Wilderness
Bone white, dead land,
Under the dark corona’d sun,
Where horn-tailed scorpions sand-swim
Between his feet.
The clamouring wind scowls around his head,
Then to a high table he (by his father we say)
Is led into temptation.
There the world laid out before him
Chess-board flat,
Here kings and queens genuflect
Unsteadily from beneath their gowns
But such pieces are neither
Black or white, and in this game
The squares are merely windowless cells
Where doubt squats in the corner.
.
Bernard Pearson’s work appears in many publications, including; Aesthetica Magazine , The Edinburgh Review, Crossways, Patchwork, FourxFour, The Gentian 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
