Author Archives: B Gourley

Unknown's avatar

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: Lost in Space [Pantoum]

Posted on by
11

Under the vault of starry skies,
I lost my Self through open eyes.
I spread out through that vast light cloud,
and heard the wordless word aloud.

I lost my Self through open eyes?
How’d I stretch to infinite size?
I heard a wordless word aloud?
How’d I Know what was wrapped in shrouds?

How’d I stretch to infinite size —
and all between sun’s set and rise?
How’d I Know what was wrapped in shrouds —
secrets felt; not spoken out loud?

I died between sunset and rise,
under that vault of starry skies.
I could feel, but not speak out loud
as I floated in that light cloud.

DAILY PHOTO: Nyala on the Chobe River Bank

Posted on by
1

Taken in June of 2017 in Chobe National Park.

POEM: Killing Fields

Posted on by
3

In the last days that stony ground gave life,
those great, green gifts were gained by thrust of knife.
As the blood puddle spread, so went the green —
trumped by colors inanimate and mean.
And when they prayed for cooler days and nights,
they were answered with blazing fires and lights.

POEM: The Ouroboros of Life & Death

Posted on by
1

The forest floor —
strewn with damp leaf litter
&
slightly twisted twin-pronged needles.

Fungal fruiting bodies,
caps sprinkled with grit,
stand sentry over the rich, black loam.

The musty smell at life & death’s edge
reigns subtly supreme.

We call it decay, and think it a death stench,
but that ground echoes the ouroboros —
the mythical serpent consuming it’s own tail —
eater and eaten are one —
life and death are thusly intertwined in that dark soil.

DAILY PHOTO: Phra Prang Sam Yot, Lopburi

Posted on by
Reply

Taken in October of 2012 in Lopburi.

POEM: Mighty Threats [Clerihew]

Posted on by
Reply

Dear leader, Kim Jong-Un
was making bold threats to turn off the sun.

His problem, it would appear,
was turning off only the Western Hemisphere.

Traveler’s Senryu

Posted on by
5

I
hold travel plans
like a stinky diaper —
not like a crowbar


II
the mountaintop
is always farther
than it looks


III
sorry Mr. Frost,
the less traveled road
is a deadend


IV
eat local food
cheeseburger in Shangri-la…
never sicker

DAILY PHOTO: Taumadhi Square, Bhaktapur

Posted on by
Reply

Taken in May of 2018 in Bhaktapur from Nyatapola Temple plinth

POEM: What Country for Old Men? [Ottava Rima]

Posted on by
4

There’s more than one undiscovered country.
Hamlet’s is no place for old men to aim.
I urge a fight for foreign shores, bluntly.
Don’t let false gods go staking early claims.
They’ll have one sitting on the couch, glumly —
the fast-path shortcut to the pyre’s fierce flames.
If you can feel the breath expand your chest,
then pick up your pack, and start stepping West.

POEM: Nature’s Spotlight [a Haibun]

Posted on by
1

Under cottony clouds, my gaze fell upon the borehole by which slanted shafts of light found the ground. A divine spotlight that shone only on the liquid metal surface of a smooth flowing river at a point just before the rapids were reached. A closed-eyed kayaker might feel graced by the warm sunshine on his face. But only for the moment before being cast into a dim and turbulent transition from heaven to hell.

divine spotlight
a beam of sunlight burns
through gray clouds