Tiger Riding for Beginners

Traveling Poet Philosopher & Occasional Wiseacre

the memory
 of an outdoor cafe
  at city center
 comes to me out of the blue,
 on a frigid Winter day.

bowl in the right
 calabash in the left:
  drunkard empties
 & then fills his cup --
 amid missing time.

dragonhead
 rises up out of a cloud,
  over the city.
 how many see the cloud,
  but not the dragon?

Posted on July 25, 2025 by B Gourley

Chinese temple pond:
 dragonhead tortoise sculpture.
   live turtles swim
 and sun in those waters.
 do they see the likeness?

Posted on May 26, 2025 by B Gourley

rows of lanterns —
 a jack-o-lantern patch —
  lights the temple
 on a dark, rainy night;
 rain splats on a tin roof.

Posted on April 28, 2025 by B Gourley

pillbox bunker from
 a war a lifetime ago
  sits in a field.
 what the farmer must think
 as he plants around it.

Buddha's lap,
 a pigeon lands: 
  a monk shoos
 the bird away,
 but Buddha didn't mind.

the sleeping bear
 seems at peace, and still does
  when its eyes open,
 but my mental state - and
 my drawers - are quite changed.

an autumn sapling,
 red leaves on a stiff twig,
  shakes in the breeze;
 i can't help but think of it 
 as a gray-haired baby.

roadside saplings
 take Fall colors for a time,
  before going bare;
 the envy of humans:
 at once young & old.