Please allow me a conjecture:
One Meerkat stood to give lecture,
But as with me, as a pupil,
Other Meerkats lacked the scruple
To make a show of listening,
Finding the walls more interesting.
Meerkat Lecture [Lyric Poem]
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Category Archives: Poetry
Mountain Dance [Senryū]
Mountain Road [Common Meter]
The mountain road is sometimes flat,
but it's not ever straight.
It winds through woods -- so deep and dark --
but where spotlights await.
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Mimicry [Senryū]
Hanuman Langur
mimics a lounging housecat;
then paws at nothing.
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Vanish [Haiku]
Second Eyes [Free Verse]
From the dark depths
of a temple,
eyes open & blink
against the sunlight
pouring through
a narrow second set
of eyes.
What shapes form across
the way?
It's the roof of a second --
more ancient -- temple
that stands across
the street.
This monk has opened
eyes on that view a
thousand times before,
and each time has
forgotten the centuries
old neighboring temple
existed.
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Flurry [Haiku]
fine powdery snow
fills ground around grass:
frigid Winter day.
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Fake Snow,Real Cold [Haiku]
fake snow from
fountain spray in wind;
the cold is real.
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Solo? [Haiku]
solo bird flies
over sprawling waters
with upside down mate.
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Gateless [Lyric]
![Photograph of a gate at Kothi Gulistan-i-Eram [कोठी गुलिस्तान-ए-इरम] in Lucknow, Madhya Pradesh, India.](https://berniegourley.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/img_7619.jpg)
A Wall -- one may love or hate.
But picture one without a gate.
It is our ever-present fate
to need to see from either side.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 