The Rear of Night (Revised)



My fading dawn was impossible to identify

A heavy fog had kidnapped my sky

Sabotaging my morning sunlight

The day disappeared in front of my eyes

The passing of night left a murky blight

There’s no start nor end to my blurred sight

Breathing in moist air, I gasp, “where’s the moon?”

Had my dismal forecast unravelled too soon?

Is this shadowless gloom?

The beginning of doom ?






Ivor Steven ©  May 2022

Under A Vanishing Sky




The dawn is a gray silent sea

And as a cold fog invades me



I see a green paddock

Without a horizon

Vanishing into oblivion




I see a ghostly power-source

Hang without opposition

Vanishing into oblivion



I see a ghastly concrete Czar

Without compassion

Disappearing into oblivion






Ivor Steven ©  May 2022

I Tried



After times of sorrow 

Hope lives on,

in tomorrow 

So sings,

my little sparrow


All my mountains

have been climbed 

All my climbs

had their falls and failures 

Then ultimately

I tried to reach my goal


“Except that the goal

Falls short of the reach” … Leonard Cohen, from his song ‘The Goal’






Ivor Steven ©  May 2022

Worldly Smirk (a Tanka)

The Ekphrastic poetry workshop I attended on Wednesday was an inspiring event, and here I have written a tanka about a clay figurine as depicted in my Featured Image above.

Worldly Smirk (a Tanka)




I do not know you

But your glassy eyes know me

Why that worldly smirk

I have a million questions

Do you have all the answers






Ivor Steven (c) May 2022