Best Monasteries Poems
Ramayana, a Hindu epic,
written by saint Valmiki, in Sanskrit
one of the two largest ancient epics,
the first ever poem ever created
many many centuries ago.
It depicts story of Lord Rama
as a kind, fair, brave, soft spoken,
handsome prince, who had
the kind benevolence of gods.
Himself an avatar of lord Vishnu
he was bestowed with divine,
powerful weapons of gods
to be used to fight evil forces.
He won over his consort, Sita,
daughter of King Janak,
in a 'swayamvar', a competition.
Keeping the tradition of honouring
a given word or promise at all costs,
a tradition of his sun god lineage
he went to forest for fourteen years
obeying his father, King Dashrath
and forsake the throne of Ayodhya
for his younger brother Bharata,
as demanded by Queen Kaikayi,
the mother of Bharatha.
He went to forests
with Sita and younger brother Lakshman.
There, he often killed many demons
who had terrorised and killed saints worshipping
peacefully in their holy monasteries,
on latter's requests.
In the 14th year of his banishment,
along with younger brother Lakshman,
with help from his follower Hanuman,
and, King of monkeys, Sugreev,
he fought with King of Lanka, Ravana
a demon King, who had kidnapped Sita
and had wanted to marry her.
After this victory of right over wrong,
and freeing Sita and killing Ravana
he returned to his kingdom Ayodhya
and became the king himself theteafter.
Ramayana, steeped in morality,
depicts duties of relationships,
portraying characters, ideal in nature,
like ideal son, ideal father, ideal servant,
ideal brother, ideal husband and ideal king.
Ramayana has greatly influenced
Hindu poetry, life and culture, thereafter.
Presenting teachings of ancient Hindu sages
in narrative allegory, it intermixes
philosophical and ethical elements.
The characters of Rama, Sita, Lakshman,
Hanuman, Ravana are still revered and worshipped,
in some of the culturally conscious
South and East Asian nations even today.
Two great Hindu festivals,
Dussehra and Deepawali
are celebrated to mark the victory of good over evil,
in India and elsewhere
with fervor and gaiety, every year.
8.6.2020
Categories:
monasteries, inspirational,
Form:
Narrative
Light them up, the candles
in the halls of the monasteries
of your heart,
where the most humble go to pray
and sleep in your cozy breast,
like babies do when they see their mothers.
Light them up, those guns,
that conquer the egos of evil men,
and extinguish the young revolutionist,
who knows nothing more than to live.
Light them up, to the path
of a life worth living,
and not one worth dying.
Categories:
monasteries, deep, life,
Form:
Free verse
Where black-necked cranes come to chat with me
In the company of wine and deep brown honey
Flowing from apple twigs in the heavenly valley
Of Bumthang , carved into the sublime Himalayas
By glacial melt and monsoon rains in collaboration
Giving rise to lovely landscapes offering relaxation
In Buddha’s silence, there lies my dream destination
To fill some vacuum in a week of my next vacation
In the north east of the Indian subcontinent where
Beautiful girls and Buddhist monks are very sincere
(Bum refers to girls and thang a flat piece of land)
Everywhere you will see Buddha’s lifted hand
In consonance with the land an ever demure voice
Of Buddhism says: go to the mystic blue and rejoice
Along the murmur of icy rivers and lakes everywhere
Pink rhododendrons exude fragrance in the fresh air
Flowers red, yellow, pink, white, lilac, green and blue
For our sore minds and thirsty psyche all these hues
In the shades of Pine and Oak monasteries as a nest
The imposing peaks descend here to take a little rest
Four charming valleys, Tang, Ura, Choekhor, Chumey
Will greet us in a smile on our trip to Bumthang valley
Morning is wakened here by blue-capped rock thrush
Beside the flapping flags the gurgling streamlets gush
Where Gross National Happiness instead of GDP
Determines economic progress of the society
Come, dear friend, to join me in the amazing journey
From the chains of self to a deep sense of infinity
_________________________________________________
February 13, 2016
Categories:
monasteries, beautiful, beauty, change, imagery,
Form:
Verse
Let me set something straight -
Right here, right now!
Let me put India in the right perspective,
Let me banish some myths,
Some gross misconceptions,
And take you beyond elephants,
Sacred cows, snake charmers and yoga,
Beyond Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Taj Mahal,
To a civilization rooted for
over 5,000 years in the past
To a land rich - majestically rich -
In many cultures, customs and traditions,
In a bewildering variety of races,
Religions, languages and folk arts,
In a vibrant tradition of dance and music,
In religious festivals and traditional events,
In saints, sadhus, gurus and sages,
In gods, goddesses, munis and mahatmas,
In temples, palaces, shrines and monasteries;
I'll baby-steps you through a land
Of Vedas and Upanishads,
Of epic stories and incredible mythologies,
Of Ramayana, Mahabharata and Bhagavad Gita,
Through one of world's great spiritual sanctuaries,
Where religion is a way of life;
An overwhelming, complex land -
Its charm, its vitality and yes, its confusion,
Atonce alarming and enticing.
And that's the way India is:
Elusive, confusing, contradictory,
mysterious and exasperating!
Beyond easy description or analysis,
A phenomenal diversity of dress
and manners making one aware
of a different world -
A veritable fairyland!
No other country offers quite such
A spectacle of teeming masses that
continue to enrich the heritage of mankind,
Nowhere do the past and present
coexist in more colorful promiscuity -
An incomparable country,
Easy to love, hard to forget!
"There's only one India!" raved Mark Twain,
"A wonderland of fabulous wealth
and fabulous poverty, of splendor and rags ..."
"The cradle of the human race,
The birthplace of human speech,
The mother of history,
The grandmother of legend and
The great grandmother of tradition."
This, indeed, is my country
Where I was born -
An Indian at heart,
An American in spirit!
Namaste!
Khuda Hafiz, Jai Ramji Ki,
OM Radhe Shyam, Sat Sri Akal,
Jai Hind!!
~Love letters to the sub continent
contest by cyndi MacMillan
Categories:
monasteries, home, perspective,
Form:
Free verse
The era has many glorious phases and faces
when it began on the fall of the Roman empire
Age of Darkness seized war and fire
and time stirred diverse cultures and races
Different flavors were tasted at the end of the story
Commerce and knowledge became Europe's glory
but division of Germanic tribes was Roman's fall
and many emperor’s responded to religion's call
From Clovis to Louis was Christianism
Monks lives and prays in their monasteries
Socio-political systems such as manorialism and feudalism
gave way for peace and order to avoid miseries
The knights are nobilities that needs to pass every ordeal
with passion, poise, bravery, and their will
to fight for their king, their land, and their brothers
no matter how far or how hard the battle offers
In closing of another chapter in history
the Church plans to retrieve their Holy Land
from the Muslim Turks they'll fight hand in hand
Pope Urban II leads the Crusade that led to tragedy
Children were used to touch hearts of stones
but it was the road for them to loose their soul and bones
There were nine crusades that were executed
but none of which did the land exalted
The effects are the weakening of feudalism
and the Church was shadowed with criticism
but it paved way for the innovation of agricultural technology
from conserving water to wind energy
The rise of the trade industry
strengthen the European economy
Fares are conducted by the feudal lords
traders are selling foods, arts, and swords
Truly, the Medieval Time will leave a trace
in history and in every human race
It became the cornerstone of the eras after
A foundation for another stone to be smoother
Categories:
monasteries, education, history, time, ,
Form:
Rhyme
Even if you are invisible, Oh Almighty....
Why should I stand confused or bother?
Your living embodiment I can see
In human flesh in the shape of a mother....
Why should I then sit & search....
Your divine abode in the crest of mysteries...
In a sacred temple or a holy church...
Or even in mosques & monasteries....
The virtues of God that we know
Are kindness,forgiveness,love & care....
A mother's heart will clearly show
All these things glowing there....
And moreover we also believe...
That God makes our entry to the earth
But those are the mothers who travails receive
For months unend to flower the birth....
We search for God in seas & skies
In unread scriptures or a holy city...
But ignore the real God before the eyes
That twinkles with pristine simplicity....!
Categories:
monasteries, mother,
Form:
Rhyme
not in the heart again
for chrissakes it's like Swiss cheese
decoffinated please I'm a yet ambulatory zombie
off his medication as usual
alternatives to logic 101 with Prof. Spike
far too much work for a dead end
saw his only ally the embalmers needle
left his innards spilled in the sand
history in its entirety mocked his comprehension
had the nation in tears and then nausea
several dueling scars graced his genitals
if our perceptions already lie
why shouldn't we
I had to laugh
it was all I could do to keep from smiling
even after a thousand years of AI research
the electronic government was helpless
my Microsoft forehead radiator
absolutely charmingly couldn't get any focus
but the Royal Society of Blind Philosophers
helped me with my little problem
a miracle of recipe repair
because our endorphin soup is a bit thin
the quicksilver cooks ate first and fell asleep
having thrown away their brains long before
in the field kitchen of the gods
after the air raid sirens of postmodernity
can there be too much truth
for an army of blood diamond merchants
now a bit more about para electrics
if only I were at liberty to discuss it
yes imprecision can carry signal
but the place is crawling with dilettantes
wearing their secret butt plugs
it's a guessing game as you can see
petitioning for a visually diagrammatic idiom
although it's a devilish seesaw but let us restart
The Oblivion Ride was the big theme park attraction
my extended family was in the sideshow
justifiably taken for a pack of fools
then the sun went down and never came up again
and we stepped into the stone circle
chanting evidence is preferable
to the moonlit tombstone
good luck with that in your airwaves
broadcast on radio Sarajevo
signal drifting drifting drifting
with minds great and small
and smaller and smaller
the Internet is the yearned for Messiah
there it's done and out and not to be unseen
you wrestle with it while I proceed
dashing among startled commuters
mesmerizing the fact finding committee
their dictatorship of x-ray leeches
tossed him out of several monasteries
apparently the production quotas were relaxed
in a kaleidoscope of normalcy
the style crazed mannerist martinets
howdy do nail in my shoe
From "Engine of Didactic Beauty" available on Amazon
Artist Portfolio: http://walteralter.byethost32.com/
Categories:
monasteries, how i feel,
Form:
Free verse
A young boy stood on the Aventine hills
And watched the future unfold in front of him
He saw the industrialization of mankind
Their souls powered by steam
We have tasted the waters of a billion ecosystems
The sound of bombs, sooths some child in Baghdad
Survival and solitude
Sacred lands full of stone
He saw the European Renaissance
The age of discovery
The telescope expanding the borders of consciousness
The restoration of humanity comes slow
It moves and continues into the future landscapes not yet thought of, not yet built, not yet wakened by the thinking brain.
He wants no more bloodshed
No more repression
Just the lush gardens that glisten under full moons
And the clearness of ice
If only he could remember the world how it was
Full of vibrant chants
And mystical monasteries with spiral staircases that reach out and touch the circumference of earth.
Categories:
monasteries, adventure, america, art, black
Form:
Epic
Each day, a red sun arises from the emerald river,
In the acrobatic leap in the dark with watermelon smell.
In the evening, the pale moon it is dressed up in silver
By a dervish who changes it in a dome where he`ll dwell,
As prisoner of the unmovable being, just like Parmenides;
The moving sands of the desert covered old Coptic monasteries;
Between sky and sand, in old pajamas, the Sphinx and pyramids
Breathe with the slow motion of the camels in ancient reveries
About tears and saints in white tents with summer’s distillation left:
Koran’ effects unto communities’ lives with beauty were bereft.
Museums and parks-cemeteries and ritual prayers in bitter Cairo I meet:
Under One single eye, invisible stranger I rest, in the hot night’s street.
Categories:
monasteries, peace,
Form:
Imagism
Ajanta, Ellora caves HD film capturing paintings and rock-cut sculpture
Caves carved from hills, immaculate top-down orthodox architecture
Modern monuments rise from plinth, CAD down-up structure
Meticulous paintings on dark-at-noon high cave ceilings
Difficult to adjust in one go zoom-click all finer details of paintings
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PS :
~ Ajanta / Ellora - UNESCO World Heritage Sites -
rock-cut caves located in Aurangabad, India
Ajanta - famous for paintings & sculpure of Buddhist religious art
Ellora - famous for Buddhist, Hindu & Jain rock-cut temples & monasteries
~ HD - High Definition
~ CAD - computer aided design
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By Hitendra Mehta
May 2011
For Members contest – Ekphrasis painting, sculpture, book, film by Brian Strand
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Categories:
monasteries, artfilm,
Form:
Ekphrasis
I didn’t know what I would feel about Doug Gay,
But I looked for a motorbike outside the church,
To reinforce his black biker jacket and sociology,
Which superseded church goers and that bunch.
I made it one of the first things I did in Glasgow,
To spy on the sanity crutches of its gem leaders,
Of the contemporary church the ancient throw,
To understand my place in society, had readers’.
I actually managed to have a short conversation,
With him, where I did inquire about monasteries,
And he told me that there was an abby, fixation,
Which he attended often for all his quandaries.
I felt that Doug Gay thought that this discourse,
Was important for what direction I took for sense,
And I knew he wished to replace choice, of course,
For serendipity, onto which god could map, hence.
It was an ephemeral chat, but I kept the dalliance,
And I felt efflorescence from my litre against religion,
Because I’d confirmed that Doug’s bold defiance,
Of the traditional church was fuelled by abbey liaison.
He related the bucolic abbey to Christian theology,
Saying that the Glasgow Christian scene was demesne,
And was a harbinger to the students was cosmology,
By relegating the church’s Jesus to erstwhile, totally.
He said that his god or Jesus had petrichor sweet,
Unlike the nauseating odour of the church stated,
Giving him propinquity to redolent credence neat,
Because he was historical, within the abbey gated.
I appreciated the Late, Late Service somewhat, bits,
His modern worship service of dance, so rebellious,
And now the Rev Doug Gay diligently and surely sits,
As a Glasgow University lecturer in studies religious.
Categories:
monasteries, culture, dance, education, god,
Form:
Quatrain
Let a new age commence, unrest shall now cease
King Henry VII, the bringer of peace
Merchants will travel, trade will now flourish
Descendants of which epitomise courage
A land of writers, a progress of arts
Embedded into the Tudor’s hearts
Embroidered gowns, heads and tales
The elegant wear of farthingales
A Tudor house, a college, a school
Established wealth of Tudor rule
Towns of old, constructed new
Merchants traded, places grew
Refined timber, a solid room
Within the attic, a weaving loom
Wattle and daub, between the frame
A home preserved, set to remain
Furnished halls and window glaze
Estates abound, knot garden maze
Food aplenty, peacock and swan
Iron skewers, with meat upon
Send a fleet, out to defend
A kingdom of which lives depend
Aboard with cannons, Mary Rose
We shall arch with longer bows
Parish churches of the ‘Reformation’
A coat of arms, our declaration
Henry VIII, the Supreme Head
The King’s schools, of which he lead
A ‘Globe’ performance, a Shakespeare show
Shall we stand where ‘groundlings’ go
A theatre set to entertain
Yet monasteries sit in poor remain
Upon thy hill, now let us mount
To thus reflect with fresh account
A prominent history of which to lend
Thy Queen Elizabeth I to end
Written by Geraldine Taylor ©
Categories:
monasteries, child, education, history,
Form:
Free verse
Its the last minute of the 11th hour
I have seen a demon wondering searching for a soul
A priest coveting the ass of another man's woman at church
Convince people you have a speed dial to God's Kingdom
And they will take any theological theories given to them
They worship sophisticated stone deities.
Emmanuel TV, electromagnetic Gods in static images
Composers of the reverse version of the Holy grail
Cursing God, misquoting scriptures and reversing verses
Misleading women like Hershey's Kisses and forbidden pleasures
The fabric of our species is a loose canon
The revelations post-predicted by the real Mayans
The apocalypse.
Its the last minute of the 11th hour
This poem is not against the church
It speaks for Rhodes, Selassie and Robert Moffat
New disciples that walked the deserts of Africa
The founders and architects of God's synagogues
Scribers that wrote covenants in caves at Timbuktu
Puthadikobo, Livingstone, and Thabanchu
Monasteries with no Automated Teller Machices on their walls
This poem is not against Anglicans, Catholics or Apostles
Its an allegory against those that spit on the chapel alters
The bishops and priests with their filthy urethrae
Their genitalia submerged in the oral cavities of alter boys
Seeking head in return for blessings, deliverance and confessions
Fake Joshuas who plant placebo demons and exorcise them for fame
The same devils that preach at the podium of cathedral portals
Dangerous men, listened and worshiped by millions
I m not against the church.
I believe in Muhammad and Jesus all the same
And the sacred message they bring supreme
From Judah through Jordan and the rivers of Ethiopia
I stand firm against Lucifer's devices.
In the face of damnation an entire nation has succumbed
The devil puts in more work than Jehovah's witnesses
Such a beautiful genus undone at the seams by its own beliefs
Victims of natural selection and ever-upgrading IQs
Each generation figures they can be better than their creator
Separationists led by confused evangelists
I m not against the church. I m against religion
I have seen a demon at church searching for lost ones
A priest coveting the ass of another man's woman at church
Its the last seconds of revelation's last moments.
Categories:
monasteries, africa, allah, allegory, angel,
Form:
Lyric
for Neil on his birthday
is where we begin our quest,
seeking enlightenment,
four revelers on a merry ferry
ride, windows down to a watery
wind, cold in winter, gentle in
July on this occasion of a 95th
year of celebration: fruitful,
loving, gift-giving from a man
of long tenure, a span of years
he shared with us: turned-
round collar, chasuble robe,
bell-ringer, server at the Supper
of The Lamb, still the Head
of our spiritual table.
The Bodhi Tree is where the Buddha is said
to have entered nirvana. Bodhi Trees are
planted near all Buddhist monasteries
Categories:
monasteries, birthday,
Form:
Bio
Tongues destroy what monasteries built,
And blessings fall on those consumed with guilt.
Angels visit the demon spawn ,
Watching whilst dusk turns to dawn.
The cruellest of all hide in corporate burrows,
Yet God's brow barely furrows,
And so the world keeps on whirling.
As Man's morals keep burning,
The tide is turning.
The pasture is filled with rams.
The farmer takes no notice of the silence of the lambs.
Categories:
monasteries, angel, anxiety, evil, farm,
Form:
Couplet