Best Bracts Poems
All The Time
The pale dusted blue
Washes sunlight prances
Falls in its edges of heat and pristine shade
Shadows
And I need you
Couples old and young
Hand in hand
Arm in arm
Families pass on pavements baked by the sun
They smile
Like children on shoulders
Babies in push chairs
Ice cones melting
And I need you
And every form of tree and leaf
Dances
Wafted by salt sea breezes
They leap in their slow expression
Of life
As I need you
All around the sweet sounds live
Birds chirp
People talk
The wind whispers
And eyes witness behind sunglasses
And I need you
And far away the distances
Expanses open
Lay landscapes out beneath the sun
Busy streets
Car roofs shimmer hot and traffic
All happening in this moment
As I need you
Pretty women in their summer clothes
Sip their beauty from every mans eyes
And glide like angels loved by someone
And the world is happily
Curious in its ease
And I need you
And I rest in tension
Taut and unspoken
Quiet misnomer
The wind catches me and dries the sweat on my brow
With a strangers face watching the world
As I miss you
The light falls
The shadows cosset
The gentle air wafts spent bracts of bougainvillea
The out laying pattern of life
Reiterates
Constant
Sends its everlasting messages out
And every second of time passes
In tiny frozen moments
And I need you
Nothing changes
Nothing replaces
You
black bat flower speaks to me
invited intensity, profound propensity.
its wings and whiskers —
spooky, grotesque.
its bouquet of flowers, teeth
that devour fear,
courage to stand my ground.
it’s said, don’t linger too long
in its centerfold song.
deep darkness swallows
one whole,
an eye entrenched
in one’s soul.
blue moon or so,
a pity party,
boundary of bracts and bracteoles,
seething bat seeds,
tears that moisten undergrowth soil
with brisk breeze.
one’s madness, compassion,
strength, prattle unleashed.
11/17/2020
My favorite flower comes from the dogwood tree
Which just blooms only one time each year in the South which is at Easter
Now the petals are called “bracts” and the center contains it‘s “blossoms”
And the “bracts” can range from white to pink to an almost red color
But that’s not what makes that tree so significant to me.
It’s amazing to me that if you look closely at the dogwood flower
That you can see the resemblance of the cross
Because on each “bract” you can plainly see
Bloodstained nail prints of brown and rust stained with red
And then the “blossoms” of it contain what looks like a crown of thorns.
It’s also amazing just to think
How it’s “blossoms” bloom before Easter every year
It must be one of God’s miracles that is unexplainable
And then it stays in full bloom for three weeks
Kind of like Jesus was in the grave three days
Have you ever thought that a week could of been a day in God’s timing.
When I get tired of the concrete and tar
there’s a place I can go, and not travel far,
that hasn’t been touched by progress at all;
nature stands still beneath gums growing tall.
And in amongst shadows with sprinkled light,
there’s rippling water and birds taking flight,
a sprinkling of colour amongst shades of green,
there’s burrows and scratching where something has been.
So I give you a picture of Billycan Creek
where flora and fauna are all quite unique,
and nothing is spoilt where I sit on a log
with my video camera and terrier dog.
A single stem orchid stands better than stark
with a deep purple flower that closes at dark,
and a coprosma tree with red berries quite sweet
is a pleasure to find with its bounty a treat.
In mistletoe weeping from a host in disguise
I video drifting jezebel butterflies,
and sitellas who cling to an old stringybark,
then high on a limb…the nest of a mudlark.
So I give you a picture of Billycan Creek
where flora and fauna are all quite unique,
and my camera is ready, with eyes like a hawk
where now with my dog on a casual walk.
Here the undulate water it constantly flows,
diverting ‘round logs and where overhang grows,
a haven’s provided for what could be prey
and in the shallows there’s a freshwater cray.
Some red brow firetails flit down for a drink,
there’s a burrow that’s new with no reason to think,
for a wombat has scratched out a hole and a mound;
but a wombat’s nocturnal who lives underground.
So I give you a picture of Billycan Creek
where flora and fauna are all quite unique,
and I’ve only a second to capture a scene,
so my camera is ready to help me convene.
The scent of boronia hangs heavy and strong,
lances of grass trees are a seed clustered prong,
white ants have covered an old stump with mud,
and Christmas bush bracts are now starting to bud.
On a hazel bush branch a grey fantail sits prone
in a nest made of cobwebs, to a tapering cone,
and a chattering chough tells me that I don’t belong,
now my camera has died so I can’t say it’s wrong…
So my battery is flat and I’m back at the log
with a film full of nature, and my terrier dog,
and you’ve read my picture of Billycan Creek
where flora and fauna are all quite unique.
©2011 Lindsay Laurie
Bougainvillea
Beneath the ashen cloudless sky
the rain subsided to reveal
a plant is budding from its womb
with many colors to behold
of orange, pink and peach or white
the cerise petals paper thin
they cling and climb with such embrace
the sun has risen with a blush
the bougainvillea is enhanced
it shields the drabness of a sight
of worn out fenceposts by a road
rekindling scenes of pleasant thoughts
a road where no one enters more
no one will share its glory here
as time goes by the bracts emerge
as little children huddling close
to someday grow and join their kin
and like a talisman they give
the magic only they can show
the beauty that this plant bestows
Bougainvillea Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Craig Cornish
March 28, 2019
cuz...well...this cerebral cortex lacks
ability to comprehend anything
more complex than playing jacks
aware his severe cognitive ability hacks
away at such juvenile gibberish
and most likely exacts
a prediction my intelligence
on par with bracts
very much aware that
without recourse to contrivances
delineating the passage of time,
wherever said out
standing invisible essence
which moments lapse just now ago
Now!
no just a moment ago Yaw
that, this or another instant
did without so much as a wow
lapse, and lucky
21st *****Sapiens to vow
and lay claim thee or thou
aware the amorphous ether
one can reefer as a sow
or any other animate or
inanimate direct or indirect object re:
yule lie zing
any analogy, metaphor, simile,
et cetera a poor substitute to pre
sent every second, minute,
hour...that doth nee
dull our attention akin
to banshees, or comparison
to something else
totally tubularly off the wall lee
ving without a trace
only prompt a feeble yet apropos je
ne sais quois, yet even then any primate a he
than (if individual couched in this free
to believe in any religion country, and cre
may shun versus burial predicated
adherence to idea of a soul aie...aye
how write with frustration struggle to affix bye
and bye, some nebulous notion, that doth defy
tis a futile effort to codify, fortify,
identify abstract concepts, whose high
arc key eludes pinpointing a per jai
guru dev, place or thing (ha)...
Still green
the leaves shaken by a trembling silence
covered the boughs
and the blood red bracts
a lover's kiss
around the small white flowers
to the giant datura trumpets
crushed like bleeding rose petals
into the goblets of wine
take the lovers lives.
Delicate, fragile
secreted away beneath your beautiful bract
always hiding from the world
you live in a dream shared only by you
alone, lonely
but better alone then afraid
better alone then dejected
better alone then hurt
shrouded in your cloak of royal color,
you feel invisible, protected
but I see you
I see your heart, warm and full
fringed in frail lace, sweet and gentle
guileless and open
your fragility defines you, so trusting you are,
yet allowing you to so easily be broken
and I have broken you
you trusting me to be gentle, to understand you, your needs
and me, insensitive, demanding
gruffly pushing past your leaves of green then purple
my movements careless and awkward
stripped from you your gentle flower, white and pure
gone forever
but perhaps in time trust will return and another will grow,
again, hidden away beneath your loving bracts,
and replace your broken heart
with the beauty that so fills you.
05/01/15
Pretty flowering plant
Often seen at Christmas,
Indigenous to Mexico
Now available at nurseries
Showy scarlet bracts,
Each surrounding yellow flowers
That require much attention
Throughout the season
In order to re-bloom
And delight next year.
Written December 2, 2022
Moon was not faraway.
It rejected the evidence against the rhyme
and proceeded to release
the poem.
The colored bracts of
bougainvillea, fall solemnly, to kiss
the grass. Spring was around
the corner.
Quizzing a stone, a dream
crashes in my hands;
becomes a tiger moth and
settles on your lips.
Future turns into a shell.
I pick it up from the beach of time.
Play with it for sometime and
give it away to my offspring.
It was the beginning. It was the end.
Satish Verma
'If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door'
Milton Berle
Outstretched clever Macadamia tree
Bears talents of both Mama and Papa
Fruit materialised due to insect interlopers
Dangled able honey hundred raceme
Languished beneath its branched limbs
Belonging to this land and each other
Our dream developed entity envelopes
Steadily relishing everything which comes
Impediments proffered excuses to resist
To remain staid, refrain from addendum
Instead choosing skyline over stagnation
Sacrifices made to subsume wider merits
Beholding splendour of shade waved bracts
Combined courage brought bountiful outcome
Prospect extends with each Summer harvest
Macadamia Mama Papa caretaker provides
Canopy which oversees posterity of centuries
Husk crack reveals creamiest tongue rolled gems
18th October 2020
Written for Contest : Quotable
Sponsor : Regina McIntosh
Some orange, purple and magenta...
Some crimson, yellow, red...
Cascade walls in soft rainbow shades.
Fountain of colors flow rooftop to balcony,
parapets and gates in gorgeous radiance.
An awestruck seduced bumblebee,
in abundance of pink champagne, cried
"My god, you are so beautiful"....
The bougainvillea vine, a triplet cluster,
unassuming small petals, dull, pale, white.
"With no fragrance in my poor heart within,
only a cosmetic trick of colorful bracts.
Leaves in disguise show off bright camouflage,
beacon butterflies, they come close to me.
Paper glamour withers, brittle, soft, thin,
My beauty is deep, only up to skin !"
Dated 15th April, 2019
Craig Cornish 's Bougainvillea Contest
The Temperate Climes
the temperate climes arriving soon
taking possession of what will be hewn
as untrimmed flora will be heaven bound
with new seeds of love the earth will be crowned
rain from the skies will bless holy ground
to lease for awhile and wait while they’re housed
natures complexion is no longer roused
the flowers and plants conjoing as one
continuing life as once there was none
the bracts are mature and forming a bud
the color of gold released from the mud
and bright is the beauty that rests in the shade
and I compare thee as creation made
the external beauty for all to see
a daisy enhanced awaiting a bee
Summers Day Redo Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Michelle Faulkner
July 31, 2019
The bride’s inflorescent bouquet, cascading —
a tropical tease of Chamorro charm
in the Marianas Islands.
A circular celebration arch
of bougainvillea and golden wedding bands,
preened and prepared, to love and cherish.
The handsome groom clasps the bride’s hand
as they step into the infinity ring.
Their breathing entwined with sunshine and seashells.
Her dark, Guamanian skin
and sleek ebony hair, surrounded by Red Hot,
California Gold and Sundown Orange blossoms.
The honeysuckle-scent of paper flowers,
intoxicating —
ruminating with romance.
The Pacific Islanders,
bare feet in tan sand,
release the coconut essence of their vows.
The grand reception at the hotel, in moonlight hours,
near the ancient wall, kissing blossoms and bracts.
4/8/2019
Bougainvillea Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Craig Cornish
Hanging brightly like lightning from heaven,
a riveting explosion of colours,
from angelic white to royal purple to classic pink,
you'll find your choice here.
Slender white flowers covered
with a three piece waxen skirt of bracts
makes your fingers itch to touch them,
but all beautiful things come with a cost,
minute thorns surround the flowers,
like mini towers, protecting them.
Dazzling evergreen beauty,
bougainvillea is a must for your garden.
04/07/19