Best Snapdragons Poems
snapdragons dancing
stirred by the gentle zephyr...
grooving side to side
Writing Challenge 2, March 2019 - Haiku- Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Dear Heart (Winner: 2nd Place)
Date written and posted: 03/15/2019
"Snapdragons and Dandy Lions (Part 1)"
“Don’t move,” she smiled gently,
“stay there, stop fidgeting, let me put these in your hair”,
I was sitting cross-legged
on the lush green bluegrass lawn
it felt like 70’s Shagpile carpet,
long and unshorn.
“I said, don’t move! There’s a Blue Tongue over there,
you’ll frighten it away, they don’t like to be scared.”
She was shielding her eyes surveying the yard
like a pirate on the high seas,
a ship on the Ocean,
while the Sprinkler
kept raining a moving waterfall
automatic motion
here and there buzzing bees
in the Kumquat Trees.
She was pointing to the boulder
next to the Lychee Tree
close to where I was
legs now unfolded
scrambling around on my knees.
It was around 5 in the avo not morn
we’d been there covered in sunscreen
for a coupla hours and
tired from the heat
we were all stifling yawns
in the sweltering sub-tropical garden
amongst her verdant jungle of flowers and ferns
there amongst the strawberry patches, passionfruit, Lady Finger trees,
Pineapples, PawPaws, grapes, tomatoes,
and towers of fragrant sweet Jasmine, Lilac-mauve Wisteria
plunging Deep Velvety Red Bougainvillea,
flirty Sweatpeas and
the pungent Pink Frangipani
impregnating the air with it's fat-belied
perfume, the scent of which to this day
sends one into absolute delerium; then
came the whirring blood-suckers
that bombed us in buzzing swarms
never foiled no dignified treaty -
one was never forwarned,
that left itchy-bites and
eventually weeping sores,
feeling sorry for ourselves
the breeze carried our songs of retreat to which she’d
impart, “Shush! Don’t carry on,
everyone will hear you way out on the Street!”.
“They like your blue blood, that’s why!”,
she explained in exasperation, kind of worried
spraying us with Stingose.
“Tonight we’ll put up the nets and
burn the Tiger Coils”.
(Lovejoy-Burton/2017 Dec)
For Lynette
(1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izQsgE0L450
"Snapdragons and Dandy Lions - Part 2"
The day was cooling down
pressing itself close into
the amythest and musk pink early eve
as the eggshell pale blue sky rolled over into
Astor Purple to get ready for sleep.
The Ostrich Ferns rustled,
We’d frightened the Blue Tongue, he’d run back to his lair.
Coming in from the Ocean now
there came a light breeze.
I was looking for four leaf clovers
and Skink eggs but they were to be found nowhere
while she knelt in her rock garden planting
Agapanthas, Gladiolus, Calla Lillies,
Daffodils, Fresias and Pansies -
there were loose bulbs everywhere
and packets of Tulip
and Blue-Eyed Susan seeds.
Sooty, the Black cat sat
and watched with knowing sly eyes
twitched his whiskers, licked a paw on ‘his’ Window Sill,
he looked very wise.
We’d been making Daisy Chains,
she’d placed on our hair like Crowns.
Of course,
3’s always a bad number, it's never neat,
there’d been fights in between – still,
we were her adoring subjects, her princesses and
SHE our beautiful and kind QUEEN.
“Do you know why I love Snapdragons the best?” the QUEEN declared,
“They’re the knights of this garden –
they get a bad rap because of their name.
Look at their faces though,
they’re ferocious not frightened of anything,
great courage they always stand firm.
It’s the blasted Dandy Lions,
well they scare easy,
blow away every time
there’s a storm
and they leave a damned mess”.
She looked at us, and said,
“You’re like those Snapdragons my beautiful girls.
Always stand together.
Always stand firm”.
(Lovejoy-Burton/2017 Dec)
(1)
"Under the Ivy"/Kate Bush
https://youtu.be/NvKNzyO4wk0
(2)
"Datura"/Tori Amos
https://youtu.be/WX_dwuF-6oY
Delicate petals on stately stalks sway in the breeze,
sweet, scented nectar attracts hummingbirds and bees.
I watch them while sipping iced tea in my lawn chair,
Snapdragons adorn my garden with a decorative flair.
They're not fire-breathing blooms, standing in sunlight,
proudly displaying a variety of colors, bold and bright.
They grace my walkways in the seasons, spring and fall
as floral sentinels they greet me, standing lordly and tall.
August 27, 2002
Eight Lines of Ryme - Your Favorite Flower contest
Sponsored by Tania Kitchin
Snapdragons Crackle
Snapdragons crackle
in the air for Maura
and her flowing gait,
a swagger neither Nora
nor Maureen would ever
let a suitor savor.
Maura knows
that in her wake
men with scythes
and burlap sacks,
creep like gators,
eyes afire, jaws agape.
Nora and Maureen
can smell these men.
Unlike Maura
and her flowing gait,
Nora and Maureen will smile,
take their time and wait.
Donal Mahoney
I call my mind a palace the way people call storms “weather,”
Like a softer word might keep it from doing so much damage.
If I say palace,
I get chandeliers instead of bars,
vaulted ceilings instead of a sentence that lasts my whole life.
It’s cold here.
Not dramatically-not the kind of cold that makes one beg for rescue.
Just the kind that settles in and never leaves.
Visitors underestimate it.
They always do.
They step inside glowing, certain that warmth is contagious, and leave rubbing their arms like the air betrayed them.
I don’t chase those who leave.
I’ve learned that running only feeds the echo.
The floors remember every footstep, the walls replay every doubt, and the silence has a way of sounding like judgment if you listen too long.
I tell myself it’s not a prison, because prisons don’t bother with beauty.
They don’t polish marble or let light collect on staircases like it’s thinking about staying.
They don’t give you rooms you can get lost in without ever technically leaving.
Still, I know the truth of it— that there’s no exit sign that actually means escape.
That this is where I will live my whole life, learning which doors stick, which thoughts frost over by morning, and which halls are too dark to go through, lest I never come out.
——
There is a garden.
It’s not obvious. You wouldn’t stumble into it by accident.
You have to want quiet more than answers, have to stop trying to prove you’re survivable.
The air changes there— not warmer, just kinder, softer.
Snapdragons crowd the paths, petals stacked like careful defenses,
Bright enough to distract from whatever shape hides beneath.
Dahlia grows wrapped in on herself, leaf over leaf, as if tenderness is something you earn access to slowly.
No one really knows what those flowers look like unguarded, and no one demands to.
In the garden, I don’t have to translate myself.
I don’t apologize for the cold or promise it will pass.
I just exist the way protected things do— intact, unreachable, alive.
Maybe that’s why I stay.
Not because the palace is kind,
But because it learned how to make room for something soft.
Because even frozen places can grow things that know how to endure.
I don’t need to love it here.
I just need one place that doesn’t ask me to leave myself behind.
One garden that understands why so many petals might be necessary,
Snapdragons (edit)
One is a serpent on the wing, the other a butterfly.
Each belongs to species created from
tissue paper, water, and light.
When half-awake I can hear the droning
of their nocturnal flights,
amber engines rattle cut-glass hangers
as they lift off to carpet bomb our dreams.
Some are more wolf than dragon,
they form packs of loup-garou,
and snap at the heavy-handed
and too fleshy fingered florists.
Those not employed in directing
disbelievers toward dragon lore
retire to flower as urban myths,
their chiffon wings and origami faces
masking many a peppery passion.