Tag: Tullawalla

Throwback Friday, My Broken Mast, by Ivor Steven

Presenting another poem from my new book “Tullawalla”

ivor20's avatarGo 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

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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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

In Your Time (a Haiku)


Tullawalla is now Available at Amazon
>> https://www.amazon.com/Tullawalla-Meeting-Memories-Australian-Languages/dp/0645377023/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1IICHBAUD55HH&keywords=Tullawalla&qid=1663803829&s=books&sprefix=tullawalla%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C276&sr=1-2

A Haiku from Tullawalla, “Page 118”



In Your Time (a Hiaku)



You can’t fly pass time

Travel with time, hand in hand

Time is not faceless






Ivor Steven (c) September 2022

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.

https://youtu.be/Mi8DCdx2EDg


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

Echoes, Tullawalla, page 147

I can hear the echoes from Tullawalla sounding closer …

Echoes


My night’s sleep was calm and sound

Despite the deafening noise of echo’s 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 yesterday’s wind burns

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






Ivor Steven (c) August 2022

A Crack in The Wall, Tullawalla, page 40

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






A Crack in The Wall


Placing yesteryear’s photos

In that bygone album

Cutting window holes

In today’s front door

Pasting forgotten memories

In the Bible, so forlorn

Packing tomorrows cases

Full of dusty dreams

Clutching torn curtains

Darkened to the outside world

Passing a crumbling brick wall

Weakened by the original fall






Ivor Steven (c) August 2022

If Only Walls Could Talk, Tullawalla, page 65

Tullawalla:

Illustration by Kerri Costello


Chapter 4

Humour, Wit, Sarcasm, And Christmas Stories


If Only Walls Could Talk




It’s true you know

Walls can talk

So I’ve been told

By a beautiful Rose

You’ll have to listen

Listen very closely

Put your ear against the wall

Use a stethoscope if you must

Listen to the wooden heart

Standing proud and tall

A rough soul rendered smooth

Layers of paint, every hue

Covering up dusty memories

Of hearts lost through years of cavities

Like the old Wailing Wall

You’re walking along a history hall

Your secrets, one and all

They’ve heard every gasp

Your children’s moans

And your lover’s groans






Ivor Steven (c) August 2022