Poem
Frances Presley
11/9
11/9
11/9
it’s three bellsamplified
at the Arts & Media School
someone is breaking up
axing out
paving stones
in the quarry
malet bangs
the crocodile moves in
and spills the nuclear family
easing out the corners
I speak to people
They stop me on the street
They say, Betty, Betty,
This isn’t right
He must come and speak to us
In the event of any war
there’s a red curve on my cornea
a strange sickle
from the street’s dust
which allows me to see everything
with my customary myopia
the archbishop designate
is worried that we see everything long range
and only God sees close to
he must be thinking of sparrows
which no longer fall
due to double glazing
2
few people at work
emails for absence
notes from a small office
messages from the Transition Advisory Board
we are in the process of being abolished
for the last two years
It’s been endless all morning
Angeline complains
Nothing but personal accounts
or George Bush
or stuff on Iraq
no transition without abolition
messages from the
Modernisation Action Board
modernise
moder
mode
mod
mo mo
mooder mooder
© 2004, Frances Presley
From: Paravane: New and Selected Poems 1996-2003
Publisher: Salt, Cambridge
From: Paravane: New and Selected Poems 1996-2003
Publisher: Salt, Cambridge
Frances Presley
(United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1952)
The great majority of Frances Presley’s work is gathered into the last two volumes mentioned below, which thus represent a kind of Collected Poems: Paravane: New & Selected Poems 1996-2003 (Salt Publishing, Cambridge, 2004) and Myne: new and selected poems and prose 1976-2005 (Shearsman Books, Exeter, 2006). Her work might best be described as “feminist experimental”, but her work also has clea...
Poems
Poems of Frances Presley
Close
11/9
it’s three bellsamplified
at the Arts & Media School
someone is breaking up
axing out
paving stones
in the quarry
malet bangs
the crocodile moves in
and spills the nuclear family
easing out the corners
I speak to people
They stop me on the street
They say, Betty, Betty,
This isn’t right
He must come and speak to us
In the event of any war
there’s a red curve on my cornea
a strange sickle
from the street’s dust
which allows me to see everything
with my customary myopia
the archbishop designate
is worried that we see everything long range
and only God sees close to
he must be thinking of sparrows
which no longer fall
due to double glazing
2
few people at work
emails for absence
notes from a small office
messages from the Transition Advisory Board
we are in the process of being abolished
for the last two years
It’s been endless all morning
Angeline complains
Nothing but personal accounts
or George Bush
or stuff on Iraq
no transition without abolition
messages from the
Modernisation Action Board
modernise
moder
mode
mod
mo mo
mooder mooder
From: Paravane: New and Selected Poems 1996-2003
11/9
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