Month: November 2021

In The Blink Of An Eye (a Tanka) is up at Coffee House Writers Magazine

Hello dear readers and followers, as you may know, I now write for “Coffee House Writers” magazine on a fortnightly basis, and my Tanka “In The Blink Of An Eye”, is in this weeks edition of Coffee House Writers Magazine.  … please click on the link below and visit my poem/Tanka, at Coffee House Writers …
>> https://coffeehousewriters.com/the-blink-of-an-eye/

A special thank you to Ingril of > https://experimentsinfiction.com/ , for recommending I watch the movie “The Diving Bell And The Butterfly”, and my Tanka below is a brief summary of my thoughts about the movie …

Coffee House WritersCoffee House Writers

In The Blink Of An Eye (a Tanka)
Once again, Ivor brings alive inspiration of the heart and mind.
Written byIvor Steven
Est. reading time1 minute






In The Blink Of An Eye



Tears on my pillow

Butterflies on the ceiling

I see silent bells

Where memories never drown

And imagination thrives






Ivor Steven (c) November 2021

Promote Yourself Monday, November 29, 2021

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…..by clicking on the link at the bottom of this article >>
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Go Dog Go Café

Promote yourself Mon

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.

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

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A Sudden Change of Plans

Ironically or coincidently, after re-posting several poems from my hospitalisation time three years ago … I suddenly found out that I am to be back in hospital for a short stay during the week … but I am only going up to level four, not that far from the ground floor, and within a short walk to the front door …


A Sudden Change of Plans


Early on Friday

I received a phone call

From the Geelong hospital

Informing me that my elective surgery

Was unexpectedly moved to be on next week


Then suddenly

Early this morning

Under the precautionary health guidelines

I was sent to be tested for the ‘Covid’ virus


And now I am in home isolation

For the next three days

Prior to my left elbow surgery

Early Wednesday morning


If everything goes according to plan

And all being well

I should be home

Early Wednesday evening





Ivor Steven (c) November 2021

Either Way

On Weekly Prompts, the Weekend Challenge is: Fork In The Road , please go over and visit their fabulous site by clincking >> Here . The poem “Either Way” below is my response to their prompt

Either Way


At this point in time

Do you feel we have lost our way?

Our spinning world of rhyme

Is one big rotting orb of grime


Our life’s a journey

A climb up into the light

Or a fall into Hades

Either way, over time

Has existence become jaded?


We wait for a calming serenade

From above dark clouds full of pain

Us mere mortals need a different space

If our dreams are to ascend beyond this place





Ivor Steven (c) November 2021

December’s Creativity Prompt Challenge: Once Upon a December

Here is some writing prompts from ‘Brave & Reckless’ for December

Brave & Reckless

For December, I look to book titles related to Christmas, the month of December, and Winter for inspiration.

The books that these prompts are drawn from represent many different voices and points of view.  I hope that you find them as evocative as I do and that you will be intrigued enough to learn more about them.

There is only one rule to my prompt challenge: the poem or book title should serve as the title of your piece OR all the words of the title should be integrated into your piece somehow.   

I LOVE posting your prompt responses on Brave & Reckless.  I welcome your poetry, prose, flash fiction, creative nonfiction, essay, and art.  I will accept responses to any of December’s prompts on any day, but will not start publishing them on Brave & Reckless until December 1st.

Email your prompt responses with a short bio…

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Throwback Friday, Lines To Nowhere, by Ivor Steven

This Weeks Throwback Friday poem at “Go Dog Go Cafe” is “Lines To Nowhere” from November 2018

Go Dog Go Café

Over on my website, I have recently re-posted two of my older poems from a time three years ago, when I was beginning a three month stay in hospital. I was originally suffering from a “mystery” virus, and then I had a stroke, followed by another minor stroke. … Somehow I managed to write about that three month journey via my poems, and today I’m presenting a poem I wrote from my hospital bed during the second week of hospitalisation.

Lines To Nowhere

My curtains were opened

I saw a setting eclipse

And I decided to walk

To the south side of the moon

Taking my own spoon

I heard there’s a cheese-cake tasting

A sweet crumbly base

Topped with blueberries and cream

Life’s not about lying in bed

I’ll meet you for a kiss

After school

Down by the old pool

Ivor Steven (c) October 2018

G’day, and welcome…

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Level Seven

Today with this reblog, my hospitalisation story, in poems from three years ago continues …



Level Seven


I’m here on level seven

I might nearly see heaven

Suddenly the silent wall slaps me hard

With a soul shattering boom

My heart recites to me, her tune of doom

A building of gray bricks

Comes crashing down on me

I’m crying remorseful tears

‘Twas her hospital for thirty years

We would always either be home or here

Backwards and forwards

Short visits, long stays

Inside out, upside down

Wounded hopes, broken dreams

Decades of her gracious courage, never undenied

Now I lay on her memories, here she died


Ivor Steven (c) 2018

A Blue Shark in My bed

This time three years ago, was the beginning of my three months is hospital, originally suffering from a “mystery” virus, and then I had a stroke, followed by another minor stroke. … Somehow I managed to write about that three month journey via my poems, and today I’m presenting the first poem I wrote from my hospital bed during that time …

A Blue Shark in My bed




I’m lying in bed, hallucinating

They’ve given me too many pain killers

Swimming between soaked sheets

In an ocean of hot sweat

I see a blue shark in my bed

Angrily circling me

That killers glint in his eyes

His giant jaws open wide

And he viciously bites me

Piercing my lower neck

And poking my left eye out

My blood is boiling on the red sea


If this is hell, please ring the bell

I shall pray to save my soul, and be set free

I’m swirling in drugs, I cannot think

My eyes are shut, I cannot blink

Where are you mum

I was always your number one

She’d make me my favourite cake

A passion-fruit sponge she’d bake

I sense a benevolent friend, if he’s not too late

Smuggling me a gun, past white guards, inside mum’s cake


To you who cannot see me, I’m an ancient fable

Who’s about to leave the table

With the rest of the disabled

I’ll look for you, in your higher stables

How can I find my way back?

I’ve lost my winding track

Life for me cannot be the same

I’m not recovering, I’m losing the game

Forgotten my name and where to aim

Destiny has me old and lame





Ivor Steven (c) November 2021

New Mushrooms, by Ivor Steven

I’m thrilled to announce that a second poem of mine “New Mushrooms” was also selected by the Red Wolf Journal for their up-coming 2022 Spring Edition Anthology, a sincere thank you to the editor Irene for accepting my poem.

https://youtu.be/cl4cLEToPfc

Ivor Steven (c) November 2021

Red Wolf Journal

New Mushrooms
by Ivor Steven

After the storm
Old boundaries were transformed
Fences were moved and torn
Fields smelled of rotting corn
Patient vultures remained airborne
Above the drowning longhorn’s

After the storm
I rested under the peppercorn
And I saw new mushrooms rise with the dawn

Ivor Steven was formerly an Industrial Chemist, then a Plumber, and has been writing for 20 years. He is a member of Geelong Writer Inc (Australia), a team member with the on-line blog-site ‘Go Dog Go Cafe (America), and is a writer for the Coffee House Writers Magazine (America).

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