Tainted (Free Verse)

Posted on May 28, 2026 by B Gourley

Photograph taken at Andersonville National Historic Site in central Georgia.

A gorgeous day:
   the sky is blue;
   the air is crisp,
      and a bird swoops in low
          over the field to land
             in search of insects.

The sign is kind of a bummer:

   It tells me that 13,000
      people died here --
   most by shitting themselves 
      into unconsciousness.
     (it doesn't use those exact words.)

This is Andersonville -- 
   site of a Civil War prison camp.

Here, I believe in ghosts.
   I don't believe in ghosts
      when drinking my morning coffee
      at my dining room table.
   I don't believe in them when I 
      turn off my bedside lamp.
   I don't believe in them anywhere --
      anywhere else -- really. 

But here they vibrate up
    through my boot heals,
        and I fear I may 
           shit myself.

PROMPT: Read Over

Posted on April 8, 2026 by B Gourley

Daily writing prompt

What book could you read over and over again?

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孙子兵法, i.e. “The Art of War” by Sunzi (孙子) is one that I can and have read more than twice.

I’m not a huge re-reader, but others include “Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras,” “Hamlet,” “Leaves of Grass,” and Miyamoto Musashi’s “Book of Five Rings.” Translated literature is often good for more than one read because translations vary so much.

PROMPT: Lottery

Posted on January 28, 2026 by B Gourley

Daily writing prompt

What would you do if you won the lottery?

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Be fearful. Since I don’t play the usual lottery, the only kind I could win is the kind that they use to draft people for fighting alien invaders.

PROMPT: Uninvent

Posted on January 18, 2026 by B Gourley

Daily writing prompt

If you could un-invent something, what would it be?

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As nuclear weapons may yet be the death of us all, they would be a sound candidate. But I think it’s utter fantasy to think that a possible technology can be anything more than delayed. Besides, once GAI (general artificial intelligence) starts freeballing it’ll inevitably stumble onto a mode of death that makes the H-bomb look like a caveman’s campfire by comparison.

DAILY PHOTO: National World War II Museum

Posted on January 11, 2026 by B Gourley

BOOK REVIEW: “War is a Racket” by Smedley D. Butler

Posted on September 22, 2025 by B Gourley

War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America’s Most Decorated Soldier by Smedley D. Butler
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

PDF available online

This impassioned essay is a call for a more restrained — some would call it isolationist — application of military force. Regardless of how one might feel about the isolationist stance, you’ll likely be moved by the essay’s central premise that we have too much war because it’s profitable — not profitable for those who fight and die in wars but for businessmen and politicians.

Butler, a US Marine Corps General, was a fascinating character — a two-time Congressional Medal of Honor recipient who served in the Philippines, Tianjin (during the Boxer Rebellion,) at various places across Central America and the Caribbean, and in the First World War in Europe. He was also a whistleblower about a plot to unseat FDR. Butler writes in a conversational style that exudes a commanding presence.

I’d highly recommend this essay for its critical insights by one of the most impressive Marine Corp officers of all time.

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BOOK: “Mastering the Art of War” by Zhuge Liang & Liu Ji [Trans. & Ed. by Thomas Cleary

Posted on September 19, 2025 by B Gourley

Mastering the Art of War: Commentaries on Sun Tzu's Classic (Shambhala Dragon Editions)

Mastering the Art of War: Commentaries on Sun Tzu’s Classic by Zhuge Liang
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher Site — Shambhala

This book combines the writings of two prominent Chinese strategists, Zhuge Liang and Liu Ji. Both men came after Sunzi, author of The Art of War, and Cleary describes these two works as commentaries on the work of Sunzi.

Zhuge Liang’s piece is called The Way of the General and it collects short essays from Records of the Loyal Lord of Warriors. Like many, I first became acquainted with Zhuge Liang from his novelized personage in the Chinese classic, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, in which he is called “Kongming” and is a force to be reckoned with in service to Liu Bei of the Shu Kingdom. Zhuge Liang’s ideas are conveyed as short topical discussions, not unlike Sunzi’s work.

Liu Ji’s manual, Lessons of War, is a bit different in that the explanation of the strategy is briefer than in the works of Sunzi or Zhuge Liang, but Liu Ji always includes an exemplary story from history. This makes Liu Ji’s work a little more narrative. It is interesting to see the varied approach to conveyance of the concepts under consideration.

Because the works of Zhuge Liang and Liu Ji are thin, the book has a fair amount of padding in the form of Translator’s Introductions, both an overall Introduction and one per included work. I was happy with how these were done. They do not drone on but rather give some background that will be useful to the average reader without getting lost in the weeds.

If you’re interested in strategy, be it applicable to war or otherwise, I’d highly recommend this book.

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BOOK: Sát Thát by Lê Vân [Illustrated by Nguyễn Bích]

Posted on September 12, 2025 by B Gourley

Sát Thát by Lê Vân
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Publisher Site – Kim Dong Books

This illustrated book tells the story of the Vietnamese (Tran Dynasty) victories over the invading Yuan Dynasty (Mongolian-controlled China.) It’s a quick read with only a few lines of text per page, while the bulk of each page is a line-drawn monochrome illustration. The illustrations themselves are sufficiently clear and detailed to allow one to follow the general flow of the story.

I used a translator and don’t know how accurate it was or –more particularly — how true to the original it was, except to say that the translator produced a coherent story that seemed to be consistent with other sources.

This book focuses entirely on the military campaigns and takes a bit of a jingoistic tone. As I understand it, it doesn’t tell the whole tale as many consider the Mongol incursions to have been successful because they exacted a tribute from the Vietnamese (which was their ultimate goal,) despite the Mongols’ lack of military success. That said, it was an impressive set of military victories for the Tran Dynasty, and the Vietnamese have every right to take pride in them.

I discovered this book in the publisher’s bookstore in Hanoi and thought it was a small enough text with sufficiently detailed illustration to give me some insight into the story, even without any real grasp of the language. I did find reading the book to be informative and interesting and would recommend it for readers military history.

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