Berniegourley

LATEST ARTICLES ( 3743 )

• BOOK REVIEW: Beyond the Boulevards by Aditi Sriram

  Amazon page I came across a reference to this book on someone's blog, fortuitously, a week before our first trip to Pondicherry. And I finished reading the shor... Read more

  Posted on 15 October 2019 SOCIETY, TRAVEL

• DAILY PHOTO: Aayi Mandapam

  Built at the behest of Napoleon III to honor a prostitute whose well provided water to Pondicherry for many years. There are many versions of the story. The gis... Read more

  Posted on 15 October 2019 SOCIETY, TRAVEL

• POEM: Soul Drumming

  

  there's a drum rhythm that sends a soul reverberating a vibration, resonant synchronous, building dynamic tension through the bones, until the last slap of... Read more

  Posted on 13 October 2019 SOCIETY, TRAVEL

• POEM: Gymnosophist

  the naked ape in its natural state stripped bare of fear, living an altered trait ashen against the sun, rinsed by the rain his brain had long ago forgotten pai... Read more

  Posted on 12 October 2019 SOCIETY, TRAVEL

• POEM: Mundane, My Ass

  Nothing is mundane, but the mind makes it so. They scream for monsters and miracles, and miss the magic of the mighty cricket. Deaf to the miraculous, everyone... Read more

  Posted on 11 October 2019 SOCIETY, TRAVEL

• POEM: Truth Buried

  Truth is under a rubble pile covered in junk and debris marked with (-)'s and (+)'s chunks of value judgment that crumbled under the weight of its immensity... Read more

  Posted on 11 October 2019 SOCIETY, TRAVEL

• BOOK REVIEW: Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker

  Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker My rating: 4 of 5 stars Amazon page For a long time, the questions of why we sleep and... Read more

  Posted on 09 October 2019 SOCIETY, TRAVEL

• BOOK REVIEW: Collected Poems by W.B. Yeats

  Amazon page This collection gathers about 300 poems from 12 poetry collections by Yeats. Most of the dozen collections are included in their entirety. Yeats is... Read more

  Posted on 09 October 2019 SOCIETY, TRAVEL

• BOOK REVIEW: Selected Poems, 1957-1981 by Ted Hughes

  Amazon page This is a collection of 150+ poems extracted from 15 works from Ted Hughes' early career. Note: there is a second volume that picks up where this on... Read more

  Posted on 09 October 2019 SOCIETY, TRAVEL

• DAILY PHOTO: Arikamedu

  

  Taken on October 7, 2019 at Arikamedu. Arikamedu was a Roman trading post near Pondicherry. The ruins are much more recent, and the Roman and Greek artifacts... Read more

  Posted on 08 October 2019 SOCIETY, TRAVEL

• POEM: Hanoi Epiphany

  

  I strolled the streets of Hanoi, -past Starbucks, McDonalds, and American fast-food joints I thought had gone belly up decades ago. -past young lovers on park... Read more

  Posted on 04 October 2019 SOCIETY, TRAVEL

• POEM: Exiled

  

  I sit atop a tiny isle. These rags I wear were never in style. Impiety 's not my only sin. I took no tonic with my gin. I never called, hated the phone. A... Read more

  Posted on 03 October 2019 SOCIETY, TRAVEL

• POEM: Exiled

  

  I sit atop a tiny isle. These rags I wear were never in style. Impiety 's not my only sin. I took no tonic with my gin. I never called, hated the phone. A... Read more

  Posted on 03 October 2019 SOCIETY, TRAVEL

• Poem: Into Madness

  

  Panic is danced into madness by every soul that fears. Bombing empty toy factories, storming the field of tears. And a million miles down that line, you're... Read more

  Posted on 03 October 2019 SOCIETY, TRAVEL

• BOOK REVIEW: The Art of Living by Epictetus; Ed. by Sharon Lebell

  The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness and Effectiveness by Epictetus My rating: 4 of 5 stars Amazon page This thin volume is packed with... Read more

  Posted on 01 October 2019 SOCIETY, TRAVEL

• BOOK REVIEW: Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare

  Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare My rating: 5 of 5 stars Amazon page [Spoiler-laden summary: To be fair, you've had almost 400 years to read it or... Read more

  Posted on 01 October 2019 SOCIETY, TRAVEL

• BOOK REVIEW: Prana and Pranayama by Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati

  Prana And Pranayama by Swami Niranjananda My rating: 5 of 5 stars Amazon page This is the Bihar School of Yoga manual on pranayama, or yogic breathing exercises... Read more

  Posted on 01 October 2019 SOCIETY, TRAVEL

• 5 Winter Night Haiku

  

  snowy woods glows in the moonlight fox tracks silent hour smoke, a farm nearby? who knocks? barren woods morning light will pass through night's void who... Read more

  Posted on 30 September 2019 SOCIETY, TRAVEL

• My Year of Discovering How Weird the Mind Gets, Pt. IX [Streaming Poetry]

  

  As I continue to look at variations in consciousness, it occurred to me that poetry writing (or at least pre-writing) often involves an altered state of... Read more

  Posted on 26 September 2019 SOCIETY, TRAVEL

• BOOK REVIEW: Candy by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg

  Amazon page The protagonist of this story, Candy Christian, is a caricature of a flighty, young beauty with daddy issues. Candy's personality mixes cringe-worth... Read more

  Posted on 24 September 2019 SOCIETY, TRAVEL