Two Thousand and Twenty: A Dual Haiku
Last year’s sins are gone
New year eerily hovers
Could be right or wrong
The bells toll louder
Perennially we jeer
Is there an answer
Featured Image: From, City Of Greater Geelong 2020 Calendar, photo by Edward, of Eastern Beach.
Ivor Steven (c) Dec 30th 2020
Dreaming of midnight rainbows
Illuminating the night’s rowdy crows
And I am hearing a tune of fat raindrops
Splashing upon my iron rooftop
Softly landing like pieces of strawberry pavlova
Gently followed by slices of Christmas pudding
Smothered in warm custard and cream
Then I see my sweet tooth faerie
Conducting the Nutcracker Pantomime
Where their symphony and my illusions combine
Ivor Steven (c) December 2020
Dear readers and followers, have a happy New Year, and to celebrate, 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…..by clicking on the link at the bottom of this article >>
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Welcome toPromote Yourself Monday. All Go Dog Go Cafe community members are invited to postonelink 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.
Afternoon Moonbeams
time beckons
second after second
years fly by
over sea and sky
love gleams
between moonbeams and sunbeams
love thrives
from beehive to beehive
life rebounds
in leaps and bounds
Ivor Steven (c) December 2020
“Fall”
Hide your horses, hold your tongue
Hang the rich and spare the young
Who drain the spirits from the jars
Hop the fences, steal the cars
Run on fumes and from the north
And burn for us right through the fall
All the ladies call your name
Brush your hair like it could be tamed
Hitch their dresses past the knees
Spilling to the floor like ease
They swing the bridges one and more
And burn for us right through the fall
All our running ahead, all our running ahead
All our running ahead, all our running ahead
And we’ll seize the captain’s wheel
A mutiny we’ve come to feel
When will their aiming’s gone from view
With everything we thought to do
Oh, the devil won’t have me
I wonder who will, I wonder who will
All our running is a crawl
And burns for us right through the fall
All our running ahead, all our running ahead
All our running ahead, all our running ahead
All our running, all our running
All our running, all our running
Christmas day around our sphere
A new frontier of hope and cheer
Enough food to outlast the big freeze
Enough drink to buckle a camel at the knees
Miles of smiles returning from exile
After hurdling a season of rusty turnstiles
I’m heavy enough to sink like a stone
Light enough in the head to fly to the moon
Ivor Steven (c) December 2020
Life’s a green mirage
A shimmering oasis
Of dry crying eyes
Ivor Steven (c) December 2020
One of my favourite writers here on WordPress, Colleen, of ‘Chatter Blog’ wrote this article a few days ago >> https://bikecolleenbrown.wordpress.com/2020/12/19/what-have-i-done/ ..
Her diagram touched me deeply, and I felt compelled to say something, but like Colleen’s words, I was also wondering “What Have I Done”, and I finally came up with this poem, which has left me saying to myself, “What Am I Trying To Say” ??
Our Leftover Burden
To the parents everywhere
Distance holds no barrier
To the warmth you have in your hearts
Do not worry about the mess
We have left our children
They are lovingly in good hands
Eternally surrounded
By heaven’s vast universe
Safely protected
By the sky’s resilient atmosphere
We are all able to share the burden
Of earth’s weighty gravity
Life’s picture is not always what we imagine to see
But a momentary glimpse of what real life is to be
Ivor Steven (c) December 2020
Congratulations, Ivor! https://experimentsinfiction.com/2020/12/23/eif-childhood-poetry-challenge-the-results/
The results are in! Judge Nick Reeves, had a hard job arriving at his decision. But decide he did, and so I hand over to Nick to bring you the results of the final EIF Poetry Challenge of 2020:
Season’s greetings one and all! It has been an honour (and a challenge!) to be able to judge the 12th EIF Poetry Challenge of 2020. The subject being The Poetry of Childhood. The response has been so overwhelming that picking an overall 1st, 2nd and 3rd place from all of the poems struck me (as the week progressed and my inbox buckled) as an impossible task!
The young poets, of whom there were many, who deserve a special mention are as follows…
‘Rollercoasters‘ by Benji, 8 years old
Rollercoasters go so fast.
Around the loop the loop around you go
very fast yes very fast.
And you go so high like a bird in the sky.
Yes yes yes you’re the best fun ride of all!
Rollercoasters is a wonderfully visual, frenetic piece of work that can barely contain its joy and excitement! It sparks with a surprisingly bright energy for such a compact poem. What draws the eye immediately is the skilful wordplay and movement of the second line – Around the loop/the loop around. This skilful play is continued in the 3rd line where the affirmative ‘yes’ is balanced at the centre of the blurring and repeated ‘very fast’! Quite dizzying!
Sprinkle and Twinkle
Glitter and Gold
On Christmas Eve
I’m not going to get cold.
On Christmas day
I’m going to rush down
So lively and quick
Hoping for presents from St. Nick.
Such immediacy again! I have particularly enjoyed the entries from our younger writers this challenge. Sprinkle and Twinkle is a visual poem of place and sensation. It also captures, quite brilliantly, the notion of the passage of time – in itself a very tricky concept to write about. It is a piece that balances the excitement and anticipation of Christmas Eve/ Christmas Day at home. The youthfulness shines through in almost every line and the reader cannot help but be drawn into the excitement
‘I’m going to rush down
So lively and quick’
I adore the hope evoked in this lovely little poem. Congratulations! Do keep writing! And I hope that Saint Nick delivers!
The fire burns with a bright light
In the darkest of nights, the stars shine
I open my heart, unveil it with care
Everything falls into place, layer by layer
Christmas is in the air!
I realize, being happy is not too hard
As a feeling of joy tingles my heart.
My favorite thing about Christmas?
The joy, the vibe, the sense of being alive
A merry cheer from someone near
A smile from the homeless man sitting by the canal
Looking at me with sparkling eyes
Are just enough to make my heart smile.
The way my family gets together
Making pacts, sticking by one another forever
Inhaling the aroma of freshly brewed love
Experiencing the warmth of humanity, it holds my heart like a glove.
Protecting me from the harsh world,
Keeping me safe when I feel lost and alone.
Give without sparing, love without hating
Hug without withholding, dance without over-thinking
Open your heart, fill it with love
There’s darkness, but you are the light that can shine like the sun.
©Rishika Jain 2020. All rights reserved.
The third piece of work in the young poets section that deserves a special credit is Christmas is in the air (Winter Wonders : Joy). It is surprising and a delight. Immediately, the reader senses the rapid advance of the years (though there is only 5 years difference between this and the earlier selected winning poems). Here we find a young poet pushing against the boundaries of childhood into a mature and thoughtful arena: and triumphs! It is a longer form free-verse piece that succeeds in addressing both childlike and adult qualities. Indeed, there is something old and wise (Dickensian?) in the opening lines that set the scene wonderfully –
The streets are quiet, the weather is cold
There’s a tale in my heart, waiting to be told.
The fire burns with a bright light
There is a maturity tempered with youthfulness at work/play here in lines such as –
‘The joy, the vibe, the sense of being alive’
and –
‘Hug without withholding, dance without over-thinking’
that I find to be very telling of a young mind discovering its poetic skills: the subtle wordplay, the extended metaphors (‘I open my heart, unveil it with care/Everything falls into place, layer by layer’) and the awareness of those less fortunate. This is an excellent piece of work and I hope to see more from this poet – as I hope to from the writers of Rollercoasters and Sprinkle and Twinkle and, indeed, everyone of our young writers who took up this EIF challenge! Many, many thanks and please, keep writing!
***
The ‘adult’ section again brought its own difficulties and I realised that my decisions could only be subjective. Bearing this in mind here are my favourite entries…
Ho Ho, there is a child in me
splashing in the cool summer sea
dreaming of distant alpine trees
fluttering like a pretty butterfly in the breeze
laughing under moss covered circus marquees
and there is that day I sat on Santa’s knee
asking for my red-head to be set free
wishing her a life of peace and tranquility
Lost memories of my early childhood
Are far now from being too clear
Wanderings as though through a wild wood
blinking back many a tear
Then waking up soon with the sunrise
A morning so brave and so bold
I gazed slowly upon those bright skies
And watched as the day did unfold
I remember some scrapes in the back yard
Wild flowers beside a brick wall
I fell on some stones they were too hard
I picked myself up from my fall
i remember a dog that scared me
Almost it seemed near to death
I stared and felt helpless and lonely
I struggled with shortness of breath
I screamed and I cried
But the dog didn’t bite
Then I ran back inside
And shivered with fright
That’s all that I fear I have left
Of the first few years of my life
Alone now and feeling bereft
Of a time filled with joy and with strife
The streets are quiet, the weather is cold
There’s a tale in my heart, waiting to be told.
When was the last time
You heard children
Singing in Latin,
Every note clear and sweet,
Every vowel in its proper place,
Your gaze transfixed
By the unwavering flame
Of brass-tipped beeswax?
If you ever again
Hear children
Singing in Latin,
Will you dare
Turn around
To see their faces?
What chimed with this piece is the sense of ‘looking back’ and so, ‘returning’ to childhood. It is a skilful and considered poem that evokes the past (Latin!), tradition (the service) without being melancholy. I admire the stillness and the final dare. Bravo!
Once again, many thanks to everyone who got involved. And much love to Ingrid from Experiments In Fiction for her extraordinary effort this year!
Much love from Reeves Towers!
Ivor Steven (c) December 2020
In response to Sadje’s of ‘Keep It Alive’ Prompt, What Do You See? #61… And please go and visit her fabulous site by clicking >> Here.
The Old Child In Me
Ho Ho, there is a child in me
splashing in the cool summer sea
dreaming of distant alpine trees
fluttering like a pretty butterfly in the breeze
laughing under moss covered circus marquees
and there is that day I sat on Santa’s knee
asking for my red-head to be set free
wishing her a life of peace and tranquillity
Ivor Steven (c) December 2020
Hello dear readers and followers. There’s only 2 days until Christmas, and amazingly I’ve managed to produce my “Twenty First Tullawalla” Poetry Booklet….. For new readers that don’t know about these booklets, they are basically the reason why I write poetry. I produce these ‘home-printed’ booklets for the sole purpose of raising funds for my favourite charity organisation, the MS Society, in Australia via the MS Charity Shop here in Geelong. And actually all money’s I receive for any of my poetry .via, submissions, I donate to the MS Society…. I’m proud to announce, that the sale of my “Tullawalla Booklets”, have now gone pass $1400.00, … to all the lovely readers, who have donated, to help achieve such a wonderful amount, a big heartfelt thank you, from “us” and the MS Society … …..Amazingly, there is now a total of “867 poems”, in my collection/series of 21 Tullawalla Booklets. This booklet is finally completed, and ready for sale now !! As always, they are available for purchase, either as a hard copy or a PDF format….. All proceeds go to the MS Charity Shop, here in Geelong West….. Please contact me here through my website page and I can chat about arrangements from there…. Oh, the booklet is called “Tullawalla”: “On And On We Go”… …. And here is the link to my website >> https://ivors20.wordpress.com
Ivor.Plumber/Poet 