Category: Published Poem

After Memoria

Hello dear readers and followers, I now write for “Coffee House Writers” magazine on a fortnightly basis, and my poem “After Memoria”, is in this week’s edition of Coffee House Writers Magazine. … please click on the link below and visit my poem, at Coffee House Writers.
>> https://coffeehousewriters.com/after-memoria/


After Memoria 


Sliding into euphoria 

After falling out of Memoria 


Where to start

When there is no beginning 

The judges guns remain loaded 

But there is no-one on the causeway


Why is the coldest mountain?

In the middle of the desert

How to climb the lowest alps?

Below the deepest ocean 

How to soar and fly? 

Without wings in a vacant sky 

Can the old river be paddled? 

After the bath runs dry 


Where to find happiness

After falling in the marathon 

How to slide into euphoria 

After falling out of Memoria






Ivor Steven (c) October 2022


A Poem About Me (Revised)

The original poem was written in August 2018, and back then I was not considering writing a book, but ironically or fortunately all the pieces in Bold Italic and the titles of poems in new my book “Tullawalla”





A Poem About Me (Revised)




How to write a poem about me

The boy who lived by the sea

As a youngster, I was not a loud speaker

Just shy and quiet teenager

Who wondered about Dreams of the Heart

With my visions of yesteryear Well Preserved

I loved Vegemite, honey and ice-cream

Then my life became Just a Little Dream


Looking at the Crystal Clear Shallows on the bay

I saw Ripples of Inconsiderateness turn my hair grey

Struggling, life was disappearing after my stroke

Emotionally I was crying out, Who’s Left to Row the Boat

Needing strength, my stars echoed, “I do Thee Shine”

Now I’m left with these Words of Mine

Recalling the days during her Everlasting Smile

Leaving my empty hands full, of Memories and Rhymes






Ivor Steven (c) October 2022

Throwback Friday, Echoes, by Ivor Steven

My poem “Echoes” is up at Go Dog Go Cafe’s ‘Throwback Friday’

ivor20's avatarGo Dog Go Café

This poem appears in my recent book “Tullawalla” and was originally written in August 2019

Echoes (Tullawalla, page 147)

My night’s sleep was calm and sound

Despite the deafening noise of echoes lost a found

I heard the midnight owl singing

Replaying tunes, of last year’s bells ringing

My blankets had not been disturbed

As if my shadow had slept unperturbed

And my mind had been emptied of today’s wind burns

Then my morning song whispered the words, “sunshine returns”

Ivor Steven (c) August 2019

G’day, and welcome to my blog site. My name is Ivor Steven, I live in Geelong, Australia. I’m an ex-industrial chemist, and a retired plumber, and a former Carer of my wife(Carole), for 30 years, who suffered from severe MS. I Write poetry about those personal thoughts, throughout and beyond my life as a Carer. I’ve been blogging for over 2 years, and writing poems…

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My Neighbour Wasn’t Mowing His Lawn, (Tullawalla, page 144





My Neighbour Wasn’t Mowing His Lawn (Tullawalla, page 144)


I saw a broad sign, painted by His hand

the words, I did not understand

I thought why? Put another brick in wall

ascending the crooked ladder, too afraid to fall

there I stood alone, and stared

above the galaxy’s glare

my retinas were burning

last night’s moon had fallen

beyond the broad blue dawn

and my neighbour wasn’t mowing his lawn

I then saw in our narrowing crevasse

the universe, in a blade of grass







Ivor Steven ©  October 2022

Here Comes the Sun Again, is up at Coffee House Writers Magazine

Hello dear readers and followers, I now write for “Coffee House Writers” magazine on a fortnightly basis, and my poem “Here Comes the Sun Again”, is in this week’s edition of Coffee House Writers Magazine. … please click on the link below to read my poem, at Coffee House Writers.
>> https://coffeehousewriters.com/here-comes-the-sun-again/











Ivor Steven ©  October 2022

Decades of Storms (Tullawalla, page 48)






Decades of Storms (Tullawalla, page 48)


Over the decades

I’ve lived through many storms

Yesterday

I read about an Atlantic island storm

After midnight

I had a dream about my life’s storms

At dawn

I shall open my door to the storms


I will then wait for my storms

To vacate the dark

And ask the morning sunlight

“Am I still the pilot”






Ivor Steven (c) September 2022

Throwback Friday, My Broken Mast, by Ivor Steven

Presenting another poem from my new book “Tullawalla”

ivor20's avatarGo Dog Go Café

I wrote “My Broken Mast” in January 2020, and the poem appears in my new book “Tullawalla”

My Broken Mast

Yesterday, a sudden stormy gale

Ripped through my leafy sail

And tore my oldest branch down

Crashing onto the ground

Leaving my main mast, hurtfully marred

A long open wound, and I’m painfully scarred

Mother, will dry my weeping tears

And I’ll recover to live another thirty years

Fatefully, my debris fell safely

All my owner’s guests escaped injury

And I left their ship damage free

Tomorrow they’ll clear my messy sea

Then rest under the shade of me

Ivor Steven (c) January 2020

ivor20

G’day, and welcome to my blog site. My name is Ivor Steven, I live in Geelong, Australia. I’m an ex-industrial chemist, and a retired plumber, and a former Carer of my wife(Carole), for 30 years, who suffered from severe MS. I Write poetry about those…

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Who’s Left to Row the Boat, (Tullawalla, page 37 )


Tullawalla is now available at Amazon
>> https://www.amazon.com/Tullawalla-Meeting-Memories-Australian-Languages/dp/0645377023/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2NUSUI90AWK6&keywords=Tullawalla&qid=1663851584&s=books&sprefix=tullawalla%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C301&sr=1-2




Who’s Left to Row the Boat
… This week it is 22 years since I suffered my first stroke …


The storms are too many to count

Emotional lows had weathered me out

Her journey with MS was a struggle

How much lower could our lives sink


After fourteen years of our battles, I suffered a Stroke

An ambulance came, my brain was in a boat

Floating out to sea, overboard and panic-stricken

I wasn’t swimming, barely awake, and drifting

I had fallen, nothing was working, and not talking

She’s crying, I’m sobbing, my heart is dying

And who’s left to row the boat, I’m thinking

I was jabbed with a needle and silently sleeping


I awoke a day later, in hospital, feeling wasted

My face was limp, mouth parched, was that death I tasted

My mind was active, I thought, where is she

I knew I was bad; the room was all blurry to me

Strong anxieties had set in, I needed to know

Nurses came to me, I pleaded, I wanted to go

“Help me to see her, just give my bed a tow

Please let me go, before I’m covered in snow”






Ivor Steven (c) September 2022

In Your Time (a Haiku)


Tullawalla is now Available at Amazon
>> https://www.amazon.com/Tullawalla-Meeting-Memories-Australian-Languages/dp/0645377023/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1IICHBAUD55HH&keywords=Tullawalla&qid=1663803829&s=books&sprefix=tullawalla%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C276&sr=1-2

A Haiku from Tullawalla, “Page 118”



In Your Time (a Hiaku)



You can’t fly pass time

Travel with time, hand in hand

Time is not faceless






Ivor Steven (c) September 2022