"monasteries" poems
I am no longer a Roman,
Though my nose would differ.
I'm not Viking,
But my descendants have blonde and red hair.
I am a beneficiary of the dark ages,
The scriptoriums and monasteries
That brought the Greeks and Romans to life.
I am not Gael, though my eyes smile
When I hear the harp and pipes.
Neither am I Saxon nor Norman,
Victorious or defeated.
I, we, have metamorphized,
Casted of the moulted casement,
Spread dry wings and lifted,
Carried on fresh winds
To new worlds
To read, write, fish and hunt,
And I have gathered
My lineage,
Framed it in genetics on my wall,
To point at in fond remembrance
Of what I once was.
Nov 30, 2018
Nov 30, 2018 at 10:57 AM UTC
This is not a love poem.
That was not love I fell in.
Rose covered graves,
is it death that I'm smelling ?
Fate knocks on my door
and I don't bat an eye.
"Fate can't be ignored !"
well neither can I.
Winter spread across the world
as the days went by.
My men fled the lands
to catch the last of the tides.
Preachers deep in prayer,
seek refuge from the skies.
Monasteries abandoned
in pursuit of the tides.
Drowning in herself,
in service to her pride.
Not a law left unbroken
now show me one I can abide.
Mountains took shelter
where I chose to reside.
Born to the storms that
cast terror upon the tides.
The storms called my name
until I saw it in those eyes.
Disbelief had all but claimed
what I'd salvaged from the tides.
Jul 17, 2014
Jul 17, 2014 at 6:02 AM UTC
An unexpected virus came
Diabolically and odiously.
Sniffles like missiles;
We will cough
Green-brown phlegm
And seaweed;
Eyes itch with sweat;
Throats sound guttural warnings;
Muscles ache from making
The sign of the cross in European monasteries;
The tentacles are spreading, grasping, holding hard;
A boy lies face down on the firewall
Like a tethered goat,
Invasive, infectious and deadly.
The body politik has been exposed,
Vulnerable and fallible.
Sep 8, 2015
Sep 8, 2015 at 8:39 AM UTC
Open and closed doors
windows shutters castles wards shops towns roads
borders. Follow your path
if you can, where possible
Open and closed gardens
skies valves taps sewers sluices vaults coffins
graves. Look and smell
where you are, where you're going
Open and closed monasteries
societies visors letters flowers looks lips eyes
ears. Listen and be blind
to what you don't need to see
Open and closed books
credits lines veins wounds chakras minds questions arms
hearts. Speak and keep silent
about what doesn't need to be said
Open and non-open
water fire kitchens pans curtain endings conversations
relationships. Be caring
for others and yourself
Sep 21, 2025
Sep 21, 2025 at 3:27 AM UTC
just realized i epitomize a surfer
you know the spiritual, counter culture, wise, mellow, happy, down to earth, fashionable, rad, stoked variety
stoke monasteries
May 28, 2013
May 28, 2013 at 8:58 PM UTC
I dreamt once of a monk;
Who put paddle to water and wandered over oceans.
My dream;
My dream dreamt of women,
Draped in towels
Dripping their sweet sweat on his brow.
My dream;
My dream leaves me empty,
I dream of celibacy.
My dream?
I dreamt of ancient monasteries
Filled with mausoleums
And gravestones to great men,
A shattered core;
Where monk fearfully
Utter panic sing,
Convincing,
Pleading,
Hoping,
There is a pure thing.
Feb 16, 2013
Feb 16, 2013 at 12:23 PM UTC
~
March 2025
HP Poet: Mike Adam
Age: 66
Country: UK
Question 1: A warm welcome to the HP Spotlight, Mike. Please tell us about your background?
Mike Adam: "Slum east London, dysfunctional violent childhood, playing on bombsites. School, dungeons and kidnappings, sad little boy. Love of dogs and plants and rocks. School: Beckett Shopenhauer, work, college, work university, 1st love lost, travel Asia beaches and mountains, monasteries, monks, Bhodidharma. Work, work, work, Lady J (published collection), retirement, happy at last."
Question 2: How long have you been writing poetry, and for how long have you been a member of Hello Poetry?
Mike Adam: "Began writing 10 years old, HP about ten years."
Question 3: What inspires you? (In other words, how does poetry happen for you).
Mike Adam: "Poems gestate and arrive unbidden, laid like turtle eggs, a little hole, sand flicked and forgotten."
Question 4: What does poetry mean to you?
Mike Adam: "From 1,000 posts perhaps start with the latest few. I call them "mercifully short," easy to read but, given time, you may unpack a great deal."
Question 5: Who are your favorite poets?
Mike Adam:
*"Ryokan:
Why ask who has Satori, who has not?
What need have I for that dust, fame and gain
Montale:
Life that seemed vast
Is briefer than your handkerchief"*
Question 6: What other interests do you have?
Mike Adam: *"Amidst the first suicidal mass extinction in history I am grateful to read new poetry and garner hope from young poets still expressing themselves in beautiful combinations of words so thank you all for that...
Who am I?
I don't know"*
Carlo C. Gomez: “Thank you so much Mike, we really appreciate you giving us the opportunity to get to know the person behind the poet! It is our pleasure to include you in this Spotlight series!”
Mike Adam: "With gratitude, Mike."
Thank you everyone here at HP for taking the time to read this. We hope you enjoyed coming to know Mike a little bit better. We certainly did. It is our wish that these spotlights are helping everyone to further discover and appreciate their fellow poets. – Carlo C. Gomez
We will post Spotlight #26 in April!
~
Mar 2, 2025
Mar 2, 2025 at 4:45 PM UTC
In monasteries,
clay men seek the potters hands,
slight imperfections,
were their claim to injustice--
the worst kind of puzzle players.
Jun 27, 2010
Jun 27, 2010 at 12:14 AM UTC
I bleed in silence, in
Abandoned cathedrals,
Monasteries, and holy Shrines.
I have looked for you,
Begged the grand idols,
Visited crumbling walls
Of burnt out cities,
And antiquities -
All the places they told me
You had been.
My eyes see red
But I'm blue,
And there's a bruise
On my knee-
A blend of both.
My lips no longer move in prayers
My eyes have no tales to tell-
But my poems scream
And I live - on a middle ground
Between the two
-a whimper on nights,
A sad smile during days.
You're not coming for the rescue, are you?
I ache and long, now
More than I can love
But for what? Is it you?
I never could commit suicide,
But I killed myself, every moment,
nonetheless,
Till I heard the rhythm of that heavenly call
In your footsteps
And how you filled even the silences between us
With grace
And I was seen, and I could see
And I was loved with a love
That I could accept.
If our love had two colors,
It'd be red and blue
Like any God,
You came with your own set of rules.
Passionate red, that you brought
And the blues that I always carry
Red and blue icy veins -
With the same emotions flowing through.
But you were taken away too.
And now I'm neither red, nor blue
But despondent brown
The color of the dirt, the only thing
Separating me and you.
You're not coming back, are you?
I walk on,
I don't rest and I don't sleep.
How can there be a God if there's no justice?
And the moon is not blue with sadness;
Nor does it cry with me.
And the stars are just as oblivious and distant.
And the sun, well, it never bothered
to shine on any of us.
I see a world now, as it is,
Stripped of meaning
and all its metaphorical use.
If I could be colored,
I'd choose red and blue-
Burning bright
with a frigid determination.
To save the soul,
Sometimes you must
destroy its vessel
And when a world dies, its gods must die along.
None of you came, so I had to come to you.
Jan 28, 2019
Jan 28, 2019 at 8:33 AM UTC
The Rozhen Monastery of the Nativity of the Mother of God (Bulgarian: Роженски манастир "Рождество Богородично", Rozhenski manastir "Rozhdestvo Bogorodichno") is the biggest monastery in the Pirin Mountains in southwestern Bulgaria. It is one of the few medieval Bulgarian monasteries well preserved until today.
Rozhen Monastery website
http://rozen.pmg-blg.com/index.php
Rozhen
on a dry tree hung
does the monastery hang
and a road is curving
like a snake
with its tail up
do you hear that cry
of the rocks
the silence screams
overcome
by all the words
by the roar of crickets
by the blood in the vains
I've never understood nothing
stuck the palms
and three fingers
above the soil
The original:
рожен
на сухо дърво окачен
виси манастирът
и се извива път
подобно змия
с опашката си нагоре
чуваш ли онзи вик
на скалите
тишината пищи
сломена
от всичките думи
от грохота на щурците
от кръвта във вените
никога нищо не съм разбрал
залепнали дланите
и три пръста
над пръст
*Translator Bulgarian-English: Vessislava Savova
rarebird
© bogpan - all rights reserved.
Nov 30, 2010
Nov 30, 2010 at 10:30 PM UTC
*A night of dreams-
Resident of the clouds
Flying across the blue
Visiting every mountain peak
Where the mood is somber
Monasteries, carved in mountains
Hymns reverberating everywhere
From the precipice, a view to behold
Standing there with arms wide open
As morning dawns tenderly
Soaking in the misty aura all around
Gently stirring the core of my soul
As I wake up with renewed faith
From the dream within my dream*
Sep 1, 2014
Sep 1, 2014 at 9:12 AM UTC
A blinding reflection
of the sun’s light shot
like lightening flares crashing
against glass towers
turquoise blue drawings
of the sky in structures
with angles and boundaries
climbing high as its
architecture would allow,
thrilled by the terror
of getting right
to the edge
and looking down
was my first step
towards freedom;
towards a tiny movement
in a no fly zone
bent by dreams, purposes
and meanings
now those peregrine callings
and two flying together
are becoming human,
lit with discernment
of a third eye
and an aerial view
I step off the edge,
headed east
into the morning sun
like the hauntingly beautiful
songs of French monasteries
I see clearly,
I am strong
and my body can only rise
Sep 16, 2013
Sep 16, 2013 at 3:41 PM UTC
I’d heard a story in that proverbial once upon a time
(Though its origins are hazy, at best, to me now:
Perhaps something my son heard at Sunday school,
Or part of the never-ending nattering
From the marketing guy at lunchtime,
Maybe cackled by the crazy, toothless blind guy on the 16A bus)
Concerning the programmers who’d worked on a project
In the earliest days of nano-technology,
Creating software for their relative monoliths,
Australopitchecuses of artificial intelligence,
Serving as prototypes for some envisioned universe
Where tiny drones served the whims of some doctor or researcher
Operating unseen and omnipotent behind some microscope or monitor.
The trials went quite smoothly, almost flawlessly,
The models impeccably doing what binary switches
And if-then-else statements decreed,
But the researches noticed that
Just before they executed the final bit of code,
The models would invariably exhibit
A slight hesitation--almost imperceptible, infinitesimal even,
But clearly occurring, nonetheless.
They’d assumed, quite naturally, it was a mere matter of de-bugging,
Some misplaced comma or parentheses among the thousands,
But they reviewed the code any number of dozens of time,
Only to find it was clean as a whistle.
What’s more, they’d found that while the vacillation appeared
At the same point in the process,
It didn’t happen at exactly the same time;
Indeed, they cropped up, relatively speaking, months, even years apart.
One of the white coats jokingly referred to the pause
As the machines “Peggy Lee moment”
(You know, ‘Is that all there is?’)
But no one else involved the project saw the humor.
They’d decided to ignore or accept the quirk, though it was rumored
That it drove a few of the programmers to near-madness,
With one or two of their number bolting the project without notice,
Entering monasteries with the intent
Of shutting themselves off from the outside world
For the rest of their days, and its existence was buried
In reams of footnotes at the end of their final report
(Though as I said, the tale’s source is unclear,
And I am inclined to regard it as apocryphal.)
Dec 22, 2016
Dec 22, 2016 at 10:00 AM UTC
the sea and its ghosts,
water falling,
clouds like peaceful
monasteries,
somewhere beyond.
Oct 2, 2015
Oct 2, 2015 at 11:49 AM UTC
I am from blond curls
and bubble gum
swinging above the bar
and flying through the air after letting go
I am from patchwork dresses at Zen monasteries
and never sitting still
reading with a flashlight under my blanket
and creating my own worlds
lost teeth
and quarters under my pillow
I am from violent games of Red-Rover
and singing with bands in the park
fairy houses
and homemade bread
summer visits
and treasure hunts in tomato patches
I am from fits of giggles
and Pooh Bear bath toys swimming in bubbles
feeding ducks
and going 'Town-town'
that single Taco Bell
and running in the road
I am from imagination
and creativity
a need to learn
and a yearning for love
I am from many places
and nowhere at all
May 26, 2012
May 26, 2012 at 3:30 PM UTC
No sound disturbs
The cloud curled steeps of sea green pines
whose clinging oceanic thoughts
are freed, released from malted slopes.
Respired slow , the sallow spirals
herd to high, still, corrugations,
Their purse; a billion brooches
For their keep.
And, then a Raven
Barks its gloat across the drab pavilions
A dauntless hermit sculls away,
on myth buoyed strokes, to beat the bounds.
Carried from the pinioned ridge
away to secret monasteries.
Climbing from embroidered
oriental looms of Beech
May 25, 2016
May 25, 2016 at 12:12 AM UTC
Intelligent believers of democracy,
Let me inform you with a great surge of emotion that I am a candidate in this election
I beg you, request you, beseech you to make us win with great majority by casting every vote of yours for our symbol
I don’t have to recount the great services rendered by our logo in houses, by-lanes, churches, temples, offices, hotels- why, in buses, hospitals, monasteries, cemeteries, and every nook and corner of the land
About its great desire to fill even the stomachs of those little children who sleep along the roadside, with no one to look after them
Our sign cannot ignore the mothers and sisters who work in factories of sighs, with only half their stomachs full. That’s why even after being totally spent, it resurrects itself again and again.
Its social sense which decries that even those bodies on hospital beds, half-burnt, should get justice.
Wont the dead have unquenched desires
Just like the living?
The greatness of our emblem and its universality which embraces unborn babies, the living and the dead, without any consideration of caste or creed or ***
About its reproducibility, the sense with which it can raise or lower itself as the opportunity demanded, its will power which helps it work with a passion, its power to please, its divine gift to give peace and happiness
What about its readiness to sacrifice even the last drop? It thinks only about giving! Please do not fall into the traps of the other signs which are never satisfied whatever it got, and which are ready to split any moment.
Let me ask you, have we come first in anything? China is standing like its great wall..let me remind you that if everyone tried together to raise our symbol to great heights, we can at least come first in population
Please do not let go of the chance to win, listing unpolitical arguments like headache, hunger, hatred etc
Our slogan
Contentment for everyone from children to old people
A land where milk flows
Aug 13, 2014
Aug 13, 2014 at 12:40 AM UTC
The tune you played it ran so sweetly
I was sure Time himself had stopped
dead in his tracks to greet me
And let believe all the while my soul
had been enslaved
Such was the relief to my heart that it
gave;
Holier than the sight of monasteries
crouched in secluded valleys
Sweeter than the song of the bird in
the green Summer's tree
So sweet was it that it opened a
thousand as yet unsavoured dreams
And had my mind rest easy on the
cool wind
Which swept over their prosperous
seas.
II
The tune you played brought calm
upon a boisterous evening
Though Sorrow came to me
When I saw you finish and leave the
centre stage
For I had thought I might live forever
under your enchanting spell
Far from the world in peace and
harmony
With Love kept, not left weeping
Far from the wakening hour
From that chore of modern empty
living;
It was by far the sweetest tune
It released this fellow songbird from
his cage
And it all seemed like glorious Heaven
these brief moments spent
For he who had longed always to be
free.
Translated from the
original Latin of
Emperor Nero circa
40 AD (his later
period).
Apr 22, 2018
Apr 22, 2018 at 5:59 AM UTC
amid cool breezes
?? the last -- line -- is found ??
• •
She
Wanderer of high hills !
( owner // or trespassing ? )
• •
She spreads her body before us !
Super Model or ***** ?
( Depends on how much she gets paid )
••
Who are you ?
Sacred monasteries
Broken pillars in the sands
• •
Love ?
Listen !
Sounds of love ?
///
just passing thru
Said the old freight train
To the poet over there
••
Naked she is
Naked she is
Naked she is
••
I see her
Naked she is
??? the last line still has not been found ???
Mar 8, 2015
Mar 8, 2015 at 4:23 PM UTC
They say that only words can rhyme
I hear that everywhere and all the time,the time that the creator took
to write the pages of the world within his book
and I have tasted rhymes in nature,true
It's what I feel and what I do.
the ocean deep can keep its blue and green in submarine
the conch shell with its sound of bells can like the rings of Saturn
bring us to a place
a space inside our space
I asked, is this all that we could see
and answered
if you could only be
the expansion of the universe another stretch,a rhyming verse
but if expanding
how outstanding, I exclaim
but
what is it outside this universe that we push aside to enter in
and where does this thing that we push aside begin
or does it not and never end
does it glide on the decay of moons from many moons that died before
and if it does what does it mean
what is life for?
On a star so far away,so long ago
someone knew
someone who I never knew but they knew me
and they could see that even then the time would come when men like me would ask these sorts of questions
and what of them
who were these men that climbed those mountains out in space
did they face the questions that we do
is that how they knew
how could we learn
how could we not?
this Earth is all we've got
and look at it
we've turned it into a pile of..have you seen the wars and ******* pouring out and dripping down the walls..
..of heartaches and in meal breaks we have never had it as good as what we had and knock on wood
which does no good at all
let's fall into the fires in monasteries and pray to gods of other times
but we are just lines in rhyming tales
ships with sails
and wings that never fly
beyond it all we are
we are
we are and could be
if we bothered to open up our eyes the lies that we have never told, the stores we bought and never sold, the age old thing
we are exactly what we bring and take away
each and every day we get further and further away from what we want and still we want some more
what is it if this life's not for
a betterment
we are not lees or sediment we
we
we
are the fruits
the shoots from which we spring
what do we bring?
and tell me if you can
if we are sentient and man
who are we?
Jun 24, 2013
Jun 24, 2013 at 7:32 PM UTC
heedlessly spun out of control
caress the flickering heat
which seethes into ruby monasteries
freshly flushed of an intimate cheek
the chatter of flashing white teeth
in the darkness encompassing
the silhouettes of our laughter
and the giddy vigor
drifting, lurking unforeseen
the melting pool of stares
glimpsed through the chatter
of padded reminiscent sighs
and the lingering melody
of our glinting
chipped feelings
Oct 19, 2015
Oct 19, 2015 at 5:44 PM UTC
Why does HE create such benevolent primary elements?
Why does HE assemble such monasteries in such a destructive macrocosm?
Why does HE reward with such magnanimity but in disobedience punish us with such brutality?
Why ,
Does HE create such benevolent primary elements?
Nov 19, 2018
Nov 19, 2018 at 3:46 AM UTC
Legs, they yearn themselves
Up hills and into monasteries,
Plagued by the dissipation of the evening light,
The trees, they know how little it means
To live as a man,
They burn with dissipation of the evening
And we've seen you in silks,
In robes, in crowns, in power-suits,
And we've seen you quoting scripts,
God's will, divine rights, free market grants,
And it's the bones of the world,
And it's the chalk of the child,
And it's the nature of regret
And it's the grind of the drill,
And it's the blood in the mud,
And it's the nature of regret
And it's the phlegm in the lungs,
And it's the waste of the heart,
And it's the nature of regret
Sometimes, I leave my room
And idle on buses and trains
Pushing forth, devoid of meaning,
Sometimes I plug myself
Into retreats of tweets,
Scrolling idly through the evening
And it's the boots in the mud
And it's the wire in the blood,
And it's the myths we create
For ourselves
And it's the buildings hollowed out
And it's the music without space
And it's the drones circling around
(Pakistani vistas and towns.)
Trees, they know how insignificant
It is to live as a man,
For this, they'll burn,
It is the nature of regret.
Jun 5, 2015
Jun 5, 2015 at 9:28 PM UTC
Who dares to wake this
mountain of a monastery that
sleeps deep within the lake of consciousness?
Who is brave enough to take and stuff their heads with dreams
and fantasy landed from beneath this sleeping sea?
Beware
the devil you don't know,knows you well.
Who would break but a moment in their sandwiching of time,to kneel
before and then be mine?
This spell of certainty,
as sure as I can be
is uncertain.
Behind the curtain which hides the eyes,between the words that cover lies,the lake bed dries and more monasteries rise which
disguising wanton lust turn and are turned to dust as dust we all become,
have fun,beware
but remember
the devil you don't know
is everywhere.
Jun 11, 2014
Jun 11, 2014 at 4:13 AM UTC