I Slither Forward

Hello dear readers and followers, many of you know that I have recently been diagnosed with having diabetes, and lately my general tiredness is becoming exhausting … and regretfully I will not be actively blogging with my normal enthusiastic zest … My recovery is a steady and slow process and I definitely need a break from my extremely busy blogging programs … hopefully I will be able to resume ‘soonerer than laterer’ …





I Slither Forward




Today, I am moving slowly

Slower than Steve the Snail

Slithering over the morning dew


For every slippery slide forward

There are two shuffles back


Improvement is at a standstill

Impatience is hard to pacify


I am swaying like a rusty gate

Creaking and groaning in a lazy breeze


But I am steadily swinging into the gear

And step by step, I shall find my way









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) November 2023

A Clear Blue Jar, is in this Week’s Coffee House Writers Magazine

Hello dear readers and followers, I am now writing for “Coffee House Writers” magazine on a fortnightly basis, and my poem “A Clear Blue Jar”, is in this week’s edition of Coffee House Writers Magazine. …
To Read my poem, please click on the link below to visit the article, at Coffee House Writers Magazine.
>> A Clear Blue Jar – Coffee House Writers






Ivor Steven (c) November 2023

Do You See the Sound? 





Do You See the Sound? 

 
 
 
Oh, great spirit of the sky 

My eyes hear the sound  

Of your moonbeam’s cry  

A message so profound 

Sadly, echoing the unearthly tremors  

Of whales and pelicans distressed murmurs  


This world has an abundance  

Of digital receiving towers  

And trillions of mobile phones  

To interpret your ethereal moon-rays


 

Cannot they see the sound?  

From under the oceans  

Cannot they feel the ground?  

Beyond today’s horizon  

Cannot they hear the drowned? 








Ivor Steven (c) November 2023

Throwback Friday, A Distant Ship (Revised)

Hello dear readers and followers, here’s a re-posting of a poem I wrote in September 2017, and as is my way I have revised the piece for today’s Throwback Friday article.





A Distant Ship (Revised)


Am I afraid, or am I being slowly discouraged.

Dismayed by the emptiness in my wavering heart.

Am I consumed, or am I being bodily starved.

Eaten by the cells of my inner sentiments.


Am I senseless, or have I been possessed.

Devoured by the recess of my lonely soul.

Am I swimming backstroke behind a distant love-boat.

Drowning in the wake of the passing recovery vessel.







Ivor Steven (c) November 2023

Sharing the Moment





Sharing the Moment 


 
 
Relaxing  

On the café’s cottage veranda  

Soaking  

Up the bucolic atmosphere   

Feeling  

I have found a snippet of serenity  


Fleetingly  

I am sharing the moment  

Sharing my dreamy Oasis   

With a dainty  

Blue Fairy Wren  

Flittering  

From table to table 







Ivor Steven (c) November 2023

Soaring (a Senryu)



There’s an old saying

What spirals up, must come down

I’m still Soaring up








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) November 2023

Stars Inside My Home (a Tanka)





Stars Inside My Home (a Tanka)


I’m not going blind

I am not losing my mind

My words are a song

A ballad from yesterday

About stars sharing my home








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) November 2023

A Positive Outcome 

“Every negative event contains within it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.” ~ Napoleon Hill 


 


A Positive Outcome 


 
 
 
Saturday morning  

At the Creative’s Market 

All is cosy and quiet  

Under the venues skylight roof  

And I calmly wait for patrons  

To enter the welcoming arcade  


The attendance was sporadic  

But I enjoyed several amiable chats 

And they gratefully accepted. my poetry/website card 

Then, glowingly, I sold a “Tullawalla” book 








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) November 2023

Throwback Friday, Living On a Wooden Bridge (Revised)

Today’s Throwback Friday poem is a rewrite of a piece original called “Living On a Knife Edge”(Feb 2019). This poem was one of two, that I submitted to be published in March 2020 , but the other poem was accepted ahead of this piece, and here today I have again revised the 2020 poem.

Living On a Wooden Bridge (Revised)


Fire, fire, there’s raging fires

I need help to stamp out the flames

Burning down this old timber bridge

A traveler’s last causeway to the edge

Carrying today’s harsh realities

Spanning a lifetime of dreams and fantasies


Rain, rain, there’s a Noah’s flood

I need help to stop the cascading suds

Fill the sandbags with riverbed mud

Plug the leakages with woolly rugs

Ring out qualms and doubts

And accept the charity handouts


Warning, warning, there’s a heatwave

I need help to see through the shimmering haze

And peer into nature’s fiery atmosphere tonight

Where millions of her fireflies are alight

Forcing eyes to hear the sound of flashing delights

Gathering above the bridge to be the world’s new sunlight








“The Hosting Of The Shee” a poem by William B Yeats, sung by the Waterboys

The host is riding from Knocknarea
And over the grave of Clooth-na-Bare
Caoilte tossing his burning hair
And Niamh calling: ‘Away, come away’
‘Away, come away, away, away’.

The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round
Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound
Our breasts are heaving, our eyes are agleam
Empty your heart of its mortal dream.

The host is riding from Knocknarea
And over the grave of Clooth-na-Bare
Caoilte tossing his burning hair
And Niamh calling: ‘Away, come away’
‘Away, come away, away, away’.

Our armsa-wave, our lips are apart
And if anything gaze on our rushing band
We come between him and the hope of his heart
We come between him and the deed of his hand.

The host is riding from Knocknarea
And over the grave of Clooth-na-Bare
Caoilte tossing his burning hair
And Niamh calling: ‘Away, come away’
‘Away, come away, away, away, away, away…’.



Ivor Steven (c) November 2023