Taller than grown men
silent reminder
of human follyOne look at you
one whiff of scent
declares intentThis land your domain
roots spread foundation
seeds spread your vanguardTo combat your growth
we must don armour
One touch might burn usArm ourselves for
axes will fell your
sturdy stems like trunksPoisonous sap flow
burns skin in sunlight
blisters and blackensDown but dangerous
still lying in wait
Second growth or seedsWait for guerrilla
warfare without end
Generations feudWe teach our children
to heed the danger
to combat your spreadWrite history books
declaring lack of
knowledge led us hereStill we change Nature
©REDCAT
before learning of
her intricate ways
Written for Kim’s prompt at dVerse ~ Poetics: Sylvia and Ted. Where we’re asked to write about growing, multiplying, invasive species. As well as try to emulate style of one of the poets.
I decided upon the challenge to keep my line short, with five syllables in each like Sylvia Plath’s Mushroom. It took some editing, but eventually I got there. But boy, do my inner saboteurs have a field day every time I decide to say I actually can do something that connects with writing. Just as they did when I decided to make a new translation of one of Edith Södergran’s poems.
Even though I actually have paid bills working as a freelance translator.
As yesterday’s Haibun challenge showed me how much harder I have with counting syllables in English than my native Swedish. This time I put most words trough a syllable counter I found online.
Wikipedia informed me that this weed too have at least one song to it’s honor.
The world according to RedCat 
Sounds like a brutal bully plant Red. Love your description of arming one’s self to fo battle. Wow.
This looks rather like our Queen Anne’s Lace, which is, however, not poisonous and much smaller. I think I should not like to meet a hogsweed!!
Oh yes… I know this one, and have learned to keep my distance… they are really magnificent and regal, but really vicious
You roll out that hogweed in fine color and gait — what fools we are, truly … I listened to that Genesis album all through the winter of 1974! Maybe a hogweed has been my spirit familiar since.
A sense of doom about this plant appearing, evokes the Day of the Triffids.
Thank you for the poem and the musical memory – Genesis was one of my favourite bands and my first introduction to giant hogweed. You’ve definitely found your inner Plath with this one! I really felt fear of the nasty plant in the lines:
‘Poisonous sap flow
burns skin in sunlight
blisters and blackens’
and the warning in the lines:
‘Still we change Nature
before learning of
her intricate ways’.
Yes, Nature will come back at us with a vengeance!