A White Wall, Whiter Than White (Re-whitewashed)

This Weekend on Weekly Prompts, it’s their first Colour Challenge of 2021 and appropriately they have chosen the colour: White. Please go over and visit their fabulous site by clicking >> Here. My poem is a “Re-Whitewash from 2 years ago..

A White Wall, Whiter Than White

I’m lying here in my white-walled bedroom

My body’s been feeling white-hot

The white ceiling fan is cooling me down

Laying under only white sheets

Covering my white skin

This is not the White House

I don’t lie that much

I’ve not white false hair

So my white halo stays on

Without looking like a silly clown

Outside, my great side wall is white

The back courtyard is safe and secure

No non-whites can’t get in or out

Unless they desperately needed to

The great backyard wall

May be easily scaled

With a sturdy white ladder

I’m trumped, here in Australia

Walls don’t even keep out the flies

I’ve been reading my history books

The white walls built in the past

They have never lasted

Over they climbed

Or under they crawled

The walls were eaten by dust mites

Resilient as a feather duster

And pulled down by liberators, in disdain and shame

Ivor Steve (c)  2019

The Quill and Self-will

Tired eyes slowly open

The room is blurrily sloping

My lips are numb and dry

And I cannot see the sky



Three weeks I’ve been here

While my body is in recovery

Nurses say I’ll soon be out of this wheelchair

And I’ll be home with community health care



How will I cope I despair

My arm is idle and I cannot weight bear

And my speech is impaired

With a memory drifting in mid-air

I am unable to read or write

And daytime may as well be midnight



Three months have passed by

I am doing a morning crossword and my smile begins to cry

But there is a knowing sparkle in my eye

Upon my notepad I’ve scrawled lines of rhyme awry

Ivor Steven (c) Nov 2020

Faerie Pantomime

Mid morning and here comes the sun

The Wala* goddess smiles on everyone

Enriching the bloody goodness in our veins

And saturating our skin when the sky rains



Is your blood the same colour as mine?

Does your skin drip-dry under the same sunshine?

Are your dreams moonbeam snippets of time?

Do you imagine the world to be a faerie’s pantomime?

And we the audience, laughing at their mystical rhymes

Together dancing and ringing the city’s peace chimes




*Wala: Aboriginal mythical sun goddess.

Ivor Steven (c) October 2020

Faerie Pantomime

This week’s Wednesday Challenge on Weekly Prompts is, Badly Cropped. Please go and visit their fabulous site by clicking >> Here . Below is my abstract response to the prompt… Where I ‘Imagine’ the world has been “Badly Cropped” in recent times..

Faerie Pantomime

Mid morning and here comes the sun

The Wala* goddess smiles on everyone

Enriching the bloody goodness in our veins

And saturating our skin when the sky rains



Is your blood the same colour as mine?

Does your skin drip-dry under the same sunshine?

Are your dreams moonbeam snippets of time?

Do you imagine the world to be a faerie’s pantomime?

And we the audience, laughing at their mystical rhymes

Together dancing and ringing the city’s peace chimes





*Wala: Aboriginal mythical solar goddess.

Ivor Steven (c) October 2020

Silently She Cries

On Weekly Prompts, the Wednesday challenge is: FOR THE BIRDS. Please go over and visit their fabulous site by clicking >> HERE. The below Haiku, is my response to the prompt.

Silently She Cries

In the sky somewhere

There’s the old peace dove crying

In silence, she’ll die

Ivor Steven (c) June 2020.

We Are Sour, But We Have the Power

Out of the blue ocean, into the black sea

We still appear wet behind our ears

And still burning bridges made out of ancient trees

Repeating the same old questions, while wearing our masks of tears

 

What about looking at nature’s dragonflies and bees?

How do they live in harmony without the fears?

We are the carriers of this corrupt disease

Ignoring our racist problems for too many years

 

 

Ivor Steven (c)  June 2020

Below, the lyrics to “Nina Cried Power” by Hozier, please read and sing along…..

“Nina Cried Power”
(feat. Mavis Staples)

[Hozier:]
It’s not the waking, it’s the rising
It is the grounding of a foot uncompromising
It’s not forgoing of the lie
It’s not the opening of eyes
It’s not the waking, it’s the risingIt’s not the shade, we should be past it
It’s the light, and it’s the obstacle that casts it
It’s the heat that drives the light
It’s the fire it ignites
It’s not the waking, it’s the rising

It’s not the song, it is the singing
It’s the heaven of a human spirit ringing
It is the bringing of the line
It is the bearing of the rhyme
It’s not the waking, it’s the rising

[Hozier & Mavis Staples:]
And I could cry power (Power), power (Power)
Power, Lord
Nina cried power
Billie cried power
Mavis cried power
And I could cry (Power) power, (Power) power
Hey, power
Curtis cried power
Patti cried power
Nina cried power

[Hozier:]
It’s not the wall, but what’s behind it
Oh, the fear of fellow man, it’s mere assignment
And everything that we’re denied
By keeping the divide
It’s not the waking, it’s the rising

[Hozier & Mavis Staples:]
And I could cry power (Power), power (Power)
Oh, power
Nina cried power
Lennon cried power
James Brown cried power
And I could cry (Power) power, (Power) power
Hey, power
B.B. cried power
Joni cried power
Nina cried power

[Mavis Staples:]
And I could cry power
Power has been cried by those stronger than me
Straight into the face that tells you
To rattle your chains if you love being free

[Hozier & Mavis Staples:]
But I could cry power (Power)
‘Cause power is my love when my love reaches to me
James Brown cried power
Seeger cried power
Marvin cried power
Yeah ah, power
James cried power
Lennon cried power
Patti cried power
Billie, power
Dylan, power
Woody, power
Nina cried power

I, Can Breathe

“The language of friendship is not words but meanings”  … Henry David Thoreau

I, Can Breathe

 

I don’t own much

I don’t owe much

I share what I have

I have hope and love……

 

Oh, we, the drowned

We, the broken

We, the leftover pieces

We, hoping for peace

 

I see their choices

I hear their voices

I am defiant

I, cannot be a tyrant

I, cannot be violent

I, cannot be silent

 

 

Ivor Steven (c)  June 2020

Chocolates After Midnight

 

My stomachs rumbling

Upset and tumbling

I’ve been swallowing lumps of dark chocolate

And guzzling black coffee from stained goblets

 

The grey smokey clouds of yesterday

Have stuck around like muddy brown clay

Has this captain midnight moved into stay?

Will charcoal pencils write about peace today?

 

 

Ivor Steven (c)  June 2020

Who’s The Saddest

.

My smokey eyes have been faltering

Sad necessary tears have me wavering

Looking down the knife-edges

Balancing on red cliff-edges

.

How will the fog of darkness be lifted?

From angry souls that have drifted

Mirror, mirror, who’s the saddest

Mirror, mirror, where is forgiveness

.

The heart-breakers came around

Killing a black-rose on the ground

Deep down we all feel hollow

And none can see the peace-smoke halo

.

.

Ivor Steven (c) June 2020

We Sing, and We Sing

Is there a song?

Between who is sad, and who is wrong

Beyond this prolonged swan song

 

How long, is too long?

Along these throngs of torch songs

Headstrong, and head-on

 

We know their theme song

We are all in the wrong

Oh. We, are the wrong

 

Listen to the birdsong

Listen to her lifelong song

Listen to nature humming along

 

 

Ivor Steven (c)  May 2020.

“We, The Drowned”, Lyrics by Lisa Hannigan

We, the drowned
Hold our hollow hearted ground
Til we swallow ourselves down
AgainWe, the ashes,
We spend our days like matches
And burned ourselves as black as
The end.

 

We know not the fire in which we burn
But we sing and we sing
And the flames grow higher.
We read not the pages which we turn
But we sing, and we sing, and we sing, and we sing

We, the wrong,
We the sewn up and long gone,
Were before and all along
Like this

We, the drowned
The lost and found out,
We are all finished again.