A Crack in The Wall, Tullawalla, page 40

Jaymah Press

COMING SOON! 10 SEPTEMBER 2022

Tullawalla A Meeting Place Where My Empty Hands Are Full of Memories and Rhymes
Poetry by Ivor Steven. Artwork by Kerri Costello






A Crack in The Wall


Placing yesteryear’s photos

In that bygone album

Cutting window holes

In today’s front door

Pasting forgotten memories

In the Bible, so forlorn

Packing tomorrows cases

Full of dusty dreams

Clutching torn curtains

Darkened to the outside world

Passing a crumbling brick wall

Weakened by the original fall






Ivor Steven (c) August 2022

If Only Walls Could Talk, Tullawalla, page 65

Tullawalla:

Illustration by Kerri Costello


Chapter 4

Humour, Wit, Sarcasm, And Christmas Stories


If Only Walls Could Talk




It’s true you know

Walls can talk

So I’ve been told

By a beautiful Rose

You’ll have to listen

Listen very closely

Put your ear against the wall

Use a stethoscope if you must

Listen to the wooden heart

Standing proud and tall

A rough soul rendered smooth

Layers of paint, every hue

Covering up dusty memories

Of hearts lost through years of cavities

Like the old Wailing Wall

You’re walking along a history hall

Your secrets, one and all

They’ve heard every gasp

Your children’s moans

And your lover’s groans






Ivor Steven (c) August 2022

My Alien Eyes Have Seen Enough

This is one of my ranting/protesting poems, where the world’s weird ways and woes are vividly pictured in my dreams/nightmares … (June 2019) … Or maybe my ‘Alien Back Pain’ has me angry and grumpy, and I am just desperate for some interplanetary respite.


My Alien Eyes Have Seen Enough


I’m scattering stardust, upon sorrow and grace

Tip toeing through a desert of dying tulips

Before my species vacate this miserable place

Blasting away from here, in my Itmims* spaceship

Flying back into the depths of dark space

To regenerate and revive, from this trying trip


Sadly, we gathered nothing of any value

From this warring human race

Their radioactive sky, was once bright blue

Vast oceans are full of their own waste

They breathe thin air made of sticky glue

And the earth they walk on, is a garbage tip disgrace


Their concrete graveyards, are the warlords database

Women and children, dead, casualties of religious lunatics

My alien eyes have seen enough, I’m leaving without a trace

Political gamer’s never learn, they’re still reusing old septic ice-picks

  • *Ivor’s Time Machine In Micro Space





Ivor Steven (c)  June 2019

The Lighthouse

Another older poem from February 2021, while I am slowly recovering from my painful back soreness…


The Lighthouse


I am afloat

In between

Here and there

Am I lost?

My ship clock

Is a sundial

Using the moon

To reflect on time


I hear the waves

Pounding white hooves

A heavy sound

Of many moods

Is the sea growing wider?

Is the light glowing brighter?







Ivor Steven (c) Feb 2021

A Welcoming Roar, 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“A Weloming Roar”, 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/a-welcoming-roar/




Ivor Steven (c) August 2022

Out There, Right Now






Hobbling along

A tear sodden path

I stumble

Beneath heavy morning clouds


Shaken

I feel the shadow

Of her unfortunate life

Pass over me

From beyond the atmosphere

Of this disheartening world


Out there, somewhere

In our universe

Her eternal star

Somehow, right now

Illuminates my soul






Ivor Steven (c) August 2022

A Tired and Weathered Poet


(Tonight I completed the manuscript for my new book “Perceptions”)
Oh well, the editing and correction process is always ongoing, for the Tired and Weathered Poet





A Tired and Weathered Poet


my writing world

wearily worrys

while wisdom

wistfully wonders

what wizardry waits

within wayward walls

where wrinkled words

wrathfully wound

a tired and weathered poet 



Yorkie, Against the Undertow

The Wednesday challenge from Weekly Prompts is: CYCLING … please go over and visit their fabulous site by clicking on >> Here … My poem today is a “Repost” from January 7th 2019, and some of my followers may remember my hectic rehab’ time after my stroke in early December. I had to get myself fit enough to fly to New York by April 24th …
Well here it is Thursday evening in Geelong, 10.55pm, and I’m editing my new book “Perceptions” again … oh well that’s “the undertow of life”





Yorkie, Against the Undertow


I’m seated on my silver bike, called Yorkie

Pedalling slow and steadily

I’m not actually moving

But I am dreaming

Thinking of places I could be

Visualising what I might see


If I can keep pushing

I’ll end up with a Qantas cushion

I know the year is new and early

But I’m feeling unfit and unworldly

There’s a long way for my body to go

There’s no turning back, despite the undertow






Ivor Steven (c) August 2022

A Soul’s Weary Retreat

Featured Image Above: ‘Peace Milestones’ by Derrick Knight, and thank you Derrick for kindly allowing me to reproduce your fabulous photos on my poetry site
>> https://derrickjknight.com/2022/07/29/no-more-than-a-truce/



A Soul’s Weary Retreat




Boulders did tumble

Across my gravelly path

Hard stones have bruised my feet


Decades of broken milestones

Did crumble

Into my lonesome creek


But my old waterlogged boots

Kept pounding the cobblestone streets

Defying the weariness of my soul’s retreat



Ivor Steven (c) August 2022