
I Have Been Both, Soft and Hard (a Tanka)
Soft as a feather
Suddenly the wind changes
To bitter and sharp
Swept in by the Atlantic’s
Hard curtains of cruel souls
Appropriately the “Tullawalla” journey began in Geelong, and I am proudly ecstatic to have my book launch here, back where the “Story” belongs …

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We Lost the Sea (a Haiku) … Tullawalla, page 117
Bridges of dreams crossed
The ocean and river spanned
Waters of love found
Ivor Steven (c) September 2022

Decades of Storms (Tullawalla, page 48)
Over the decades
I’ve lived through many storms
Yesterday
I read about an Atlantic island storm
After midnight
I had a dream about my life’s storms
At dawn
I shall open my door to the storms
I will then wait for my storms
To vacate the dark
And ask the morning sunlight
“Am I still the pilot”
Ivor Steven (c) September 2022

a worrying time
sometimes
feeling homely and mellow
other-times
lonely and hollow
sometimes
looking tall and green
other-times
small and unseen
sometimes
sounding sacred and relaxed
other-times
wasted and axed
nature’s forests
living wonders to enjoy
not an oppressor to destroy
Ivor Steven (c) September 2022
Our snail slithers in
From beyond the flooded ground
His home’s high and dry
The world continues to cry
Wallowing in it’s own sty
Ivor Steven © September 2022
Presenting another poem from my new book “Tullawalla”
I wrote “My Broken Mast” in January 2020, and the poem appears in my new book “Tullawalla”

My Broken Mast
Yesterday, a sudden stormy gale
Ripped through my leafy sail
And tore my oldest branch down
Crashing onto the ground
Leaving my main mast, hurtfully marred
A long open wound, and I’m painfully scarred
Mother, will dry my weeping tears
And I’ll recover to live another thirty years
Fatefully, my debris fell safely
All my owner’s guests escaped injury
And I left their ship damage free
Tomorrow they’ll clear my messy sea
Then rest under the shade of me
Ivor Steven (c) January 2020
G’day, and welcome to my blog site. My name is Ivor Steven, I live in Geelong, Australia. I’m an ex-industrial chemist, and a retired plumber, and a former Carer of my wife(Carole), for 30 years, who suffered from severe MS. I Write poetry about those…
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Tullawalla is now available at Amazon
>> https://www.amazon.com/Tullawalla-Meeting-Memories-Australian-Languages/dp/0645377023/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2NUSUI90AWK6&keywords=Tullawalla&qid=1663851584&s=books&sprefix=tullawalla%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C301&sr=1-2
Who’s Left to Row the Boat
… This week it is 22 years since I suffered my first stroke …
The storms are too many to count
Emotional lows had weathered me out
Her journey with MS was a struggle
How much lower could our lives sink
After fourteen years of our battles, I suffered a Stroke
An ambulance came, my brain was in a boat
Floating out to sea, overboard and panic-stricken
I wasn’t swimming, barely awake, and drifting
I had fallen, nothing was working, and not talking
She’s crying, I’m sobbing, my heart is dying
And who’s left to row the boat, I’m thinking
I was jabbed with a needle and silently sleeping
I awoke a day later, in hospital, feeling wasted
My face was limp, mouth parched, was that death I tasted
My mind was active, I thought, where is she
I knew I was bad; the room was all blurry to me
Strong anxieties had set in, I needed to know
Nurses came to me, I pleaded, I wanted to go
“Help me to see her, just give my bed a tow
Please let me go, before I’m covered in snow”
Ivor Steven (c) September 2022

Tullawalla is now Available at Amazon
>> https://www.amazon.com/Tullawalla-Meeting-Memories-Australian-Languages/dp/0645377023/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1IICHBAUD55HH&keywords=Tullawalla&qid=1663803829&s=books&sprefix=tullawalla%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C276&sr=1-2
A Haiku from Tullawalla, “Page 118”
In Your Time (a Hiaku)
You can’t fly pass time
Travel with time, hand in hand
Time is not faceless
Ivor Steven (c) September 2022

I am ecstatic that my poem “Miles From Home”, that I posted here on site only last week, has already been accepted and published at Spillwords Magazine today, and I am very grateful to the editor Dagmara for selecting my piece .. Pease go and visit my poem at Spillwords and if you wish, leave a 💗 for my article, by clicking on this link >> https://spillwords.com/miles-from-home/
written by: Ivor Steven
@ivors20
Today
I went left, instead of right
No matter what direction
Or decision I choose
At the end of day
There will be night
My time to rest
And remain out of sight
Tomorrow
I shall take the back roads
Miles away from my troubled life
Miles and miles
Beyond those evil eyes of strife
Tonight
I will sleep under the stars
With my loyal companion
By my side
Now
He gives me that inquisitive stare
“Don’t look at me like that
I know mate, I know
I should never have left the wife”
Ivor Steven (c) September 2022