Will There Be a Boat To Steer? (a Tanka)

My New Year Poem, and wishing my readers a safe and healthy 2023.

Featured Imagr Above: A photo of Graeme Altmann’s amazing painting, “Hopeful Return”, from a Geelong Writers Inc. Ekphrastic Writng Workshop at the Boom Gallery, Sept 2018.



Will There Be a Boat To Steer


The new year draws near

Heavy clouds are yet to clear

From our atmosphere

Will there be a boat to steer?

Toward life’s unmapped frontier








Tullawalla is Available From

Jaymah Press:https://www.jaymahpress.com.au/

Ivor Steven: email, ivorrs20@gmail.com

Amazon: search via, ‘Tullawalla by Ivor Steven’


AND
Perceptions is Now Available via:

Jaymah Press: https://www.jaymahpress.com.au/

Lulu Books: https://www.lulu.com/shop/ivor-steven-and-derrick-knight/perceptions/hardcover/product-2pwqe4.html?q=Perceptions+by+Ivor+Steven&page=1&pageSize=4

OR: email me directly for a signed copy – ivorrs20@gmail.com


Ivor Steven (c) January 2023

Crisscross (a Tanka)




Crisscross (a Tanka)


The deep blue sky-ways

Magnify intrusive wires

Artificial lines

Crisscross every horizon

But nature holds the power





Tullawalla is Available From;

Jaymah Press:https://www.jaymahpress.com.au/

Ivor Steven: email, ivorrs20@gmail.com

Amazon: search via, ‘Tullawalla by Ivor Steven’

AND
Perceeptions is Now Available via:

Jaymah Press: https://www.jaymahpress.com.au/

OR email me directly for a signed copy – ivorrs20@gmail.com




Ivor Steven (c) December 2022

The World Could Be Falling Down

Here is a poem that is in my files, but does not appear on my Website, maybe I deleted the post accidentally …


The World Could Be Falling Down




I was walking in yesterday’s deluge

up a steep holy hillside

talking to my fading shadow

that was stalking deep puddles

while I was balking today’s thunderbolts




my knees were knocking in fright

and my hips were rocking like Noah’s Ark

while shovelling leftover manure in the dark




nature’s mocking the world full of old lonely hearts

and blocking the future’s already drowning restart






Ivor Steven (c) August 2022

My Alien Eyes Have Seen Enough

This is one of my ranting/protesting poems, where the world’s weird ways and woes are vividly pictured in my dreams/nightmares … (June 2019) … Or maybe my ‘Alien Back Pain’ has me angry and grumpy, and I am just desperate for some interplanetary respite.


My Alien Eyes Have Seen Enough


I’m scattering stardust, upon sorrow and grace

Tip toeing through a desert of dying tulips

Before my species vacate this miserable place

Blasting away from here, in my Itmims* spaceship

Flying back into the depths of dark space

To regenerate and revive, from this trying trip


Sadly, we gathered nothing of any value

From this warring human race

Their radioactive sky, was once bright blue

Vast oceans are full of their own waste

They breathe thin air made of sticky glue

And the earth they walk on, is a garbage tip disgrace


Their concrete graveyards, are the warlords database

Women and children, dead, casualties of religious lunatics

My alien eyes have seen enough, I’m leaving without a trace

Political gamer’s never learn, they’re still reusing old septic ice-picks

  • *Ivor’s Time Machine In Micro Space





Ivor Steven (c)  June 2019

Who’s Rowing My Boat in the Dark?

I’m reposting this poem of mine from August 2020, for two reasons. 1. The poem gives me a chance to present one of my favourite songs by Leonard Cohen. 2. I like this poem, because the piece is open for the reader to interpret my thoughts images in whatever way their feel is right for them.

Who’s Rowing My Boat in the Dark?


Am I in hibernation?

Or am I lacking inclination?

Am I awake and living?

Or just lying here dreaming?

Why do I dream so much?

Visions feel alive to touch

Half-awake, I scribble these notes

Half asleep, am I falsely afloat?

On my mystical Noah’s Ark

Have I the right to ask?

Who’s rowing my boat in the dark?

Is it Her, my brave Joan of Ark?



Swallowed by The Sun (Revised)

On a fiery hot suburban street

Cobblestones are melting the crowd’s feet

Bursting blisters, of the ignorant

Burning souls, in the innocent

Ultraviolet rays are scorching everyone

Our world is being swallowed by the sun

Oh, what have us human’s done

All the rivers are running dry

Fish lay on barren land, wanting to die

Polar icebergs are often seen gliding by

Penguins are moaning without their icy slides

And you’ll hear the baby whales cry

As the ocean, sadly waves us goodbye

Our Angel’s wings are singed and cannot fly

Old mother earth is quickly going awry

And father time is forever asking why






Ivor Steven (c) June 2022

“New Mushrooms”, my 2nd Poem in the Red Wolf Journal, A Change of World Spring 2022 Edition

Featured Image Above: with the kind permission of Derrick Knight >> https://derrickjknight.com/

The ediditor of Red Wolf Journal, Irene Toh, is pleased to announce the release of the Spring 2022 Issue.


The poets with work in the A Change of World edition are:

Dmitry Blizniuk
Paul Brooke
Jeff Burt
Joe Cottonwood
CS Crowe
Mary Anna Scenga Kruch
Ron. Lavalette
Joan Mazza
Karla Linn Merrifield
Peter Mladinic
Misky
Larry Oakner
Frederick Pollack
Emalisa Rose
Timothy Resau
Rikki Santer
Emil Sinclair
Ivor Steven
Debi Swim

You may download a copy of the PDF release here.

A Change of World Spring 2022 Issue 20

____________________________________________________________________________________

You’re invited to submit to our new issue, also titled A Change of World, Fall 2022 Edition. Read our submission guidelines here. Happy writing!

Irene Toh
Editor
Spring 2022 Edition
_____________________________________________________________________________________



A sincere thank you to the editor Irene, for considering two my of poems for her superb anthology “A Change Of World”



New Mushrooms


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 (c) February 2022