My neighbors arm for chemical warfare.
Their windchimes ring in a new spring:
Time to deploy their weapons of mass destruction
determined to drive the demon dandelion from
the politically determined sovereignty of
Kentucky Blue and Rye.

Why?,
I ask rhetorically
since my neighbors are entranced
in crusade-like zeal
to recreate nature in the image of
some revisionist natural history.

Who decided the dandelion was evil?
When did this happen,
and why?
Did they, the dandelions, participate
in the debate?
or were they excluded

their lobby shut out, left powerless
by lawn pharmacists
profit driven to pump the ground full of
lab concocted cocktails?

Herbicidal maniacs
deciding which species should be celebrated,
and which ones
scorned,
in the name of creating
a chemically dependent
suburban master race;

a proud parade of green and preened
pedigreed properties on display.
But to their dismay,
summer brings
drought
leaving drug-induced dream lawns
unable to cope
when exposed to the harsh sunlight
of reality;

left to go
cold turkey,
block after block of well bred Kentucky Blue blades
wither, pathetically begging
for a fix or at least admission
to a Betty Ford Clinic
for chemically dependent lawns,

while the weeds, thru sheer stubborn
determination and
natural selection
survive the onslaught in spring, and
flourish, smugly singing in
Dylanesque whine
"how does it feel?"


This poem first appeared in U.S. 1 Newspaper.
Used here with the author's permission.