By Richard R. Cuyler, Salida CO
The goddamn pigweed’s sprouting everywhere!
I’ve pulled and pulled and pulled and still there’s more.
They’re even more invasive than before
despite deracinations just last year.
I plotted mass extinction, and now pledge
again to finish off the bastards for
all time. I’ll see to it that nevermore
will I extend those weeds the privilege
of rooting in my yard because of my
neglect. Their spikey tops will never show
such insolence again. This final blow
will be wholesale, rightly damnify
them all. Each week I understand that I
should fill only two bags, the maximum
the garbage man will take of cumbersome
obnoxiousness. To fill more bags would try
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my self-control, let my compulsion get
out of hand, allow an ire to master
me. I must confront such a disaster
to usual happiness, though I’m dead set
on full destruction of this pesky foe.
Temptation sometimes overwhelms my strict
intentions. I act like some crazy addict;
I pull the malefactors in the throe
of vengeful anger! In each sprout I see
a personal affront, a threat to life
as it should be. My grudge invests this strife
with huge predictions of catastrophe.
When these nutty bouts of weeding end,
I feel desolate. Though rage does cool,
these futile efforts make me feel a fool,
depression an unwanted dividend.
Wrenching out the big ones gives me joy,
some so big they need a two-hand pull.
A few can make a bag completely full.
I ask myself why I did not destroy
them all before they mock me now they’re tall?
I blame myself, feel that known fury flare.
Do they realize they drive me to despair?
By hiding in plain sight they want to gall
me personally, make sure they’re in my face.
I must acknowledge what I know as fact:
They’ve formed an evil, surreptitious pact
whose only goal is my entire disgrace.
On saner days I try another plan,
to pull them all from a specific plot.
The idea is to never leave a jot,
not even spare inch-high ones of the clan.
Talk about a plan designed to fail!
There’s simply a gazillion plots to weed.
It would take years for this plan to succeed
and never could it be brought up to scale.
Frustration seems to hide at every bend.
Not just frustration but a full-blown rage
when I consider all the acreage
and the obliteration I intend.
Perhaps I’m sick; I think weeds laugh at me.
They have invaded, fester in my soul;
I must tear out their roots to be more whole.
How best escape their base authority?
