(Tonight I completed the manuscript for my new book “Perceptions”)
Oh well, the editing and correction process is always ongoing, for the Tired and Weathered Poet
A Tired and Weathered Poet
my writing world
wearily worrys
while wisdom
wistfully wonders
what wizardry waits
within wayward walls
where wrinkled words
wrathfully wound
a tired and weathered poet
The Wednesday challenge from Weekly Prompts is: CYCLING … please go over and visit their fabulous site by clicking on >> Here … My poem today is a “Repost” from January 7th 2019, and some of my followers may remember my hectic rehab’ time after my stroke in early December. I had to get myself fit enough to fly to New York by April 24th …
Well here it is Thursday evening in Geelong, 10.55pm, and I’m editing my new book “Perceptions” again … oh well that’s “the undertow of life”
Yorkie, Against the Undertow
I’m seated on my silver bike, called Yorkie
Pedalling slow and steadily
I’m not actually moving
But I am dreaming
Thinking of places I could be
Visualising what I might see
If I can keep pushing
I’ll end up with a Qantas cushion
I know the year is new and early
But I’m feeling unfit and unworldly
There’s a long way for my body to go
There’s no turning back, despite the undertow
Ivor Steven (c) August 2022
Featured Image Above: ‘Peace Milestones’ by Derrick Knight, and thank you Derrick for kindly allowing me to reproduce your fabulous photos on my poetry site
>> https://derrickjknight.com/2022/07/29/no-more-than-a-truce/
A Soul’s Weary Retreat
Boulders did tumble
Across my gravelly path
Hard stones have bruised my feet
Decades of broken milestones
Did crumble
Into my lonesome creek
But my old waterlogged boots
Kept pounding the cobblestone streets
Defying the weariness of my soul’s retreat
Ivor Steven (c) August 2022
The weekend challenge on Weekly Prompts is: Review. Please visit their fabulous site by clicking >> Here … Below is my response to their prompt, and you are quite welcome to ‘Read and Review’ my poem “Urban Glare”
Featured Image Above: by Derrick Knight >> https://derrickjknight.com/2022/04/28/across-the-stream/
Urban Glare
Down into the valley
I wander
Away from urban glare
Beyond reach
Of those who do not care
About nature’s faded flare
Along a cool creek
I wander
Away from urban air
Beyond sight
Of those arrogant stares
Who do not see nature’s plight
Ivor Steven (c) July 2022
Featured Image Above: by Derrick Knight, and a sincere thank you to Derrick for allowing me to use his fabulous photos here on my poetry site.
>> https://derrickjknight.com/2022/07/27/stagnant-pea-soup/
Old Ground
Along the cracked track I walk
Always in the same direction
But today I was discombobulated
I did not know the difference
Between east or west
Or whether I was moving up or down
But then
I felt the world
Rumble under my feet
There in every blade of grass
I could hear
The earth’s heartbeat
A soft sobbing sound
Of the lost children
Resting under ground
Ivor Steven (c) July 2022
I’m reposting this poem of mine from August 2020, for two reasons. 1. The poem gives me a chance to present one of my favourite songs by Leonard Cohen. 2. I like this poem, because the piece is open for the reader to interpret my thoughts images in whatever way their feel is right for them.
Who’s Rowing My Boat in the Dark?
Am I in hibernation?
Or am I lacking inclination?
Am I awake and living?
Or just lying here dreaming?
Why do I dream so much?
Visions feel alive to touch
Half-awake, I scribble these notes
Half asleep, am I falsely afloat?
On my mystical Noah’s Ark
Have I the right to ask?
Who’s rowing my boat in the dark?
Is it Her, my brave Joan of Ark?
The winter sun sets
Over my oldest day
I tick off another year
My sister reminds me
“Twenty years to go
to equal Dad’s Ninety-one”
“Is that achievable?”
I ask myself
“No harm in trying”
I tell myself
Carole’s Dad also reached Ninety-One
This is my marathon’s goal
“To walk around the moon
on my way to touching the stars”
Ivor Steven (c) July 20th 2022
Hello dear readers and followers, I am pleased to announce that I have managed to produce my “Twenty Nineth Tullawalla” Booklet … For new readers that don’t know about these booklets, they are basically the reason why I write poetry. I produce these ‘home-printed’ booklets for the sole purpose of raising funds for my favourite charity organisation, the MS Society, in Australia via the MS Charity Shop here in Geelong. And actually all money’s I receive for any of my poetry .via, submissions, I donate to the MS Society…. I’m proud to announce, that the sale of my “Tullawalla Booklets”, have now gone pass $1500.00, … to all the lovely readers, who have donated, to help achieve such a wonderful amount, a big heartfelt thank you, from “us” and the MS Society … …..Incredibly, there is now a total of “1255 poems”, Yep, well over “A Thousand Poems” in my collection/series of “29” Tullawalla Booklets. After 3 months, this booklet is finally completed, and ready for sale now !! As always, they are available for purchase, either as a hard copy ‘Booklet’, or a PDF format….. All proceeds go to the MS Charity Shop, here in Geelong West….. Please contact me here through my website page and I can chat to you about arrangements from there…. Oh, the booklet is called “Tullawalla, Today, Beside the Sea”… And here is the link to my website >> https://ivors20.wordpress.com
Today, Beside the Sea
After I left the fish tank
I lived on a nearby riverbank
Close to the connected sea
I would look beyond the ocean
Out to the dark blue horizon
As far as the eye could see
That was the ocean
That was our river
And now her river has been set free
An ebb tide that flows through me
Today beside the sea
I wait here
For tomorrow’s horizon
To set me free
Ivor Steven (c) July 2022
A nightmarish hypothetical poem and some of the words are from comments I made on Bart’s and Sadje’s recent posts .. > https://bartbarkerpoet.com/2022/07/15/fraiku-first-lights/
.. > https://lifeafter50forwomen.com/2022/07/13/one-liner-strength/
Featured Image: Photo from the JWST
Towards the Dark (my Nightmare)
One day soon
After mining the earth dry
There will no more rubies
No more diamonds in the sky
Will our silver spoons
Ever stop digging
Towards the dark side of our moon
Tonight, we do not need
Our world to be darker
We can learn to survive
When life teaches us
The value of being alive
Ivor Steven (c) July 2022
Ten years ago my poem ‘This Lost Shadow‘ was accepted and published in the Literary Anthology, “Melpomene” . The poem was the first piece of mine to appear in a Published Book, and I was exceptionally proud to have my name in the authors list, along side the famous poets, Charles Baudelaire, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, William Blake, and Paul Verlaine … Below, I have scanned my poem ‘This Lost Shadow’ directly from my copy of the book.
Featured Photo Above: Taken by Derrick Knight > derrickjknight – Ramblings
Gwendolyn Taunton (Editor)
Melpomene is a collection of poetry, prose and short fiction named after the Greek Muse of Tragedy. The central theme of the anthology is the beauty found in sorrow and the darker sides of human nature, drawing on literary traditions such as the ‘Damned Poets’, the Decadent Movement, Symbolism/Surrealism and the Fin de si cle. Melpomene is broken into four sections: Liber Veneficium (Book of Magic), Liber Maeroris (Book of Sorrow), Liber Fatum (Book of Fate), and Liber Mortuorum (Book of Death). Each section contains both new and classic literature dealing with these themes. Authors in this volume include Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, William Blake, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Gwendolyn Taunton, Azsacra Zarathustra, Math Jones, Bernardo Sena, J. Karl Bogartte, C. B. Liddell, James WF Roberts, Christopher Pankhurst, H. A. Cledones, Tamas Nagyatadi Horvath, L. Alexander Carle, Bill Noble, Marg Howlet, Ivor Steven and Gene Banyard. Containing works both old and new, Melpomene offers a prime selection of works on the melancholic side of existence, the transformational beauty of the esoteric, occult secrets hidden in verse, sorrow, doom and the inevitable grasp of death. Melpomene will haunt the reader with a dark and unearthly beauty that is both forbidden and forlorn…
Ivor Steven (c) July 2022
Ivor.Plumber/Poet 