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About B Gourley

Bernie Gourley is a writer living in Bangalore, India. His poetry collection, Poems of the Introverted Yogi is now available on Amazon. He teaches yoga, with a specialization in pranayama, and holds a RYT500 certification. For most of his adult life, he practiced martial arts, including: Kobudo, Muay Thai, Kalaripayattu, and Taiji. He is a world traveler, having visited more than 40 countries around the globe.

Canopy [Haiku]

rain tree canopy
contains city’s secrets
‘til the leaf drop.

“The Dawn” by William Butler Yeats [w/ Audio]

I WOULD be as ignorant as the dawn,
That has looked down
On that old queen measuring a town
With the pin of a brooch,
Or on the withered men that saw
From their pedantic Babylon
The careless planets in their courses,
The stars fade out where the moon comes,
And took their tablets and made sums--
Yet did but look, rocking the glittering coach
Above the cloudy shoulders of the horses.
I would be -- for no knowledge is worth a straw --
Ignorant and wanton as the dawn.

Still Life [Haiku]

country road view:
nothing bigger than a mouse
is in motion.

DAILY PHOTO: Kuang Si Waterfall

“To Helen” by Edgar Allan Poe [w/ Audio]

Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicéan barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy-Land!

Spillage [Free Verse]

What spills from the brush?
What shapes are made
on the page?

What curves? What lines?
What crosses? What binds?

Who will chase after the sparks
of meaning in those wild marks?

DAILY PHOTO: Great Buddha Land, Fo Guang Shan

The Dance [Free Verse]

What force dances one 
into this lovely state?

Light & ecstatic,
Blissful but calm.

Each breath a drug
that sends delicate
shimmers rippling
through the universe.

What force, indeed?

“Soft Snow” by William Blake [w/ Audio]

I walked abroad in a snowy day:
I ask'd the soft snow with me to play:
She play'd & she melted in all her prime,
And the winter call'd it a dreadful crime.

PROMPT: Scared

What’s the thing you’re most scared to do? What would it take to get you to do it?

Going to a cocktail party with no one I know in attendance. FYI —Things that would generate less anxiety include: cage-fighting, gator-wrestling, skydiving, and (admittedly with the appearance of irony) giving a speech to a large audience.

A battle-hardened phalanx with pointy sticks.