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)
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
Presenting another poem from my new book “Tullawalla”
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
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…
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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
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/
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
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/
Ivor Steven © September 2022
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
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
Last night I attended the Geelong Writers Inc. monthly dinner/get together, which also featured the Book Launch of their new bi-annual Chapbook, Anomaly Street, and if you read the photo/scans attached below, you will understand my excitement of being selected in this outstanding collection of poetry with a difference, that creates jolts for flatlined minds ..
This is how my poem appeared in the Chapbook
Ivor Steven © July 2022
My poem ‘Water-logged Boots, was published at FREE VERSE REVOLUTION, in November 2019, and thank you to the editor Kristiana for her kind consideration of my piece…
And today on Weekly Prompts the Weekend Challenge is: Boots . Please go over and visit their fabulous site by clicking >> Here . Appropriately in response to their prompt, I have reposted this poem from 3 years ago.
Yes, I am small in this overburdened world
But I flutter freely when unfurled
I could be a family picture collage
Or a tiny squirrel amongst the foliage
On his journey of ups and downs
Collecting and storing his acorns
The trick is to enjoy the ups
While the floodgates are shut
Sometimes I did nearly drown
Other times I floated upside down
During the many seasonal rains
I wondered if I would ever swim again
So then I pretended to write a biblical book
Ignorantly thinking no-one would ever look
Afterwards, I thought I could walk on water
Then my boots became water-logged
And if you need to walk a mile in my shoes
You will have to learn how to swim and sing the blues
Ivor Steven (c) March 2022
Ivor.Plumber/Poet 