POEM: Budapest

Posted on February 15, 2019 by B Gourley

I know you best by the gray of your winters

when road salt coats the sidewalks

and a witch of wind rides down the Danube

whistling around pedestrians on your broad bridges

— except there are no pedestrians

— save for me —

river crossers huddle in yellow trams

or pack into the Metro that rolls under the river

I know your beauty can be unsullied

I’ve seen a Budapest in bloom,

under blue skies and cotton clouds

But your gray days lend a distinguished air

a melancholic miracle is birthed from gloom

a sweep of story,

a piece of poetry,

that would move a stoic to tears

And escape is always close at hand

for Kürtőskalács fires sunshine in my mind

POEM: Endless City

Posted on August 2, 2018 by B Gourley

city at the end of time
sprawling to the shoulders of reality
spilling into the sea
sprouting vents from the ocean floor
to breathe the collective exhalation
a planetary breath
bubbling toward the surface
but lost in churning seas

and wind tears through urban canyons
that crackle the surface
as seen from the satellite sphere
glints from a glassy past now subdued
plasma windows play a bucolic reality
that residents pretend is true
we are a mole people
in the under-story of a mechanized canopy

DAILY PHOTO: Chicago Skyline from the Museum Campus

Posted on August 1, 2018 by B Gourley

Taken on July 31, 2018 in Chicago.

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POEM: Park from a Hotel Balcony

Posted on July 21, 2018 by B Gourley

I see a canopy of trees.
Wind-rolled like undulating seas.
A strange green scene from my balcony.

Seems like such a vast expanse
of trees tossed, locked in a dance.
From sidewalk, they’re of stalwart stance.

But from here they are an ocean to me.