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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.

POEM: Spine

Flex forward and a row of rounded, fleshy knobs form in that muscled valley — straight and evenly-spaced.

Chest up & shoulders back and the knobs shrink, enshrouded; while those low, rolling knolls become bounded by scapular cliffs.

Dance about and a million topographies form and disband: all without a sharp corner — nothing but smooth transitions, gracefully made.

Fronts get all the attention, but backs are masters of the beauty of subtle change.

My spine bends and flexes, and I’m alive.

Sparks run in riffles down that line, and I’m alive.

DAILY PHOTO: Om Beach, Gokarna

Taken in August of 2020 in Gokarna.

DAILY PHOTO: Jog Falls, Two Views

Taken on August 31, 2020 at Jog Falls.

POEM: Claustrophobic Shores [Blank Verse Sonnet]

The rain bands slant across the narrow track
between the leaden clouds and churning seas.
The vastness, standing before ocean’s edge,
is boxed by rain, low clouds, and rising waves.

My view of infinite space shrivels up.
The water curtain hides what lies behind —
the lost horizon lies, disguised by lines
of squall that crawl with all the time allowed.

What brought me to this shore is now mislaid:
some sense that I could never be contained.
I’m sure that storm intends to push me home —
back to the box where it thinks I belong.

But then it passes by; blue skies beyond,
and I can see out past the trawler’s shapes.

DAILY PHOTO: Murudeshwar Mandir Shiva

Taken on August 31, 2020 at Murudeshwar.

POEM: Unceasing Jungle

The jungle paints the ruins green —
brown blocks are made verdant.
So, you can’t see its ordered shape
’til you part the curtain
of palms and vines and mammoth leaves
that hide those old remains —
once hacked back by muscled men who,
daily, took great pains
to clear the rampant jungle growth
out beyond moat and berm.
‘Til the invading army won,
and Fort was deemed infirm.

DAILY PHOTO: Ornate Temple Top

Taken in Bangalore in June of 2020.

DAILY PHOTO: Mirjan Fort

Taken near Kumta, India on August 29, 2020.

POEM: Mind Floater

An idea drifts in my mind’s periphery.

It’s the mental version of an eye squiggly —
those translucent, sinuous shapes that…

-barely register in one’s field of vision,
-can be glimpsed but not focused upon,
-and are insubstantial — but become a fixation.

And I’m left to wonder whether it was really an idea,
or just the feeling of having had an idea.