Issue 29: Frances Presley
holdfasts
1
trace my distances
in the tracery
the spaces between
open-work quatrefoil
heart
four leaf
drop
in the rood screen
tiny stems
coralline wrack
holdfasts to the apex
are you still holding fast?
2
Hold Fast Body Art Tattoo Parlour
she wolf
stares out
breast scar
Triptych
why was the central panel
of the crucifixion a break -
ing point
now it’s just a black cloth
in the reredos
Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene
— figures wrenched away
were they too prominent?
when we do not own our bodies
cannot go about our lawful
bodies ourselves
cannot make our choices
sisters in America tell me
this is my body and not his
in the missing frame
become the frame
St Mary the Virgin
Lynton
27 June 22
after Roe v Wade overturned
Lady Chapel
follow moving
lines into their
drawn vertical
out of the shadow
of the eagle lectern
sideways brush
of whitewash stroke
roughness in the stone
indents of eye
this soft wing
curtain of rain
ending
in a plume
a nib for brown ink
hold feather
walk stains
in
15 July 22
My dearest Geraldine
(…)
You are often on my mind, in ways you can't imagine - serious and humorous. We were in Minehead recently (it will always feel like home to me) and I went to St Michael's mediaeval church, where I used to go with my mother. I often think of her there and I also thought of you.
I came across a quotation from Judges - probably the only worthwhile bit: ‘And it came to pass, when (Achsah) came to him, that she moved him to ask of her father a field: and she lighted from off her ass; and Caleb said unto her, What wilt thou? And she said unto him, Give me a blessing: for thou hast given me a south land; give me also springs of water. And Caleb gave her the upper springs and the nether springs’. I like the idea of nether springs on nether edge.
I also noticed, for the first time after all these years, the rather bawdy mediaeval angels holding up the altar table. I hope you like them.
Lots of hugs and kisses
from your loving coz, Frances
xxxx
20 Jul 2022, 01:03
Dear Coz,
Thank you for your sweet reply and for the nether springs on nether edge - yes there are many springs and wells around Sheffield and my favourite road name is Hangingwater Road - it just never fails to delight me. (…)
Oh those angels! Wow! They really are something else, to see female angels is a rarity and when you do they are usually twee and modest little things but these are raunchy crazy Jane angels. I love them. I've cropped them and got rid of the crucifix. Think I'll put them on Face Book next weekend - they are too good to keep to ourselves. Keep an eye out for them.
Well, time to try and sleep in the heat,
Much love,
Geraldine xxx
[Frances Presley was born in Derbyshire, of Dutch-Javanese and English parents, in 1952. She grew up in Lincolnshire and Somerset, and lives in London. Recent work includes Ada Unseen (Shearsman, 2019) concerning Ada Lovelace, mathematician and computer visionary, part of a collaboration with Tilla Brading. Black Fens Viral refers both to Covid and to the Markov chain text generator, and the first poem is a Literary Pocket Book by Steven Hitchins (2021). Collected Poems 1973-2020 was published in two volumes by Shearsman in May 2022. Presley has written essays and reviews, especially on innovative British women poets. Her work is in the anthologies Infinite Difference (Shearsman, 2010), Ground Aslant: radical landscape poetry (Shearsman, 2011), Out of Everywhere2 (Reality Street, 2015) and Fractured Ecologies (EyeCorner, 2020). She contributed to a collection of poetic autobiographies, Cusp (Shearsman, 2012) and its London based companion volume, Clasp (Shearsman, 2015). www.francespresley.co.uk]
Copyright © 2022 by Frances Presley, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of copyright law. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the notification of the journal and consent of the author.
