Poetry/Australia – Page 24 – Ivor.Plumber/Poet

A Mid-morning Affair

Listen while reading: Sigur Rós – Vaka (Untitled 1).

A Mid-morning Affair

Out beyond the doorway
Facing the great southern sky
I look up sideways to the east
And the mid-morning sun
Discovers my squinting eyes
Then I turn to the west
Where the mid-morning moon
Shyly locates my awakened stare

Here I stand, fair and square
Between the sun’s golden flare
And the moon’s untold affair

I wonder about the world’s current despair
Or should I declare
“Why is the world in such disrepair”

Ivor Steven (c) December 2025

Throwback Friday, Flying Among The Clouds

Today’s Throwback Friday poem (originally written in March 2025) is drawn from my upcoming book, Time Hears No Sound. It opens Chapter 6, Travel and Life: Time Flies (Travel)

Flying Among the Clouds

I’m flying high
Cruising among the clouds
Fly with me
And the rest of my flock
Up here
There’s no need for a clock

Time gives no commands
Cruising among the clouds
Silently overseeing the crowd

Time always flies
At the same standard pace
There, in that space
Between daytime’s silvery moon
And twilight’s glittery sun

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 © December 2025

Time Hears No Numbers

This poem grew from poetic anecdotes I first shared as comments on fellow bloggers’ posts. In stanza order, they are:
1. Sara >> Random Numbers | purplepeninportland
2. Dwight >> https://rothpoetry.wordpress.com/2025/11/25/aging-without-numbers
3. Ivor >> a personal reflection.

Time Hears No Numbers

There is a number attached to everything,
Tracking them down is overwhelming;
Tallying the total is mind-boggling.

I perceive, with a twinkle
in my blurry eye,
an extra wrinkle
on my milky thigh.
But I do not cry
at the number of crinkles
that falsely belie
the sounds of my
life’s happy jingles.

The number of memories shall not diminish
until time decrees, “you’re finished.”

Accompanied by Sleeping At Last’s “Saturn” performed live with the Symphony Orchestra, this poem listens for the echoes beyond numbers—where memory, music, and existence intertwine.

Ivor Steven (c) December 2025

I’m 0n the Brink, I think

Note: All images on my poetry site today are reproduced with the kind permission of Derrick Knight, whose post Sun-Burnished inspired the following piece.
https://derrickjknight.com/2025/12/06/sun-burnished/

I’m on the Brink, I Think

The trees’ reflections upon
winter’s rippling pond
do not waver, nor move along.

The upside-down precinct
Is Nature’s picturesque ink.

Afloat on the cold water,
the images do not sink,
and never appear to shrink.

Here I am, on the brink
of creation’s universal link,
Wondering why
there are so many kinks
in our ability to think.

Ivor Steven (c) December 2025

Throwback Friday, A Fire That Burns in the Cold

Today’s Throwback Friday poem (originally written in July 2025) is drawn from my upcoming book, Time Hears No Sound. It appears in Chapter 5, Dreaming: A Poet’s Favourite Pastime

A Fire That Burns in the Cold

From behind the trees,
And out of the grasses,
We cannot stop the fire
-That burning desire-
From soaring higher,
Higher than the entire
Starry, starry choir.

So, best we inquire
To the Almighty Supplier:
“Will there be a ceasefire
at the top of your golden spire?”

Ivor Steven (c) December 2025

The Snail and the Butterfly

The Snail and the Butterfly

Midmorning; the day is breathing,
and Steve the snail is cruising.

I espy where he has been,
and I innately know who he wants to see.

Betty, the pretty butterfly,
is fluttering down from the trees.

A rendezvous with Steve is nigh.

Like Sigur Rós, breathing life into a quiet town, Steve and Betty meet in the stillness of morning.

Ivor Steven (c) December 2025

Summer Forgotten

A wintry first of December—where summer forgets itself beneath cloud and quiet flight.

Summer Forgotten

December ‘one’ has forgotten to remember
that it is the first day of summer.

Nature’s clandestine cloud-lover
has eloped with the sun’s warm river.

There shall be no supernova today;
even the hardy magpie has run away.

Ivor Steven (c) December 1st 2025

“Climbing the Stairs”, is in this week’s Coffee House Writers Magazine edition.

Hello, dear readers and followers. I write for Coffee House Writers magazine (USA) fortnightly, and my poem “Climbing the Stairs” is in this week’s edition.
To read the poem, please click the link below to visit my Coffee House Writers Magazine article.
>>https://coffeehousewriters.com/climbing-the-stairs/

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.

Eagle (a Telestitch)

“The soul has illusions as the bird has wings.” — Victor Hugo

“One Day,” when I photographed a wedge-tailed eagle gliding across a clear Victorian sky. Its silhouette stirred something ancient — a whisper of myth, a search for meaning.
This ‘Telestitch’ poem was written in response to Coffee House Writers’ monthly poetry assignment, and for the Weekly Prompts “One Day” Monthly Challenge. To visit their fabulous site, click >> Here

Eagle (a Telestitch)

The wistful wedge-tailed eagle,
Soars toward the mystical Southern Aurora,
Searching for the anomaly’s hidden beginning,
Hoping to find the missing Holy Grail.
All the horizon’s dreams dissolve into the sky’s finale.

Ivor Steven (c) November 2025

Anomaly Street, Geelong Writers Anthology/Chapbook 2025

On Wednesday evening, I attended the launch of ‘Anomaly Street’, the 2025 Geelong Writers Anthology/Chapbook. Two of my poems appear in the collection, and I was honoured to recite A Malay Kris and A Cracked Brick Wall.
The gathering was warm and welcoming, each reading revealing the diversity of voices within Geelong Writers. For me, the highlight was hearing my words resonate aloud among so many fine works. Holding my copy of Anomaly Street, I felt part of a living street of voices, distinct yet harmonising in community.

The poem is composed of comments/anecdotes I posted on some of my fellow WordPress writers’ articles from that time. In stanza order, they are.

1 – Nancy, Order Of The Snake – The Elephant’s Trunk
2 – Beth, expression. | I didn’t have my glasses on….
3 – Bart, Monday Poetry Prompt: Under the Cushions | Living Poetry
4 – Violet, Untouched by Regret | Thru Violet’s Lentz
5 – Ivor, A response to Nancy’s comment, https://ivorplumberpoet.press/2025/08/14/surprise-surprise-a-tanka/
6 – David, Breaking hours, or: Yet it flows – The Skeptic’s Kaddish

My second poem in the Anthology

Ivor Steven (c) November 2025