Frances Presley

                                                    King's wood

                            leave to impark his woods and hills

a recognisable true tree
the endless spread

their endless break to the ground
           lost branches
                                 fell aground     fell       bed

this crown is not the crowns
so little hair
            - I did not bother with a brush

                      nails will naile on the pales if none be lost

a palisade to protect saplings
green plastic covers
            - I’d better get my waterproof

leaf   spots       yellow            brown
      will not leave
           oak serratives

sun cradled
shooting below
sparse branches

                                shed branches

                                        lifted off
                                                      hape shape
                                                                           gape
                                                      fissured
                                                                  tail

                                                    wild oak

                                                      trunk may be

                                                         straight
                                                                            crook
                                                                                    ed
                                                            cor~
                                                            k
                                                            scr~
                                                                 w

                                                                          epi
                                                                             cormic
                                                                                       twigs
                                             sprout through bark

                                                                 grow in patches

                                              fur      the whole trunk

                                                       or absent

    leaves open early
                                                                                 fall late

                      leafage            dense

                                                            or

                                                                         sparse

Hatfield forest
                                                                                              for Peter Philpott

                                                    missed mistle
                                                oak     on the shore
                                               line            spread out
                                             your toes       press down
                                           these joins      are still in use

and now the roar         and now the roar
an aeroplane and    then another    and another
and then air o   air a   plane and a plane and other planes

skim round          or wait                     motionless
a stack                 of geese                      keep circling
or rising           insatiable             hoor                          shore

                                                    thorn thrust
                                                 inside   the oak
                                                 it comes in   the thorn
                                        crosses        old               branches

lie       lie          lie               sleeping banks
let              lulled         too                             lie
allow                           the                          murmur
the     murmurous                    shore           of propulsion

I’m big mummy duck                Stink, you swim in your own shit
Look at the dirty big animal
                                                                              they fly in their own

white foot raised above the water

Frances Presley lives in north London. Her publications include Paravane: new and selected poems, 1996-2003 (Salt 2004); Myne: new and selected poems and prose, 1976-2005, (Shearsman 2006); Lines of Sight, (Shearsman 2009); Stone settings with Tilla Brading (Odyssey 2010) and An Alphabet for Alina with Peterjon Skelt (Five Seasons 2012). Her work is in the anthologies Infinite Difference (Shearsman 2010), and The Ground Aslant: radical landscape poetry (Shearsman 2011). She contributed to a collection of poetic autobiographies, Cusp (Shearsman 2013). She has translated the work of Norwegian poet Hanne Bramness, most recently No film in the camera (Shearsman 2013). Her next book, halse for hazel, will be published by Shearsman in October.