Suburban Hell

O you demons of the emerald lie,  
you petrochemical priests of the lawn,  
you keepers of suburban Hell —  
I raise my voice, not in prayer,  
but in fire.

You call it Roundup,  
like a child's game,  
as if poison were pastime,  
and murder a maintenance ritual.  
Oh, the clean-cut,  
white-toothed death you pour  
from plastic jugs like holy water  
on God's good earth!  
This is not gardening —  
this is exorcism  
of every living thing.

You, who cannot bear  
the wildness of dandelion,  
who tear the throat from clover,  
who salt the soil  
against the heretic green.  
You sterilize the ground  
like a tyrant burns books —  
because truth threatens.

Glyphosate!  
Name of the Beast,  
poured at dusk along the driveways  
of the damned.  
Children tread it into their skin.  
Dogs lick it from their paws.  
It runs like venom into the roots  
and up into the milk of deer,  
the breath of frogs,  
the mourning song of the bees.

Where is your shame,  
you priests of plastic perfection?  
You who genuflect before the mower,  
sacrifice beetle and spider  
on the altar of neatness —  
you mock the jungle God,  
you spit on the anarchic holiness  
of weeds!

But the earth remembers.  
The worms revolt.  
The wind carries the death-dust  
back to your porches.  
Your hair thins, your bones hollow.  
Your sons cough blood in the night  
and your daughters miscarry shadows.  
The punishment is quiet —  
no thunder, no plague,  
just the leaching out of soul.

And still you mow.

I say: let the lawn brown.  
Let the plantain rise like a prophet.  
Let the thistle sing psalms  
in the language of thorns.  
Let the ivy take your fences.  
Let Gaia come,  
dreadlocked and barefoot,  
bearing wolf’s bane and nettle  
and holy wrath.

I will not kneel  
on your poisoned altar.  
I will not bow  
to the Cult of ChemLawn.  
I cast your glyphosate  
back into your face  
like ash from the burnt forests  
of your children’s future.

O Lord of Dandelion,  
Lord of the Cracked Sidewalk,  
Lord of Lichen and Ant —  
rise in wrath.

Amen.