Poetry/Australia – Page 98 – Ivor.Plumber/Poet

Tullawalla, Republished by Jaymah Press

I am ecstatic to announce that the self-published version of my Book “Tullawalla” will be available on September 10th … thank you to my editor/publisher, Judy of Jaymah Press (a local establishment) for accepting to take on my project.
>> https://www.jaymahpress.com.au/

Jaymah Press

COMING SOON! 10 SEPTEMBER 2022

Tullawalla A Meeting Place Where My Empty Hands Are Full of Memories and Rhymes
Poetry by Ivor Steven. Artwork by Kerri Costello

Dreams of The Heart

I cannot walk the continents
Like the intrepid Marco Polo
But my feet have felt the sands of time
Pass between my toes

I have not sailed the high seas
Like the courageous Christopher Columbus
But my body has bathed
In an ocean full of kind hearts

I’m yet to fly in space
Like the brave Neil Armstrong
But I have reached for the stars
And touched my soul’s dreams

Ivor Steven (c) August 15th 2022

My Alien Eyes Have Seen Enough

This is one of my ranting/protesting poems, where the world’s weird ways and woes are vividly pictured in my dreams/nightmares … (June 2019) … Or maybe my ‘Alien Back Pain’ has me angry and grumpy, and I am just desperate for some interplanetary respite.

My Alien Eyes Have Seen Enough

I’m scattering stardust, upon sorrow and grace

Tip toeing through a desert of dying tulips

Before my species vacate this miserable place

Blasting away from here, in my Itmims* spaceship

Flying back into the depths of dark space

To regenerate and revive, from this trying trip

Sadly, we gathered nothing of any value

From this warring human race

Their radioactive sky, was once bright blue

Vast oceans are full of their own waste

They breathe thin air made of sticky glue

And the earth they walk on, is a garbage tip disgrace

Their concrete graveyards, are the warlords database

Women and children, dead, casualties of religious lunatics

My alien eyes have seen enough, I’m leaving without a trace

Political gamer’s never learn, they’re still reusing old septic ice-picks

*Ivor’s Time Machine In Micro Space

Ivor Steven (c) June 2019

Wall of Thorns

Another repost while I am laying down with my sore back … written when I had my third stroke, and I was laying in hospital 31st January 2019 …

Apologies to my readers and followers for not blogging and responding to your articles with my usual zest, my debilitating back pain doesn’t allow me to sit at my computer … hopefully the situation will improve soon.

Wall of Thorns (a Haiku)

My bed of roses

Is scaling a wall of thorns

Perpetually

The Lighthouse

Another older poem from February 2021, while I am slowly recovering from my painful back soreness…

The Lighthouse

I am afloat

In between

Here and there

Am I lost?

My ship clock

Is a sundial

Using the moon

To reflect on time

I hear the waves

Pounding white hooves

A heavy sound

Of many moods

Is the sea growing wider?

Is the light glowing brighter?

Ivor Steven (c) Feb 2021

Pain And Tears

A poem about a painful procedure I had a few years ago … sadly my back pain today is feeling very similar 🤗🌏

Pain and Tears

I was curled up like a baby

Exposing my arched back

Firstly an aching anesthetic needle

Then a probing harpoon

They were digging deep beneath

I was gritting my teeth

They had missed the spot

Hitting bone, not forgiving or soft

I screamed in pain

My tears poured like rain

Finally the probe was extracted

And with another injection of anesthetic

A second probing spear

The next failure I did fear

I’m biting that imaginary bullet

My tears poured like rain

They pulled out the rod again

One more go, they deemed

Is the procedure a bad dream

More anesthetic went in

Followed by that probing rod

Relief, they find the core’s spot

The spinal fluid is drained

Happily, my tears stopped again

Ivor Steven (c) Feb 2019

A Welcoming Roar, is up at Coffee House Writers Magazine

Hello dear readers and followers, I now write for “Coffee House Writers” magazine on a fortnightly basis, and my poem“A Weloming Roar”, is in this week’s edition of Coffee House Writers Magazine. … please click on the link below to read my poem, at Coffee House Writers.
>> https://coffeehousewriters.com/a-welcoming-roar/

Ivor Steven (c) August 2022

Out There, Right Now

Hobbling along

A tear sodden path

I stumble

Beneath heavy morning clouds

Shaken

I feel the shadow

Of her unfortunate life

Pass over me

From beyond the atmosphere

Of this disheartening world

Out there, somewhere

In our universe

Her eternal star

Somehow, right now

Illuminates my soul

Ivor Steven (c) August 2022

A Tired and Weathered Poet

(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

Yorkie, Against the Undertow

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

A Soul’s Weary Retreat

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