Category Archives: Uncategorized

31,000

31,000

Thirty-one Thousand

31,000

I am not sure if there is anything significant about the number 31,000
But today that was the total of ‘hits’, individual visits, to my website since mid 2015.

7,438 separate and individual persons have clicked on to my collection of poems
Numbers are not the measure of all things and the accumulated totals might be the
result of friends and relations being kind to me and indulging by examining the poems.
It might also be as a result of my ‘marketing’ my product be word of mouth.

It might even be because some of you actaully liked what you found  and passed on the word to others
like a recommendation for a good plumber or painter and decorator!
Anyway, whatever the genesis of your discovery of my oeuvre, thank you for tripping over these
words and for your willingness to tangle with them.

Readers of the poems, although predominantly in the UK, have spanned the globe representing every continent.

What is a poem? You may well ask

What is the poet’s intended task?

Surely to stimulate the mind

A treasured idea therein to find

 

Ken Fisher

The Bard of Kelvindale

 

People Say by Oliver Fisher

People Say
By Oliver Fisher (Ludus)

 

 

People Say

People do as people say

Or so they say, as people do

People do just what they say

And they say you should do that too

If people do because they say 

And do to say they’re people too

Then saying, doing, thinking too

Is doing, saying, thinking too?

Do as people say they do

Do they say they do it too?

They do say as we should do

And they say ‘Hey! I do it too’

But sue me too, I think I do

As I say, when they say do

Say and do as you would do

Because people say as people do

 

Remembrance 2022

Remembrance 2022

This poem was posted at the same time in earlier years
We hope that this year we might yet remain
optimistic about the future

Today’s a time for remembering
Thinking back to those dark days of war
When life was uncertain for all
And for some, death was an imminent prospect

But few living today have much memory
Of the years of conflict when hostilities raged
And although warfare still encircles the world
Our experience of it is mediated by TV images

And yet we have an uncomfortable feeling
That despite efforts to unite the nations
There is a persistent climate of arm-wrestling
Between the great powers who eyeball each other

The Cold War brought with it the four-minute-warning
Not long to compose our minds for oblivion!
And presently with the continuing conflict in the Ukraine
And other theatres of war in our troubled world
We cannot quite eliminate the nagging uncertainty for our destiny

However, for today, we give thanks
For all those who bought our freedom
And pledge to strive to maintain
Such fragile peace as we possess

Ken Fisher

Summer Solstice 2022

Summer Solstice 2022

A glimpse of sunshine warms our heart
Flowers and leaves reflect the light
The gentle rays caress our brow
Our lips widen with a smile

For now the daytime stretches out
Filling each hour with gentle light
Dark days of winter long forgot
We rejoice in life outdoors

From this ‘crows nest’ of the year
We scan the horizon fore and aft
Behind, long hours of winter gloom
Then spring pregnant with promise

Ahead the prospect of summer warmth
And autumn’s gold and russet tints
But winter’s spectre lurks beyond
Vaguely threatening summer’s calm

Ken Fisher

The Gift of The Present

The Gift of The Present
By Oliver Fisher

Innocent existence
Persistent reminiscence
None the wiser
To future resistance

Instant insistence
Constant decisions
But careless and unburdened
Free from the distance

Interlinked incisions
Scars, marks and lesions
Regional seasons
Answers without reasons

Intercepting perceptions
By blind luck directions
Cloaked as a curse,
But a gift, is the present

I Stride With Purpose

I Stride With Purpose
By Oliver Fisher

I stride with purpose, meaning and power-Strutting one by one.
See saw shoulders and heavy feet, that collapse with swagger on the beat.

The energy of youth lights me up,
Sealed in a bubble
Of naive optimism and gross confidence
Yet scared by the passage of time.

No step wasted, each one placed
With graceful arms that swing and sway.
A permanent path, structured linearly
And unknown destinations seemingly.

Winding roads wait ahead, to wander blind.
Find my way through daily grind as future Prospects become behind-
And zero rest for my poor mind.

Infant innocence put to rest,
Pumping heart and pushed out chest.
Beating head and coursing veins that
Digest and pulsate endless names.

In the end i can only believe-
I am what i think, i live as i perceive.
And the energy i emit from within
Always comes back for me to receive.

Spring Equinox 2022

Spring Equinox 2022

 

Equinoxes occur twice a year
When the plane of the Earth’s equator
Passes through the centre of the Sun
On this day the Sun shines directly on the equator
And day and night are approximately equal

Now is this year’s Spring Equinox
And our minds look forward to warmer days
And backwards, with gratitude for the receding of winter
We are filled with hope for the months ahead

An Equinox is perhaps an appropriate time to reflect
On all that has been good in life
To give thanks for its many blessings
For health and shelter and for companionship

As the buds form on the trees and plants sprout
Carpeting the land which has lain barren for long
We look forward in anticipation to burgeoning life
In field and tree, in gardens and on hillside

And these days of longer daylight hours
Afford us the chance to escape from our winter burrows
And breathe the more expansive air of the world outside
As our horizons are lifted to a wider vision

Last year we were in the throes of the Virus
And even one further year on
Its threat has by no means disappeared
In many ways fears of Covid have been superseded
By threats to world peace
But let us not despair
May the brightening of the light
Be matched by a lifting of our spirits
And hopes, that despite present gloom,
Happier days are yet to come

Ken Fisher

 

Our World Our Future

Our World, Our Future

A poem written by my 11-year-old grandson DF

Smoke, children coughing,
People crying, water’s rising.
Pollution, many dying, others ill
Causing the icebergs to not keep still.
Fish being reeled in, like us
when world leaders tell us it’s OK to keep polluting.
Cars speeding at 100 miles per hour
Causing the animals to feel sour
Deforestation, trees fall like oxygen in our air.
And apes look agape
as their homes are destroyed by lumberjacks and foresters
Natural disasters, hurricanes taking your homes, fires taking
Lives.
But wait! I can hear an orchestra of bird song

Singing a song of hope
“We can still do this!”
If we stand together, raise our own voices and speak up –
“This is our world, our future!”

 

In Real Life

In Real Life

 

In Real Life
I wonder if there is
Any other kind of life?

I read the expression
ILR  ‘In Real Life’
Comparing office life
With WFH
(Working From Home)

Some workers seem to feel
Apprehensive about returning to real life
Will we remember how to interact
With others not framed by a tiny screen?

But apart from Zoom and Teams etc
I wonder how we might be
Living in a manner which is
Not real life

Perhaps our imaginings and dreams
Are not real life
Can we escape real life
To hide in fantasy?

Humans can have a life of the mind
Animals, only to a limited extent
I guess they are trapped in real life
We can enjoy or endure the unreal life

Many say this is the only life we have
That is the real one, the here and now

But surely the life of ideas
Embracing our hopes and fears
Our plans and strategies
Our beliefs and aspirations

Brings both joy and sorrow

A much richer journey

Let’s not Get Real too quickly!

Ken Fisher

 

Browser

Browser

Your Gateway to the World

 

Before the digital age what was a browser?
A bookworm ensconced in the library shelves
Earnest students somewhat absorbed in themselves
But now a browser is seen as an essential tool
To plumb the depths of a bottomless pool

Of all the ‘bells and whistles’
Your computer may offer
No matter what other charms it may proffer
The browser is the greatest of all these gizmos
Every fact from ocean’s depths to infinite cosmos

Between our enquiry however recondite
In simplest terms the browser aids navigation
As through millions of web pages we seek direction
In microseconds to our obscure questions
A medley of equally arcane suggestions

Browsers have opened the gate to internet usage
And nowadays this space is filled with world-famous names
Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera and others make claims
To circle the globe with limitless archives
Without which the tech world could hardly survive

Into the Web Browser the URL you insert
The HTTP sets up the communication to the server
Such codes are a vital necessary precursor
Click and the search engine obeys your command
The world of knowledge accessed, what’er you demand

Ken Fisher

 

Gobbledegook

Gobbledegook

No matter how hard I try
To pierce the impenetrable
To fathom the who or why
Make sense of the unintelligible

The problem is language obscure
Using terms utterly recondite
Employed as if quite de jure
But devoid of any clear light

Gobbledegook is a device
Intended to increase prestige
So that when you get any advice
You will acknowledge true expertise

But the problem then seems to be
No matter how many the words
It sheds even less light for me
And you may find it quite absurd

Have you ever tried to make sense
Of a modern job application?
Terms defying all common-sense
No clue to the real occupation

Strategic plans are quite renowned
To result in much obfuscation
In management-speak they abound
‘Road maps’ with a vague destination!

All this clever sleight of hand
Spawned the profession of ‘consultant’
They have developed their own pricey brand
To make jobs for executives now redundant

In the world of the academic
It is vital to be thinking profound
In their lofty submissions polemic
Opacity with mystery compound

In every field jargon seems to triumph
Theology, Astronomy, Medicine, Mathematics
It sounds like some professional alliance
Our ignorance their intended contrivance

It would seem if they simplify
That the layperson might understand
Making sense of that who and that why
The giddy heights they’d no longer command

Thus gobbledegook has proliferated
Plain ideas wrapped up in disguise
Our plea is to be liberated
Then they might open our eyes!

Ken Fisher

The Painted Lady by Oliver Fisher

The Painted Lady by Oliver Fisher

On a walk to clear the mind,
Leave the kids, refuel on food.
Her bunnet slouches, kind of rude,
Cuff links cuffed and tie done up.

She bears a face-covering
That blankets the soul in this self inflicted
Unprecedented yet pre-predicted
Predicament she finds herself in

The boy next door is out of touch,
Clueless, dumb and unaware.
She paints her face and sternly stares,
Lying, in her underwear.

Her house is tatty, not a home.
Hollow hallways, stagnant air.
A dusty phone, nicotine stained,
Hasn’t rung and she doesn’t care.

In the mirror, facial warping.
Tears are falling upside down
And drowning in her dressing gown
Has got to be safer than walking.

If only she’d the luck of others,
Lucky them and their reflection.
Brittle brushes scratch her skin
And Mother’s hair fades thin in sections.

Her trolley trundles forward slowly,
Those coat pockets feel so cosy,
The boy next door is getting nosy
But bony bones make her feel lonely.

On a walk to break the mind,
Starving Mother, smiling child.
Her head is bald, bare faced grin.
Standing, naked, in the light.

Oliver Fisher