Am I silly or bold
To be out walking in the cold
Am I silly or bold
To not listen to what I am told
Am I silly or bold
To keep writing about Putin’s foolish goal
Am I silly or bold
To believe humanity will remove its blindfold
Ivor Steven (c) June 2022
Welcome to wintry Geelong
One day, shimmering sunshine
The next, cold as the South Pole
But there he sits
At the front door
Waiting for his morning walk
Ok Frankie “Let’s brave it”
The wind is frigid
The misty rain is hard
And my eyes are crying
Icy droplets in the snow
But I am not complaining
As I think about the children
Sheltering in their damp cellars
Hiding from Putin’s hard rain
A deluge of bombs and bullets
Callously sent to kill and maim
** Please enjoy the Waterboys song below, “Mad as the Mist and Snow”, the words are directly taken from the W B Yeats poem of the same and musically adapted by Mike Scott
“Mad As The Mist And Snow”
Bolt and bar the shutter for the foul winds blow
Our minds are at their best this night and I seem to know
That everything outside us is mad as the mist and snow
That everything outside us is mad as the mist and snow.
Horace there by Homer stands, Plato stands below
And here is Tully’s open page, how many years ago
Were you and I, lads, mad as the mist and snow?
Were you and I, lads, mad as the mist and snow?
You ask what makes me sigh, what makes me shudder so
I shudder and I sigh to think that even Cicero
And many minded Homer were mad as the mist and snow
That Cicero and Homer were mad as the mist and snow
That Cicero and Homer were mad as the mist and snow
…
Ivor Steven © June 2022
The silence of time
Will eventually bury mankind
How many false Kings
And foolish Czars
Have destroyed our peaceful yards
How many crumbling bricks
Live in your castle walls?
How foul are the deadly waters
That fill your castle moats?
How many old bridges
Have you foolishly burnt down?
How many shallow graves
Do we have to dig?
Before cemeteries overflow
How many bloody floods
Do we have to endure?
Before the final curtain falls
Ivor Steven (c) June 2022
Hello dear readers and followers, as you may know, I now write for “Coffee House Writers” magazine on a fortnightly basis, and my poem“Is The Light Our Goal”, is in this weeks edition of Coffee House Writers Magazine. … please click on the link below to read my poem, at Coffee House Writers >> https://coffeehousewriters.com/is-the-light-our-goal/
Ivor Steven (c) May 2022
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
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
Continuing on from yesterday’s Ekphrastic poetry workshop, here is my poetic response to Shirley Drayton’s creative piece of textile artwork “Golden Sunflowers”
A Banner Of Sunflowers
look!
up there
above the War’s
darkest clouds
there is a blue banner
embroided with sunflowers
swaying
through a hole
in the eastern sky
bearing a message
of ‘Hello’
or is it ‘Goodbye’?
a sweeping reminder
from our Ancestors
“we feel your suffering and pain
from the merciless hard rain
blood filled rivers and cratered plains
smoke filled skylines and cracked windowpanes”
“however, we also know
beyond the broken horizon
the sunflower seeds of hope
will germinate again
and future seeds for peace
will regenerate a new campaign“
Ivor Steven (c) May 2022
Over at Weekly Prompts, the monthly Colour Challenge for May is: Mellow Yellow. Please go and visit their fabulous site by clicking >> Here . Below is my “Tanka” response to their ‘Colour Prompt’ ..
Sunflower Seeds (a Tanka)
Blue skies were mellow
Fields were peaceful and yellow
Sunflowers grew free
Then foreign tanks squashed their seeds
On tomorrow’s scarred harrows
Ivor Steven (c) May 2022
Autumn has been dry and warm
And the earth remains cracked
Providing cosy homes for the field critters
The brown crickets are thriving
And hopping along shared tracks
Innocently dancing there
Beyond the murdering arms of war
Mushrooms are sprouting on the verges
Stoically poised on stumpy stems
Under sheltering white caps
Nature’s nutritional ground fruit
Innocently standing there
Beyond the murdering arms of war
Ivor Steven (c) April 2022
There is a greyness filling the sky
Made up of sick tongues and lies
Death and destruction in a dirty disguise
Enquiries from worldwide continue to ask why
So many innocent people must die
While fleeing the greyest of Eastern skies
Ivor Steven (c) April 2022
Ivor.Plumber/Poet 