Poetry/Australia – Page 3 – Ivor.Plumber/Poet

Throwback Friday, Where Have the Fairies Gone?

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

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

A Pantomime, or, A Playwright

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

Don’t Open the Venetian Blinds

Featured ImageAbove: Created by Copilot and me.

Winds outside and storms within. Nature shifting, people shifting, and a song that carries the ache of distance. A small piece for looking outward, and inward, at the same time.

Don’t Open the Venetian Blinds

Turbulent seas,
And broken trees
Nature’s wild winds –
Do spellbind mankind’s
Undefined minds.

Buckled knees,
And breaks in the bay’s
Protective quays
Nature’s stone-blind to mankind’s
Redesigned minds.

Ivor Steven © January 2026

My Journal’s Wings

Over at Weekly Prompts, the Weekend Challenge is the word ‘Journal.’ To visit their fabulous site, please click >> Here

“This morning’s muse — wings caught mid-thought.”

My Journal’s Wings

High above my poetic eye I fly,
where the early birds gracefully glide by
across the bright morning sky.

And in my journal, I pause to ask why
birds become the muses of my word supply—
as if their wings remind me
that thought itself is a kind of flight,
and every line I write
is another way of learning
how to rise.

Ivor Steven © January 2026

No More Alibis

A whispered protest beneath a heavy sky—this poem emerged over coffee and quiet defiance.

No More Alibis

I shyly worry, and quietly sigh
about today’s ugly, dark sky.
In the blink of an eye,
the sun might say, “Hi”
and the world awry,
could be rectified.

No more alibis,
or black eyes.

It’s time to notify
the blow-dried wise guy:
The world is not his money supply

We will not be tongue-tied,
nor listen to his falsified
“War cry.”

Ivor Steven © January 2026

What Colour is the Edge?

Featured Image Above: Created by Copilot and me.

An image and song that drifts along the same edge this poem explores — between light, shadow, and the unknown.

What Colour is the Edge?

I ask myself,
Is there an edge?
Is it the golden sun rising,
or the hessian sun setting?
Is it the dark horizon
beyond the deep blue ocean?

Then I wonder,
What is the edge?
Is it the black chasm
beyond the starry universe,
or is it the white light
when time sees no night?

Ivor Steven © January 2026

Throwback Friday, A Blade of Light

Please note the featured photo and attached photos above are taken from Street Art in the Geelong CBD

Today’s Throwback Friday poem (originally written in January 2025) is drawn from my upcoming book, Time Hears No Sound. It appears as the first poem in the Fantasy section of Chapter 9, Humour, Fantasy, and Fairyland: Timeless

A Blade of Light

Far beyond my darkest night
Clambering out of purgatory’s deepest void
I grasp onto a single blade of light
On the edge of my soulless asteroid
Who rescues me from Armageddon’s endless fight

Awaking in a pool of sweat, just after midnight
This meaningless nightmare gave me a hellish fright

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.

On the Edge of Finality

A small reflection on the strange path from understanding to uncertainty, and the fragile line between what feels real and what feels lost.

On the Edge of Finality

Physically,
and enigmatically,
Scaling life’s realities
has critically
reached obscurity.

Combined with humanity’s
vanity, inanity, and insanity
and lack of morality –
brutally –
finality
is not an impossibility.

An Anti-depressant Pill, or, Theo’s First Tomato

Where Theo’s tiny tomato and shy seedlings work their quiet miracles… with one curious assistant nearby.

An Anti-depressant Pill, or, Theo’s First Tomato

Lately, my mind has been wandering,
and my tired old quill is meandering
between the lines of my poignant writings.
I’ve been anxiously worrying
about our weary, war-torn world.

In the morning, I gave my ink well
an anti-depressant pill.
The good Doctor Who had prescribed
a relaxing dose of courtyard gardening.

The effervescent tonic worked miracles.
Today, Theo* has produced his first baby tomato,
and my recently planted sunflower seeds
have sprouted into healthy little seedlings.
And the courtyard whispered,
‘There you are… stay awhile.’

*Theo the Tomato bush, who started his miraculous journey late in May, the beginning of our winter.

Unstable Weather

“Arrival of the Birds” by The Cinematic Orchestra felt like the natural companion — a quiet swell of hope beneath the magpies’ wings.

Unstable Weather

Behind closed doors,
Below the first floor,
Far beyond braided Russia leather,
They shelter from the unstable weather.

Nature’s hierarchy walks together –
Black and white birds of a feather –
And untethered, they will fly forever,
Above the world’s war-weary heather.