Tag: Life & Nature

Shangri La, Volume 21, Beyond the Midday Moon

FREE PDF COPY >>> Links Below

Hello, dear readers and followers. As you may know, I stopped producing my “Tullawalla Booklets” at #31 because that was the house number of our family’s Tullawalla Homestead.
Yet the booklet format is a superb way for me to catalogue the vast number of poems I produce, and as the saying goes, “I Am Turning Another Page”. Here I have begun a new series of poem booklets, called “Shangri La”, the name of my little Villa, and it is my piece of “earthly paradise, a retreat from the pressures of modern civilization”.
I now have “2407” poems gathered across these booklets
(On my bookshelf, sits “The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, with 1775 poems — when I first began writing, I never imagined I would one day surpass that number.)

“Like all my booklets, this one is here to be read at your leisure — no rush, no expectation, just an open page waiting when you are.”

Click >> Here – for the link to your FREE: PDF Copy of “Shangri La, Volume 21, Beyond the Midday Moon.”

OR … Shangri La, Volume 21, Beyond the Midday Moon.pdf




Beyond the Midday Moon


The midday moon
is less than 10° above the horizon —
low enough
for my weary wings
to fly over.

The morning clouds are dispersing,
and up here, above the moon,
my shadows are free
to echo my dreams.

Between the sky and the moon,
I gaze into their shared light —
sometimes life is out of sight,
other times everything is alright,
either way, they welcome
my unspoken words,
whether day or night.





A song that drifts in the same strange daylight as the poem — a quiet companion to the light above us.


.


Until Eyes Hear Sound

Amazon >> Amazon.com : 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 ©  July 2026

Throwback Friday, Lost In Space

Penned in June 2020, now relaunched for Throwback Friday — a flight through memory and space, chasing love through the stars.


Two glimpses of flight — the bird and the moon — guiding the way toward her celestial star.





Lost In Space (Revised)

I’m leaving this land of lost grace
And flying off into space
It’s time to run away
My aircraft, Itmims, is leaving today

Love is a stowaway in the heart
And love needs a head start
Somewhere in this universe
There’s love waiting in her celestial purse





Let the music drift with you into the long dark, where love still finds its way.




Ivor Steven ©  June 2026

A Flash in the Pan

Postcards and Poetry at the Old Courthouse Museum, Drysdale

There was a lovely hum in the air last Sunday — the kind that only gathers when people arrive ready to listen, ready to be moved. The little courthouse filled quickly, every seat taken, every face turned toward the poets and the artifacts that inspired them.

During the breaks, harpist Nin drifted gentle notes through the old timber room, her music settling over us like sunlight through stained glass.

And then came the readings.


Postcards and Poetry at the Old Courthouse Museum, Drysdale.


The very appreciative audience filled the little courthouse.


During the breaks, we were entertained by harpist, Nin.

There I was — Ivor in the witness box — sharing my two poems, “Drumsticks” and “Dear, Danny,” written especially for the museum’s stories and shadows. (They’re attached below for anyone who’d like to read them.)






And as the afternoon’s echoes fade, let the music rest where the poems left off — quiet, steady, and full of heart.




Ivor Steven ©  June 2026

Throwback Friday, Eating Chocolates and Watching Wars

Chocolates are delightfully delicious … wars are deadly and destructive …
Above the valley, a white-feathered messenger rises — reminding us how fragile peace can be

Yesterday we visited the Moorabool Valley Chocolate Café for coffee and cake, and the moment brought this poem back to me — a piece I wrote in August 2018, when a simple liquor chocolate stirred memories, questions, and the ache of a world still at war.






Eating Chocolates And Watching Wars (Revised)

Hungrily, I’m eating a liquor chocolate —
a selfish heavenly delight,
arousing my old mind’s senses.

I wonder
what she would be thinking,
looking down from the stars
through her sensitive olive eyes —
her everlasting smile,
her gracious courage,
her generous heart,
her forgiving soul,
her love for me and you.

I wonder
what she would be thinking,
seeing these futile, bloody wars
through her compassionate olive eyes —
the dead and maimed,
the millions of shuffling homeless,
the distraught, broken families,
the crying children locked in sheds,
the desperate refugees with no beds.

I wonder
what she would be thinking
while she preciously
holds the last white dove,
observing these senseless wars
that never ever ends.





And for the song that holds the cracks and the light, here is Leonard Cohen’s Anthem — offered to a world where the last white dove may never fly free again.




.


Until Eyes Hear Sound

Amazon >> Amazon.com : 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 ©  June 2026

A Magic Mushroom Party

A moonlit whisper drifts across the strawberry field, where the night’s small wonders gather for their secret celebration.





A Magical Mushroom Party


Did you hear — on the grapevine
about the magic mushroom party?
The local fungi
have peacefully impregnated
the neighbourhood strawberry field
and all moonlit buttons are welcome.
Grab an umbrella and your gumboots,
bring your own spores and a watering can.

…join the cheery clan,
there’s plenty of toadstools,
and the soirée’s fairy rings
of our magical and mysterious land
have conjured up the old Beatles band.






And as the fairy rings keep peacefully humming, the old songs rise again beneath the glowing caps of night.





Ivor Steven ©  June 2026

Words Fall Through the Window

This poem grew from three small conversations across the WordPress community — first with David, then with Nancy, and then with David once more. Each reply carried its own quiet image, and when I gathered them together, they seemed to form a single drift of thought, as if the words had slipped through the same window and landed in one place.
In stanza order, they are.
1. David: Sketches, poems, scraps, or: Dreams – The Skeptic’s Kaddish 
2. Nancy: Unread Message – The Elephant’s Trunk 
3. David: Intellectual or Public introspectual – The Skeptic’s Kaddish 


Between light and shadow, these moments gather — small echoes leading toward the words that follow.



Written in response to Sadje’s ‘What Do You See? #345’ prompt
>> What do you see # 345- 15, June- 2026 – Keep it alive

A quiet moment at the window that opened into the poem below






Words Fall Through the Window

Looking through a window 
Searching for tomorrow 
There is only an afterglow 
As life lingers in limbo

Petals softly fall 
Knowing the sound of silence 
“Do not wait for me” 

Sailing alone in my rescue craft 
I sense a spirited updraught 
rising through the stairwell’s shaft
 




Where the view softens, and the silence deepens, somewhere beyond the glass, the music carries what the words leave behind




Ivor Steven ©  June 2026

Our DATE with Destiny

Below is a small acrostic piece – a few lines arranged to catch the essence of the moment, a kind of epitome distilled from the fading light.

As the golden eye strained to feel the light, twilight gathered what the day left behind





Our DATE with Destiny


Deep behind twilight’s hessian sky
And down below the auburn horizon
There resides life’s golden eye
Ethereally aware of Earth’s dying oceans

As the world wilts under the strain
Do we hold the weight of what remains?





As the light settles – for the feelings that linger after the day is done, here is the song that holds them.




Ivor Steven ©  June 2026