early Spring seed pods
of Red Maple hold tight
- patiently —
til one day in late Spring:
they’ll drop, spin, and fly.
Red Maple [Tanka]
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Category Archives: poem
Fogless Fog [Haiku]
white blossoms
seen through still bare trees:
looks like fog, sans fog.
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Alone in the Cold [Haiku]
Illusory [Free Verse]
Nothing is what it seems,
or as it feels it should be.
The world is full of
smoke & mirrors --
neither here nor there...
And yet everywhere...
& everywhen.
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Vagabond [Lyric]
![Photograph of a statue of a young vagabond taken at Fo Guang Shan [佛光山,] near Kaohsiung, Taiwan.](https://berniegourley.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/img_0378.jpg)
Each Soul contains its Vagabond
- Who yearns to travel light & free -
But they load too much baggage on,
Then tether him to a big tree.
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Nameless / 无名 [Lyric Poem]
![Photograph taken in Hualien, Taiwan at the Hualien Temple and Dongjing Temple (花蓮寺東淨寺) [Buddhist.]](https://berniegourley.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/img_1218.jpg)
They call me Nameless,
Well-known as fameless.
My plans are aimless.
My faults are blameless.
My chess is gameless.
My disgrace, shameless?
But my glasses are framed.
My passions are inflamed.
My wild horses are tamed,
And my arrows are aimed.
All due credit is claimed,
And nothing else remains.
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Winter Springs [Haiku]
an eerie fog
weaves through the trees:
Winter hot springs.
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Night Sun [Haiku]
a full moon glows:
its color, pale yellow —
posing as the sun.
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Where Trees End [Senryū]
where the trees end,
a colony grows in a
cancerous fashion.
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Shadowlands [Haiku]
toward day's end,
the shadowlands creep
down the valley.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 