Featured Image Above: wae created by Copilot and me.
At the edge of dusk, every path feels like a crossroad.”
The Elusive Crossroad
Beyond the evening’s projecting twilight zone,
I’m looking for this planet’s bright side of the moon.
I observe a strange stratosphere
That does not belong here, nor there.
Between now and the universe’s next episode,
I perceive a mirage of cosmic cathodes,
Faithlessly obscuring eternity’s elusive crossroad.
Ivor Steven © January 2026
Featured Image Above: wae created by Copilot and me.
Over at Sadje’s WDYS #325, I think my poem is appropriate for both of her prompt images. To visit her fabulous site please click >> Here.
This poem grew out of three short pieces I wrote in response to posts by fellow WordPress writers—Beth, Mark, and Dwight. Each anecdote carried its own spark, but together they formed a thread I couldn’t ignore. I’ve woven them here into one poem, a reflection on nature, emotion, and the creative fire that keeps us writing.
In stanza order, they are:
Beth – https://ididnthavemyglasseson.com/2026/01/24/the-magic
Mark – https://havocandconsequence.wordpress.com/2026/01/24/smashed-like-a-deity
Dwight – In Pursuit of Passion | Roth Poetry
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The Pot’s Still Simmering
Once upon a time, while the moon was sweeping
Just after the ice age had ceased creeping
And when the world’s sky had finished wistfully weeping
Mother Nature always had time for her housekeeping
And would never leave “love” under the snow, sleeping
I’ve always found it difficult
to simply wash away the salty tears
The residual droplets seemed
to have crystallized upon my soul’s fears
While the pot
remains simmering
and the irons are still hot,
a passion for writing
is this poet’s lot
Ivor Steven © January 2026
Frankie is patiently waiting for his bacon pieces
My lunch/meal was a delicious Japanese, Okonomiyaki
Okonomiyaki: House-made Japanese cabbage & spring onion savoury pancake, topped with okonomiyaki sauce, kewpie mayo, BBQ pulled pork, fried egg, topped with bean shoot, coriander, pickled ginger, chilli, cucumber, edamame & snow pea shoot garnish, sesame seeds & fried shallots
Ivor Steven © January 2026
Featured Image Above: was created by Copilot and me.
Late afternoon light, a crescent moon rising, and one bold dragonfly with something to say…
The Crescent Moon and the Dragonfly (a Tanka)
“Hello, Mister Moon –
why are you so small today?”
“You should not throw stones
Pipsqueak. You’re just an insect.
I can’t even see your wings.”
A little music to settle beneath the crescent moon…
Ivor Steven © January 2026
Feature Image Above: was created by Copilot and me.
Over at Weekly Prompts, the Weekend Challenge is the word “Squish”
To visit their fabulous site, please click >>Here … and I think everything about censorship is awfully “Squishy.”
Nancy’s story on The Elephant’s Trunk [https://theelephantstrunk.org/2026/01/20/rdp-tuesday-disapprove/ ] stirred an old frustration in me — how easily free expression can be twisted, muted, or dismissed. I left a brief comment there, but the idea continued to nag at me throughout the afternoon. Sitting in a quiet corner of the café, I found myself shaping those few lines into something fuller, a small protest poem about the weight of censorship and the stubborn resilience of words. This is where that moment led.
When Words Wear Chains
Words wearing chains,
Pages awash in teary rain;
Quills feel the pain,
Like wisdom without veins
Inside lifeless brains.
How to explain
The inhumane
Of censorship’s careering train,
While the reigning regimes
Sip on foreign champagne.
Ivor Steven © January 2026
Inspired by one of Derrick Knight’s quietly atmospheric New Forest photos — which he kindly allows me to use on my poetry site >>https://derrickjknight.com/2026/01/19/decidedly-damp-2/ — this piece reflects the stillness and subtle depth held in a simple pond.
Discreetly Reflective
Discreetly, here I casually lie,
My opalescent veneer
Facing the weathered sky –
Reflective is my exterior.
Underneath, at the bottom of the weir,
A shallow coldness protects my fear
Of overexposure
To the New Forest’s frontier.
But being a reflective mirror
Is my theatrical nature
Music:“Elegy” by Lisa Gerrard & Patrick Cassidy — a quiet echo of the pond’s stillness.
Ivor Steven © January 2026
Again, it’ll be 40 °C here today, and hopefully, the likelihood of more bushfires will be minimal.
Different Skies (a Haiku)
Storm clouds that don’t cry
Then we wonder why there is
Smoke clouds in the sky
Ivor Steven © January 2026
Today’s Throwback Friday poem (originally written in August 2023) is drawn from my upcoming book, Time Hears No Sound. It appears as the first poem in the Fairyland section of Chapter 9, Humour, Fantasy, and Fairyland: Timeless
Where Have The Fairies Gone?
Deep in the enchanted woods
Under mossy rocks and water-reeds
I saw an iron-bar prison door
Lying over a cave in the dry creek bed
I wondered and yelled out
“Hello! Is anyone down there?”
Eerily, a gentle voice whispered
“Do not worry, we are sheltering here.”
“Why are you hiding?” I inquired
“We are waiting for humanity
to stop the carnage on our planet.”
Then, peeping up from lower in the chasm
I witnessed that the small luminous eyes
Of Earth’s guardian faeries
Were joyless and crying
Music/Video: by Sigur Ros, “Ylur”, translated means, Warmth
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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 © January 2026
Carbonating the Sky (a Tanka)
The bright midday sun
Illuminates the birds’ plumes
Like nature’s jewels
Carbonating the blue sky
Bedazzling my squinting eyes
Ivor Steven © January 2026
Feature Image Above: Created by Copilot and me.
This poem grew from four comment‑poems I left on two fellow poets’ pages — David’s words sparking the first and third stanzas, Nancy’s the second and fourth. When I brought those fragments together, they unfolded into a small theatrical wandering: a pantomime of thresholds, ascents, and the strange choreography of time.
In Stanza Order:
1. David; The line moves, or: By inertia – The Skeptic’s Kaddish
2. Nancy; Thresholds – The Elephant’s Trunk
3. David; My years slowly, or: I walk – The Skeptic’s Kaddish
4. Nancy; Ascension – The Elephant’s Trunk
A Pantomime, or, A Playwright
Sublime is time;
heeds no rhyme,
beyond our imaginary climb.
Somewhere we await a final line –
or is life just a pantomime?
Oh, I see doorways,
stairways,
and causeways
These days
I’m living in a hazy daze –
or am I wandering in a maze
of poetic cliches
and unfinished essays?
Do we climb the incline
to our ordained shrine?
Or is the causeway a surreal design,
a decline into a magnetic mine?
Under a dome of flawless white,
being elevated toward the uncorrupted light –
the beginning of a poet’s last moonlit playwright
From Lisa O’Neill’s Black Sheep — “Do you want a story before you sleep?” A fitting echo for this small pantomime of doorways and moonlit climbs.
If you wish to read Lisa O’Neill’s outstanding “Black Sheep” lyrics, click on this Link >> https://genius.com/Lisa-oneill-black-sheep-lyrics
Ivor Steven © January 2026
Ivor.Plumber/Poet 