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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.

DAILY PHOTO: Salt Marsh

Taken in August of 2012 in Georgia

					

POEM: Figment

I'm in a special 
mode of mind.
One in which nothing 
is ahead or behind.

Everything is shades
of a me that doesn't exist.

So, maybe I'm
a reflection 
of all that is --
in as much as 
there is an "I."

I don't know how
I slipped into this
anti-solipsist stance --
believing everything exists,
but I.

I'm a figment,
but since I can't be
a figment of my own imagination,
I'm not sure what 
flavor of figment
I might be. 

DAILY PHOTO: Bibi Ka Maqbara

Taken in October of 2014 in Aurangabad.

POEM: Calamity Came

We heard the sound, distant rumbling.
We watched the castles fall, crumbling.

The choice of running to the rubble,
or staying safe in our bubble.

But either way, someway it'd hurt
with either hands or head in dirt.

Some tragedies are too galactic,
and words just sing anticlimactic.

POEM: Nom de Guerre

They called him "the Emperor of Pain," 
the they who didn't know his real name,
 
a name that was comically disjointed to his reputation, 
a name that was to this man 
as that gentle lisping voice is to Mike Tyson,

and so they gave him that ridiculous name,
and he became both more and less 
than what he really was.

DAILY PHOTO: Cattle, an Udaipur Mural

Taken in Udaipur in November of 2018

POEM: Finding Your Zen through Travel [PoMo Day 30 – Epigram]

I
Pray for smooth travels...
but not too smooth;
bad experiences make good stories.


II
Mother nature is the kind of
mother who doesn't play favorites.


III
Fairness and simplicity are fine, but
the solution that works may be neither.


IV
Difficulties only ruin
trips attitudinally doomed.


V
Think of lost luggage as an exercise
in creative decision making.

POEM: Don’t Tease the Monkeys

Hey, naked baby macaque,
who stole the hair off of your back,
but left you that blocky hairdo?
Perhaps, you didn't think your look through?

DAILY PHOTO: The Osario, Chichen Itza

Taken at Chichen Itza a decade ago-ish