Conscious Uncoupling

‘You had the world
In the palm of someone else’s hand,’
She said,
As the dark emerald of
The city lights closed in.
‘And you knew that
This world would
Do anything for you.’
She continued,
While a chevron
Of wild geese
Gossiped their way
Towards the salt marsh
Where the tide infects
The land.
‘I thought about you
Night and day’ he said.
‘Until the thinking
Was all.
You know like making
Love
When the making
Was the thing.’
A freight train
Muttered something
Under its breath
On the far side of town
And cats noised themselves
In a long dead rose thicket
That once bloomed every year
Like clockwork on someone’s birthday.
She returned the world to him
And faced the window
To hide her tears
Seeing beyond
The rat run racing
And a bus, ‘not in service’.
He got out of the car
In slow motion,
Perhaps half- hoping
That she would
Get out and run after him,
But she had already
Clipped on her seat belt for safety.

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Bernard Pearson

poet & author

Bernard lives in Oswestry, UK. He is published in around one hundred journals and magazines worldwide. He is also a spoken-word performer, finalist in both the John Tripp Spoken Word Competition and The All Wales Comic Verse Competition. Plus a biographer and prize-winning short story writer. His work has appeared in many publications. 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 (an international competition in Poetry) for his poem ‘Manor Farm’ and his first novel ‘Where the Willows End‘ was published by Leaf by Leaf Press. His second novel is due out in 2022.

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