Round about now, never mind about how,
A group assembles expecting a row.
Welcome to Fisher's Circle.
It does not take long for the mood of the throng
To achieve the confusion that is normal among
Members of Fisher's Circle.
But that passes fast; everyone stands aghast,
For frustration and boredom are readily classed
Features of Fisher's Circle.
No one dares speak for no feeling's unique
To each of the voices who make up this clique
Otherwise called Fisher's Circle.
The innocent youth, who once glimpsed the truth,
Now fancies commitment is seen as uncouth
Outside of Fisher's Circle.
The middle-aged man, when the visions began,
Thought dreams might be kept, just like films, in a can
Labelled 'For Fisher's Circle'.
But nothing can keep the ideas that seep
From the mind to the paper from reaching the deep
Vortex of Fisher's Circle.
The break in the round that holds consciousness bound
Grows smaller with time and might never be found
From inside Fisher's Circle.
Early morning injunction
see Isaiah 5:11
To rise betimes is patently absurd:
The early worm gets eaten by the bird.
Take 1
If I could start my life again
I wouldn't make the same mistakes.
Take 2
If I could start my life again
I wouldn't know what mistakes to avoid.
Take 3
If I could start my life again
I wouldn't.
No that's not true.
I simply wouldn’t have written this.
But I have.
So there.
In this life
there are no re-takes.
I do not know what to see
how to name or recognise
all that grows and flourishes in
the garden
itself not knowing also
moreover what to call myself
[A 'little box' constraint, translated from the French of Jacques Jouet]
I
We are the ones who wait
We are the ones who sit
erect
but slouching as time goes by
Silently we whisper
and allow greying rats
to run over our feet
and make for the light
somewhere outside
up the steps to the street
All I remember is grey
and made this side of yesterday
without form and smell
They remember even less
They are far into the next episode
the New Life—if it is—and I
the one-eyed banjo player
wait for Tuesday to return
as I am sure it will
Perhaps tomorrow.
II
There is some sort of shadow
which is cast across me
But the source is not here
It is up in the street
and I dare not go up there.
I—nor the others—none of us
has ever gone up to the street.
The singing is loud
but no more than that
and we are committed
to our waiting.
The damp has not reached me yet
though I can see the others
sitting over there
feel it already.
III
The eyes of the rats
The eyes are closed
Their little grey eyes
in their little grey bodies.
I must have my spectacles mended
before I go to the Opéra.
This could only be
part of the plan
to bury us
we who are waiting
The rats are no accident
Petals are blown in from the street—
the wind blows
occasionally
in this direction—
Tomorrow I shall pick them up
and save them
for our next meeting
We know when it is getting dark
up in the street
for we huddle together
to keep out the night.
IV
And we wake alone
The light on the walls
And we prepare to wait
We weep together
from time to time
and our tears
our noisy tears
drop to the dust
and soak into the floor
We wait
and sink imperceptibly
and sink rapidly
into the hours to come.
V
This brief hour is going
We are waiting
for the next
We hated this hour
and we know nothing of the next
except that it is almost
almost upon us
We shall wait patiently
It will come soon
And we shall wait
for the one after that
When the end comes
there will be
no more
And our wait
our long wait
our wait
will be over
We shall be
We shall wait
our wait
no more
That was the only one of my poems that ever won anything—a long time ago. A really long time ago. Come to that, the only one ever submitted for anything.
Here volcanic eruptions are checked
by the thickness of the outer crust.
The undulating downs, once thickly clad,
now stand bare and worn by winds from the sea;
they are best seen from occasional heights
(beware of steep escarpments).
Signs of incipient rifts are seen,
long waiting for the movement of the earth.
Here the earth has not moved in aeons.
In wooded valleys shade trees cover
meandering ways where dappled light
illuminates the tracks to be remembered.
The man-made features, sharp against the lines
of contour and the blue of watercourses,
tell how nature has been tamed. A hurricane
can overnight redraw the map.
But the stinging trails of tears,
sharpened by summer night breezes,
still mark the highways of pain.
And eyes, when tear-springs have dried,
betray the settlements of future dwellings.
The geography may be uncertain
(never the strongest part of learning)
but history has peopled the land
with culture not to be discerned
except by patient study of its artefacts,
stacked in boxes, dusted daily,
before delivery to the world's museums,
consigned to stand as fixed witnesses to lives
of fear and trepidation, love and ecstasy.
It's always the same since the world began:
If the proverbial hits anything, it hits the fan.
Just when you think that you're firm in the saddle,
You're up the proverbial without a paddle.
This much is true from your birth to your burial:
You'll spend your life swimming against the proverbial.
You say I seem familiar
and link me with a place and time
that were never my own.
I suggest it may have been
a different place and time
with which you make a connection.
We are both looking for clues
to ease familiarity.
But perhaps we were
a different you
and a different me.
This business of writing—let's give it some thought.
It isn't like work and it isn't like sport.
You sit for a while with computer or pen
And you wait for ideas that
© David Fisher 1962-2019