Two Poems by Bernard Pearson

 

Sovereignty on The Sunday Before Easter



I found a dirty pound coin today,

One that I only sometimes knew I had.

Not one of the fresh minted

inimitable graven images,

But an old and gob caked sun

That had passed through

A thousand palms,

Been strewn across

A myriad counters.

It sang to me of its life

Among lower class coinage

Common fifty pence pieces

And chavvy twenty p’s.

How it had struggled

For traditional values

In dark pockets

Among the dumb grief

Of tear-stained tissues

And spent lottery tickets.

It was worth more than this.

It said, without a hint of bitter irony.




Transfiguration

Kafkaesque Scorpions

Scuttle to the rocks,

Their question mark tails

The last to disappear.

Mount Tabor

suitably desolate,

A piece of land

Scrunched up

like discarded parchment.

The light fading

In the distance over

The cobalt sea,

And yet still rising

From where he stood.

And the boat builder

With nails between his teeth

And the others

‘Fishermen out of water,’

And the two ancients dumb

From their work

And the Power and the Glory

For only he who knew the story

And the sand beneath their feet

And the hand of benediction

Left them after this assemblage

Knowing that though doomed,

they were replete.

Bernard Pearson's work appears in many publications, including; Aesthetica Magazine , The Edinburgh Review, Crossways, The Gentian, Nymphs The Poetry Village, Beneath The Fever, The Beach Hut Little stone. work coming up in Big Easy, and Orange Blush In 2017 a selection of his poetry ‘In Free Fall’ was published by Leaf by Leaf Press. In 2019 he won second prize in The Aurora Prize for Writing for his poem Manor Farm. He is also a Biographer and Prize winning short story writer.