20/rdp-tuesday-disapprove/ ] stirred an old frustration in me — how easily free expression can be twisted, muted, or dismissed. I left a brief comment there, but the idea continued to nag at me throughout the afternoon. Sitting in a quiet corner of the café, I found myself shaping those few lines into something fuller, a small protest poem about the weight of censorship and the stubborn resilience of words. This is where that moment led.
When Words Wear Chains
Words wearing chains,
Pages awash in teary rain;
Quills feel the pain,
Like wisdom without veins
Inside lifeless brains.
How to explain
The inhumane
Of censorship’s careering train,
While the reigning regimes
Sip on foreign champagne.
Ivor Steven © January 2026
Inspired by one of Derrick Knight’s quietly atmospheric New Forest photos — which he kindly allows me to use on my poetry site >>https://derrickjknight.com/2026/01/19/decidedly-damp-2/ — this piece reflects the stillness and subtle depth held in a simple pond.
Discreetly Reflective
Discreetly, here I casually lie,
My opalescent veneer
Facing the weathered sky –
Reflective is my exterior.
Underneath, at the bottom of the weir,
A shallow coldness protects my fear
Of overexposure
To the New Forest’s frontier.
But being a reflective mirror
Is my theatrical nature
Music:“Elegy” by Lisa Gerrard & Patrick Cassidy — a quiet echo of the pond’s stillness.
Ivor Steven © January 2026
Today’s Throwback Friday poem (originally written in August 2023) is drawn from my upcoming book, Time Hears No Sound. It appears as the first poem in the Fairyland section of Chapter 9, Humour, Fantasy, and Fairyland: Timeless
Where Have The Fairies Gone?
Deep in the enchanted woods
Under mossy rocks and water-reeds
I saw an iron-bar prison door
Lying over a cave in the dry creek bed
I wondered and yelled out
“Hello! Is anyone down there?”
Eerily, a gentle voice whispered
“Do not worry, we are sheltering here.”
“Why are you hiding?” I inquired
“We are waiting for humanity
to stop the carnage on our planet.”
Then, peeping up from lower in the chasm
I witnessed that the small luminous eyes
Of Earth’s guardian faeries
Were joyless and crying
Music/Video: by Sigur Ros, “Ylur”, translated means, Warmth
.
Until Eyes Hear Sound
Lulu Books >> Until Eyes Hear Sound (lulu.com)
Perceptions:
Amazon >> Perceptions : Steven, Ivor, Knight, Derrick: Amazon.com.au: Books
Lulu Books >> Perceptions (lulu.com)
Tullawalla:
Amazon >> Tullawalla A Meeting Place Where My Empty Hands are Full of Memories and Rhymes : Steven, Ivor: Amazon.com.au: Books
OR: >> You may email me directly for a signed copy at
ivorrs20@gmail.com … and I can send you a PayPal account,
for the Book, plus Postage.
Ivor Steven © January 2026
Featured Image Above: Photo by Moritz Bu00f6ing on Pexels.com
🌧️ “Lost and Found” Published at MasticadoresUSA 🌧️
I’m honoured to share that my poem “Lost and Found” has been published today at MasticadoresUSA, under the thoughtful editorial guidance of Barbara Leonhard. This piece emerged from a quiet, reflective place, where shadows gather, and the spirit seeks meaning. I’m grateful to Barbara and the Masticadores team for offering the poem a home among so many inspiring voices.
You can read “Lost and Found” >>Here, and feel the hush between the thunder.
To complement the poem’s serene mood, I’ve included Lisa O’Neill’s tender performance of “The Bleak Midwinter,” a piece that subtly echoes the poem’s reflective spirit.
Thank you, Barbara, for selecting “Lost and Found” for publication. I truly appreciate your support and the care you bring to MasticadoresUSA.
I appreciate you walking with me through this piece—may its soft shadows and light find a place to rest with you.
Ivor Steven © January 2026
Carbonating the Sky (a Tanka)
The bright midday sun
Illuminates the birds’ plumes
Like nature’s jewels
Carbonating the blue sky
Bedazzling my squinting eyes
Ivor Steven © January 2026
Feature Image Above: Created by Copilot and me.
This poem grew from four comment‑poems I left on two fellow poets’ pages — David’s words sparking the first and third stanzas, Nancy’s the second and fourth. When I brought those fragments together, they unfolded into a small theatrical wandering: a pantomime of thresholds, ascents, and the strange choreography of time.
In Stanza Order:
1. David; The line moves, or: By inertia – The Skeptic’s Kaddish
2. Nancy; Thresholds – The Elephant’s Trunk
3. David; My years slowly, or: I walk – The Skeptic’s Kaddish
4. Nancy; Ascension – The Elephant’s Trunk
A Pantomime, or, A Playwright
Sublime is time;
heeds no rhyme,
beyond our imaginary climb.
Somewhere we await a final line –
or is life just a pantomime?
Oh, I see doorways,
stairways,
and causeways
These days
I’m living in a hazy daze –
or am I wandering in a maze
of poetic cliches
and unfinished essays?
Do we climb the incline
to our ordained shrine?
Or is the causeway a surreal design,
a decline into a magnetic mine?
Under a dome of flawless white,
being elevated toward the uncorrupted light –
the beginning of a poet’s last moonlit playwright
From Lisa O’Neill’s Black Sheep — “Do you want a story before you sleep?” A fitting echo for this small pantomime of doorways and moonlit climbs.
If you wish to read Lisa O’Neill’s outstanding “Black Sheep” lyrics, click on this Link >> https://genius.com/Lisa-oneill-black-sheep-lyrics
Ivor Steven © January 2026
Featured Image Above: Ronan Furuta at https://unsplash.com/
Hello, dear readers and followers. I write for Coffee House Writers magazine (USA) fortnightly, and my poem “Time, My Muse” is in this week’s edition.
To read the poem, please click the link below to visit my Coffee House Writers Magazine article.
>> https://coffeehousewriters.com/time-and-my-muse/
.
Until Eyes Hear Sound
Lulu Books >> Until Eyes Hear Sound (lulu.com)
Perceptions:
Amazon >> Perceptions : Steven, Ivor, Knight, Derrick: Amazon.com.au: Books
Lulu Books >> Perceptions (lulu.com)
Tullawalla:
Amazon >> Tullawalla A Meeting Place Where My Empty Hands are Full of Memories and Rhymes : Steven, Ivor: Amazon.com.au: Books
OR: >> You may email me directly for a signed copy at
ivorrs20@gmail.com … and I can send you a PayPal account,
for the Book, plus Postage.
Ivor Steven © January 2026
Featured ImageAbove: Created by Copilot and me.
Winds outside and storms within. Nature shifting, people shifting, and a song that carries the ache of distance. A small piece for looking outward, and inward, at the same time.
Don’t Open the Venetian Blinds
Turbulent seas,
And broken trees
Nature’s wild winds –
Do spellbind mankind’s
Undefined minds.
Buckled knees,
And breaks in the bay’s
Protective quays
Nature’s stone-blind to mankind’s
Redesigned minds.
Ivor Steven © January 2026
Over at Weekly Prompts, the Weekend Challenge is the word ‘Journal.’ To visit their fabulous site, please click >> Here
“This morning’s muse — wings caught mid-thought.”
My Journal’s Wings
High above my poetic eye I fly,
where the early birds gracefully glide by
across the bright morning sky.
And in my journal, I pause to ask why
birds become the muses of my word supply—
as if their wings remind me
that thought itself is a kind of flight,
and every line I write
is another way of learning
how to rise.
Ivor Steven © January 2026
Ivor.Plumber/Poet 