Throwback Friday, Echoes, by Ivor Steven

My poem “Echoes” is up at Go Dog Go Cafe’s ‘Throwback Friday’

Go Dog Go Café

This poem appears in my recent book “Tullawalla” and was originally written in August 2019

Echoes (Tullawalla, page 147)

My night’s sleep was calm and sound

Despite the deafening noise of echoes lost a found

I heard the midnight owl singing

Replaying tunes, of last year’s bells ringing

My blankets had not been disturbed

As if my shadow had slept unperturbed

And my mind had been emptied of today’s wind burns

Then my morning song whispered the words, “sunshine returns”

Ivor Steven (c) August 2019

G’day, and welcome to my blog site. My name is Ivor Steven, I live in Geelong, Australia. I’m an ex-industrial chemist, and a retired plumber, and a former Carer of my wife(Carole), for 30 years, who suffered from severe MS. I Write poetry about those personal thoughts, throughout and beyond my life as a Carer. I’ve been blogging for over 2 years, and writing poems…

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My Neighbour Wasn’t Mowing His Lawn, (Tullawalla, page 144

My Neighbour Wasn’t Mowing His Lawn (Tullawalla, page 144)

I saw a broad sign, painted by His hand

the words, I did not understand

I thought why? Put another brick in wall

ascending the crooked ladder, too afraid to fall

there I stood alone, and stared

above the galaxy’s glare

my retinas were burning

last night’s moon had fallen

beyond the broad blue dawn

and my neighbour wasn’t mowing his lawn

I then saw in our narrowing crevasse

the universe, in a blade of grass

Ivor Steven © October 2022

Here Comes the Sun Again, 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 “Here Comes the Sun Again”, 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/here-comes-the-sun-again/

Ivor Steven © October 2022

Decades of Storms (Tullawalla, page 48)

Decades of Storms (Tullawalla, page 48)

Over the decades

I’ve lived through many storms

Yesterday

I read about an Atlantic island storm

After midnight

I had a dream about my life’s storms

At dawn

I shall open my door to the storms

I will then wait for my storms

To vacate the dark

And ask the morning sunlight

“Am I still the pilot”

Ivor Steven (c) September 2022

Throwback Friday, My Broken Mast, by Ivor Steven

Presenting another poem from my new book “Tullawalla”

Go Dog Go Café

I wrote “My Broken Mast” in January 2020, and the poem appears in my new book “Tullawalla”

My Broken Mast

Yesterday, a sudden stormy gale

Ripped through my leafy sail

And tore my oldest branch down

Crashing onto the ground

Leaving my main mast, hurtfully marred

A long open wound, and I’m painfully scarred

Mother, will dry my weeping tears

And I’ll recover to live another thirty years

Fatefully, my debris fell safely

All my owner’s guests escaped injury

And I left their ship damage free

Tomorrow they’ll clear my messy sea

Then rest under the shade of me

Ivor Steven (c) January 2020

ivor20

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Who’s Left to Row the Boat, (Tullawalla, page 37 )

Tullawalla is now available at Amazon
>> https://www.amazon.com/Tullawalla-Meeting-Memories-Australian-Languages/dp/0645377023/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2NUSUI90AWK6&keywords=Tullawalla&qid=1663851584&s=books&sprefix=tullawalla%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C301&sr=1-2

Who’s Left to Row the Boat
… This week it is 22 years since I suffered my first stroke …

The storms are too many to count

Emotional lows had weathered me out

Her journey with MS was a struggle

How much lower could our lives sink

After fourteen years of our battles, I suffered a Stroke

An ambulance came, my brain was in a boat

Floating out to sea, overboard and panic-stricken

I wasn’t swimming, barely awake, and drifting

I had fallen, nothing was working, and not talking

She’s crying, I’m sobbing, my heart is dying

And who’s left to row the boat, I’m thinking

I was jabbed with a needle and silently sleeping

I awoke a day later, in hospital, feeling wasted

My face was limp, mouth parched, was that death I tasted

My mind was active, I thought, where is she

I knew I was bad; the room was all blurry to me

Strong anxieties had set in, I needed to know

Nurses came to me, I pleaded, I wanted to go

“Help me to see her, just give my bed a tow

Please let me go, before I’m covered in snow”

Ivor Steven (c) September 2022

Miles From Home, is up at Spillwords Magazine

I am ecstatic that my poem “Miles From Home”, that I posted here on site only last week, has already been accepted and published at Spillwords Magazine today, and I am very grateful to the editor Dagmara for selecting my piece .. Pease go and visit my poem at Spillwords and if you wish, leave a 💗 for my article, by clicking on this link >> https://spillwords.com/miles-from-home/

MILES FROM HOME

written by: Ivor Steven

@ivors20

Today
I went left, instead of right
No matter what direction
Or decision I choose
At the end of day
There will be night
My time to rest
And remain out of sight

Tomorrow
I shall take the back roads
Miles away from my troubled life
Miles and miles
Beyond those evil eyes of strife

Tonight
I will sleep under the stars
With my loyal companion
By my side

Now
He gives me that inquisitive stare
“Don’t look at me like that
I know mate, I know
I should never have left the wife”

Ivor Steven (c) September 2022

I Wish, I Was Green, 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 “I Wish, I Was Green”, 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/i-wish-i-was-green/

Tullawalla Is Here!!

My old school-case from sixty-years ago, full of “Tullawalla Books”

My house has been invaded by “Tullawalla Books” … come over and join the party, and lets celebrate … my long awaited SELF-PUBLISHED new edition is NOW available
… contact me via my web-email >> ivorrs20@gmail.com The book is only $20.00 AU plus postage & handling. If you are interested in purchasing a book, send me an email, I’ll send a PayPal Invoice out to you.

This Fence (Tullawalla, page 33)

I am quickly nearing this fence.

An obstacle of a lifetime I see.

And from my side of this fence,

The hurdle is too high for me.

And on the other side of this fence,

There seems nowhere to land or flee.

I have arrived at this fence,

Above the pickets, just grey sky.

And on my side of this fence,

The grass is brown and dry.

On the other side of this fence,

The grass is green, but still I cry.

How am I to clear this fence,

There seems nowhere to go or get by.

This fence, all built of stones,

Breaks my spirit, and all my bones.

Ivor Steven (c) September 2022

This Lost Shadow, A “10” Year Celebration

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

Melpomene

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