Frances Presley
From BLACK FENS VIRAL
August 20 breathe it in through every night black earth and a poor harvest too wet too dry these perfect furrows beyond the freight I am soaked through take it in through your body does it feel like the machinery is soaked given these perfect lines of combed willows across my face across my cheekbones of combine does it feel like every night the machinery is black combed willows beyond surface down into black earth breathe it in through your body talk through these seagulls on a black striped shirt given the blond earth cannot be read given these perfect lines of combine stretch across my face back combed stubble let it talk through the remnant harvest I am soaked through every night it is seagulls on a black striped stubble blond surface bear down into black earth and a poor harve it is soaked through the read beyond the freight carve my dark path back combed stubble blond surface bear down into striped shirt willows beyond the black earth breathe the remnant harvest too wet too dry the machinery is soaked through your body take it down let it talk through every night October 20 i what I'm desperate to do before another lockdown Littleport I have never felt better than long Covid I am not desperate to do Thrasher skateboard magazine I'm sitting on the train scratches his shoulder I haven't eaten I'm sitting on the reeds pasta evangelists of energy thanks to long Covid I can do very little I am not desperate to do Littleport what I am stopped from doing on the train pasta evangelists you can't keep yelling like this before he died the carriages migrating flocks majorettes field square her irregular metronome clockdown migrating on the square brow stubble field rushes fearsome bang between the carriages migrating flockwork migrating flockdown Littleport I'm sitting on the train these eight hour bursts of energy what I am not desperate to do before another lockdown what I'm desperate to do ii he said how can I have three daughters who are raging lesbians and feminists I just want equality what’s wrong with that I mean these are children and they voted against giving free meals to children and they’re starving how can you think like that we should normalise people getting an education and changing their minds they're starving their minds they voted against giving free meals to children and changing their minds they voted against giving an education how can you think like that he said how can I have three daughters who are raging an education and they're starving how can you think like that what's wrong with an education how can I have three daughters who are children and feminists and they voted against giving free daughters who are raging lesbians I just want equality what's wrong with people getting free meals to children and they're starving lesbians and their minds they're starving how can you think like that he said these are children I mean these are raging he said how can I have three daughters who are raging lesbians and feminists I just want equality what's wrong with that he said how can you iii everything was orange Magdalen inflated lanterns everything was harvest festival you found a giant quince we have turned a space orange calyces in the black fens we have turned in your runnels we are watching the sky ploughed to the towers we have punctuated your telegraph wires we have turned in the pipitsughed we are watching the sky ploughed by the pipits ughed by the black fens we have turned in your telegraph wires ploughed by the pipitsens we have punctuated your runnels unploughed to the towers we are watching the pipits ploughed by the sky we have punctuated lanterns Magdalen pipits sng large in the church unploughed by the pipits festival November 20 she said her name was in November rain you’ll find it’s Tier 3 lines that go on forever through a winter green field or furrows filled with water never fallow soil is compacted I think of you O, Fallow for a year she kissed you said her name was to live among these exhausted fields how lonely it was to live among these permanently harvested fields are those roosts or the last leaves lying low for a year she said her name was fallow I think of you low for a year she kissed you I’m just getting to the trees beautiful shutters of Brandon I’m not getting off I’m just getting low if you’re lucky a copse or a corpse of a field lying low for a year she kissed you the hedges grubbed out there are those roosts or these exhausted fields there are no grubs beautiful shutters of Brandon I’m not getting off I’m getting nearer my bike the last leaves clinging to the soil compacted never fallow lying low forever through a winter green field or furrows filled with water all the hedges grubbed out there are you leaves clinging nearer my bike O, Fallow for a year she kissed you getting off I’m just getting to the trees beautiful shutters of Brandon if you’re lucky a copse if you said her name was to live among these exhausted fields if she kissed you leave Tier 2 lying low for a year she kissed you for a year she kissed you |
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Note on Black Fens Viral
This sequence began in summer 2020, when I was recovering from Covid, lockdown was lifting, and I was able to follow the migrating swifts. I travelled to Norfolk on the slow train which goes through the Black Fens of East Anglia. This flat, almost hedgeless and treeless, agricultural landscape of black peat, was once marshland, before the drainage of the fens. I found that I could no longer see landscape or write in the way that I did before Covid, but only make these notes on a train. ‘Viral’ refers both to Covid and to a text generator known as the Markov chain: its strange rearrangement of text, according to an algorithm, resembled the viral assault on my mind and body, and on all our lives. The first part of Black Fens Viral (June 20) will be published in Steven Hitchin’s Literary Pocketbook series.
FP Jan 2021
This sequence began in summer 2020, when I was recovering from Covid, lockdown was lifting, and I was able to follow the migrating swifts. I travelled to Norfolk on the slow train which goes through the Black Fens of East Anglia. This flat, almost hedgeless and treeless, agricultural landscape of black peat, was once marshland, before the drainage of the fens. I found that I could no longer see landscape or write in the way that I did before Covid, but only make these notes on a train. ‘Viral’ refers both to Covid and to a text generator known as the Markov chain: its strange rearrangement of text, according to an algorithm, resembled the viral assault on my mind and body, and on all our lives. The first part of Black Fens Viral (June 20) will be published in Steven Hitchin’s Literary Pocketbook series.
FP Jan 2021
© Copyright Frances Presley 2021
Frances Presley’s publications include Lines of Sight (Shearsman 2009); An Alphabet for Alina with artist Peterjon Skelt (Five Seasons, 2012); Halse for Hazel (Shearsman 2014) and Sallow (Leafe Press 2016) with artist Irma Irsara, which received an Arts Council award; and Ada Unseen (Shearsman 2019) on Ada Lovelace, mathematician and computer visionary. Her work appears in the anthologies Infinite Difference (2010), Ground Aslant: radical landscape poetry (2011), Out of Everywhere2 (2015) and Fractured Ecologies (2020).