Month: September 2020

Many More Sunrises

Today I was up and going at sunrise

Preparing for an important check-up on my heart’s demise

Early in the morning an angel came and shaved my chest

Ready for the procedures arduous test

And I was wired-up and plugged in

Calmly listening to sounds of harps playing

Then I heard a tune by Leonard Cohen

And my mind was peacefully drifting



I’m smiling, I must have looked contented

My Doctor nodded in acknowledgement

Seeing my ‘muses’ T-shirt at the bedhead

Suddenly, faster and stepper I must tread

Until finally the machine slowed down

And I’m resting on the bed in my hospital gown

Waiting for my heartrate to normalise

Then the angel leans over and whispers, “you’ll see many more sunrises”




Ivor Steven (c) Sept 2020.

Who’s Carrying the Torch

This new Fall fell

Leaving us no time to dwell

Nothing will ever be the same

Where’s the old Olympic flame?



The world’s bubble has burst

Pricked by a deflating curse

Then captured inside the owner’s empty purse

Are we spinning in reverse?



The snails have left their shells

Searching for a new citadel

Lugging the fading Olympic torch

Can the cauldron again light-up our front porch?




Ivor Steven (c) Sept 21020

Promote Yourself Monday, September 28, 2020

Dear readers and followers, here’s a great opportunity for your writings to be read by other writers, and also to find and meet other writers. You are very welcome to participate, come along and visit our writer friendly site at ‘Go Dog Go Cafe’…

Go Dog Go Café

Promote yourself Mon

Welcome to Promote Yourself Monday.  All Go Dog Go Cafe community members are invited to post one link to one specific piece of their writing (600 words or less please!) they have published on their blog, Facebook page, or Instagram feed into the comments section below.

If you post a link, be sure to read some of the other great writing people have linked to.

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A Ladybug Flies in From Bensalem

This week over on Weekly Prompts, the Weekend challenge is;  Oddities. Please go over and visit their fabulous site by clicking on this link… >> >>https://weeklyprompts.com/2020/09/26/weekend-challenge-oddities/ . During the week I was live video-online chatting to my cousin from Bensalem, an outer suburb of Philadelphia, and “oddly” she was excitedly talking out her “Ladybug Farm Kit”, and how she going to be proud owner of newly born/hatched little ladybugs !!… She enthusiastically sent me photos of her new “little pets”. I’m smiling broadly to myself, and I told her “your quaint little oddity, has inspired me write an odd little poem about the ladybugs”….


A Ladybug Flies in From Bensalem

A scarlet caped ladybug

Lands on my sleeve and gently shrugs

Resting there, snug as a bug on a rug

And honouring me with love and soft hugs



Nature’s tiniest of goddesses

Who fans us with butterfly kisses

Quietly sharing good fortune and best wishes

Then silently flittering away to the next Hibiscus






Ivor Steven (c) Sept 2020

A Crack in the Wall

I originally wrote this piece in 2012, and then posted it here on my WordPress site in June 2017, and in December 2017, I was fortunate enough to have this poem published by the ‘Vita Brevis Magazine’, and I thoroughly recommend to all my readers and followers, to visit and support this superb Poetry Magazine,  >> https://vitabrevisliterature.com/vita-brevis-poetry/


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 tomorrow’s cases

Full of dusty dreams

Clutching torn curtains

Darkened to the outside worlds

Passing a crumbling brick wall

Weakened by the original fall



Ivor Steven (c) Sept 2020

Bohemian Lyrics – Ivor Steven

Thank you to “Free Verse Revolution” magazine, and the editor Kristiana for selecting my poem to be published in their fabulous magazine…

FREE VERSE REVOLUTION

What we imagine

And what is real

Are not the same deal

Dust, life’s spicks and specks

Are blended, inside earth’s vortex

We’re only our solar system’s subjects

And beyond gathering grey clouds

There is, the stars sheltering shroud

Whatever the words, let them roll

Whatever the feelings, let them be our soul

Gaea’s translucent words, touches the air we breath

Captivating lyrics, within the whispering trees

Old lines drawn in the sand

May be erased by forgiving hands

Time deflects in the end

Time rewinds and amends

Love is the world’s mystical lotion

Love is an empty hearts’ bohemian

Ivor is a part-time plumber, former Industrial Chemist. He has had numerous poems published in on-line magazines. He is an active member of the Geelong Writers Inc., and recently Ivor was appointed to the ‘Go Dog Go Cafe’s’ writing team, as one their new Baristas.

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Beyond the Swallowing Quicksand

My body is beginning to tire

And I am in need of a new fire



Beyond the swallowing quicksand

Here now, I surely stand

Resurrected, upon solid ground

And what a maze destiny’s unwound


Inside my fading mind

Lays an old silver mine

Of tunnels yet to be found

Where unused treasures abound

Awaiting a silent command

From my lost soul’s dreamland




Ivor Steven (c) Sept 2020

Who’s Left to Row the Boat

G’day dear readers, today I’m celebrating !! It’s exactly “20” years since I suffered my first stroke…. And HERE I am, another “2” strokes later, still alive and kicking goals….. Below is my poem I wrote only a few years ago, to try and explain the pain and trauma I was feeling at the time of my first stroke…. Some of you have seen/read this piece before, but to celebrate my recovery, I’m presenting this poem again, and hopefully promote what I think is the essence of life – “How rare and beautiful it truly is that we exist”.


Who’s Left to Row the Boat

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) Sept 2020