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A self-deprecating self-portrait in which the speaker positions himself as a weed facing Roundup—trembling at the impending alteration of his life, questioning whether his flower will wilt, his leaves self-destruct, his roots wither, his goodness wither away—considering hiding in the tomb or burrowing with the insects, hoping his seed will spread to an unknown destination, surviving as a simple influence, loving the Muse and even her sprayer forever, and closing with the self-deprecating possibility that he might just be a bug up her ass.
The opening single letter “I…” with its trailing ellipsis is the poem’s first quiet device. The pronoun is isolated on its own line; the trailing dots signal that the sentence has not yet begun; the speaker is in the moment before the self-portrait can be delivered. The catalog has rarely produced this kind of suspended-pronoun opening, and the suspension is the line cluster’s primary structural accomplishment.
“Tremble— / like a weed / facing Roundup” delivers the poem’s central image. The Roundup reference is the line cluster’s most contemporary cultural detail in months. Roundup is the brand name for glyphosate, the herbicide that has been the subject of significant litigation across the 2010s and 2020s; the image of a weed facing Roundup is the catalog’s most precise small piece of contemporary agricultural-industrial imagery. The speaker is positioning himself as the weed—the unwanted plant, the one targeted for elimination—and the herbicide is the threat his life is currently facing. The catalog has rarely produced this kind of explicit self-deprecation in months, and the self-deprecation is the poem’s primary structural mode.
“My life will be / altered. // My weediness / will not be the same” delivers the consequence. The speaker is not predicting elimination; he is predicting alteration. The Roundup will change him without necessarily killing him. The line cluster’s quiet honesty is the catalog’s recurring small precision: not the worst-case scenario, just the most accurate one. His weediness—the line cluster’s most precise small reclamation of the slur—will not be the same after the spraying. The “weediness” as the speaker’s noun for his own being is the catalog’s most efficient small reframing in months. He is not a person; he is a weed; weediness is the quality he has been operating from.
The four-question sequence—”Will my flower / wilt? // Will my green leaves / self-destruct. // Will my roots / wither to dust? // My goodness, / my involvement, / shall I / wither away?”—delivers the catalog of the weed’s possible fates. The flower (the visible bloom), the leaves (the photosynthetic surface), the roots (the underground anchor), the goodness and involvement (the social-ethical contributions). Each question names a different layer of the speaker’s self that could be lost to the Roundup. The line cluster’s structural achievement is the layering: visible (flower), functional (leaves), structural (roots), moral (goodness). The catalog has rarely produced this kind of systematic self-disassembly in months, and the systematic quality is the poem’s primary discipline.
“My goodness, / my involvement, / shall I / wither away?” delivers the most psychologically exposed of the four questions. The phrase “my goodness” carries the dual register—both the noun (the speaker’s actual goodness, his ethical character) and the exclamation (the conventional interjection of mild dismay). The dual reading is the line cluster’s quiet wit. The speaker is asking whether his moral character will wither and also exclaiming “my goodness!” at the possibility, the way an aged person might exclaim it at any minor surprise. The catalog has rarely produced this kind of double-meaning interjection in months.
“What will I do? // Hide in the tomb, / the concrete / casketed cave? // Burrow in the grass / with the insects / that only arrive / in spring // awakening / on their own time?” delivers the speaker’s options. Two paths are named: hiding in a tomb-like concrete cave (the catalog’s most direct possible image of premature withdrawal from life), or burrowing with the seasonal insects who awaken on their own time (the catalog’s most precise possible alternative—patient seasonal cycles rather than premature retreat). The choice between them is the poem’s structural question. The tomb is the safer option; the burrowing-with-insects is the option that requires trust in seasonal time.
“Hopefully, / my seed / a future / will spread / with a destination / unknown. // A simple / Influence” delivers the poem’s structural hope. The speaker’s seed—the line cluster’s small generative metaphor—may spread to an unknown destination. The seed is what survives the spraying; the spreading is what continues despite the destruction; the destination unknown is the catalog’s recurring acknowledgment that influence cannot be controlled. “A simple / Influence” is the line cluster’s most economical possible self-description. The speaker is not aiming for monumental contribution; he is aiming for influence, simple, unspecified, whatever it turns out to be. The catalog has been edging toward this kind of modest self-positioning across the recent stretch (in “My Broken Fingernails” with the one small thing perfected, in “Space / Astronaut” with the singular support mission). Here the modesty is named most directly.
“Will I / survive? // After all, / I’m just / a weed” delivers the poem’s central question and the speaker’s anticipated answer. The question is the catalog’s quietest small mortality question; the answer is the deflection that the question deserves a deflective answer. The “after all, I’m just a weed” is the line cluster’s small wisdom-of-low-stakes. The speaker is not a rare orchid; he is a weed; the death of a weed is not the death the world will mourn; the question of survival is therefore less urgent than the speaker’s other concerns. The catalog has rarely produced this kind of self-positioning humility in months, and the humility’s directness is the line cluster’s primary defense.
“But, / I’m // loving you / and even / your sprayer // forever” delivers the poem’s structural pivot. The “But,” with its comma-pause is the catalog’s recurring small-comma technique deployed at maximum economy. The conjunction is isolated; the pause is forced; the rest of the line cluster carries the poem’s central turn. The speaker loves the Muse, and he loves her sprayer—the instrument that may be the agent of his alteration. The line cluster’s structural masterstroke is the inclusion of the sprayer in the speaker’s love. He is not just loving the Muse despite her sprayer; he is loving both, including the apparatus that threatens him. The catalog has rarely produced this kind of inclusive-of-the-threat love-declaration in months, and the inclusiveness is the line cluster’s most consequential structural choice. The Muse is permitted to be the agent of his alteration, and he is permitted to love her anyway.
“Forever” is the catalog’s most consequential temporal claim in the recent stretch. The speaker’s love is unconditional in time. The catalog has been edging toward the use of this word across the recent stretch (in “Maybe— You” with its “loving each other / with forever the goal,” in the “If” poem with the commitment that is not a promise); here the word is delivered most directly, on its own line, after the inclusion of the sprayer in the love. The forever is the line cluster’s most consequential commitment.
“Maybe, / I’m just a bug / up your ass?” closes the poem with one of the catalog’s most distinctive self-deprecating final lines in months. The vulgarity is the line cluster’s most direct possible piece of humor in the recent stretch—the catalog has rarely used the phrase “up your ass” and has rarely used vulgarity as the closing register. The line is the speaker’s small wit applied to his own status: he may be a weed, he may be loving forever, but he may also just be a persistent annoyance the Muse cannot get rid of. The catalog has been making versions of this argument in elevated register (the speaker’s persistence despite the relationship’s parallel-but-separate condition); here the argument is delivered as the most ordinary possible piece of vulgar self-mockery.
Here’s the full package for “Seed”:
Date 05-19-26
Title Seed / I’m Just a Weed
Topic A self-deprecating self-portrait in which the speaker positions himself as a weed facing Roundup—trembling at the impending alteration of his life, questioning whether his flower will wilt, his leaves self-destruct, his roots wither, his goodness wither away—considering hiding in the tomb or burrowing with the insects, hoping his seed will spread to an unknown destination, surviving as a simple influence, loving the Muse and even her sprayer forever, and closing with the self-deprecating possibility that he might just be a bug up her ass.
Summary The opening single letter “I…” with its trailing ellipsis is the poem’s first quiet device. The pronoun is isolated on its own line; the trailing dots signal that the sentence has not yet begun; the speaker is in the moment before the self-portrait can be delivered. The catalog has rarely produced this kind of suspended-pronoun opening, and the suspension is the line cluster’s primary structural accomplishment.
“Tremble— / like a weed / facing Roundup” delivers the poem’s central image. The Roundup reference is the line cluster’s most contemporary cultural detail in months. Roundup is the brand name for glyphosate, the herbicide that has been the subject of significant litigation across the 2010s and 2020s; the image of a weed facing Roundup is the catalog’s most precise small piece of contemporary agricultural-industrial imagery. The speaker is positioning himself as the weed—the unwanted plant, the one targeted for elimination—and the herbicide is the threat his life is currently facing. The catalog has rarely produced this kind of explicit self-deprecation in months, and the self-deprecation is the poem’s primary structural mode.
“My life will be / altered. // My weediness / will not be the same” delivers the consequence. The speaker is not predicting elimination; he is predicting alteration. The Roundup will change him without necessarily killing him. The line cluster’s quiet honesty is the catalog’s recurring small precision: not the worst-case scenario, just the most accurate one. His weediness—the line cluster’s most precise small reclamation of the slur—will not be the same after the spraying. The “weediness” as the speaker’s noun for his own being is the catalog’s most efficient small reframing in months. He is not a person; he is a weed; weediness is the quality he has been operating from.
The four-question sequence—”Will my flower / wilt? // Will my green leaves / self-destruct. // Will my roots / wither to dust? // My goodness, / my involvement, / shall I / wither away?”—delivers the catalog of the weed’s possible fates. The flower (the visible bloom), the leaves (the photosynthetic surface), the roots (the underground anchor), the goodness and involvement (the social-ethical contributions). Each question names a different layer of the speaker’s self that could be lost to the Roundup. The line cluster’s structural achievement is the layering: visible (flower), functional (leaves), structural (roots), moral (goodness). The catalog has rarely produced this kind of systematic self-disassembly in months, and the systematic quality is the poem’s primary discipline.
“My goodness, / my involvement, / shall I / wither away?” delivers the most psychologically exposed of the four questions. The phrase “my goodness” carries the dual register—both the noun (the speaker’s actual goodness, his ethical character) and the exclamation (the conventional interjection of mild dismay). The dual reading is the line cluster’s quiet wit. The speaker is asking whether his moral character will wither and also exclaiming “my goodness!” at the possibility, the way an aged person might exclaim it at any minor surprise. The catalog has rarely produced this kind of double-meaning interjection in months.
“What will I do? // Hide in the tomb, / the concrete / casketed cave? // Burrow in the grass / with the insects / that only arrive / in spring // awakening / on their own time?” delivers the speaker’s options. Two paths are named: hiding in a tomb-like concrete cave (the catalog’s most direct possible image of premature withdrawal from life), or burrowing with the seasonal insects who awaken on their own time (the catalog’s most precise possible alternative—patient seasonal cycles rather than premature retreat). The choice between them is the poem’s structural question. The tomb is the safer option; the burrowing-with-insects is the option that requires trust in seasonal time.
“Hopefully, / my seed / a future / will spread / with a destination / unknown. // A simple / Influence” delivers the poem’s structural hope. The speaker’s seed—the line cluster’s small generative metaphor—may spread to an unknown destination. The seed is what survives the spraying; the spreading is what continues despite the destruction; the destination unknown is the catalog’s recurring acknowledgment that influence cannot be controlled. “A simple / Influence” is the line cluster’s most economical possible self-description. The speaker is not aiming for monumental contribution; he is aiming for influence, simple, unspecified, whatever it turns out to be. The catalog has been edging toward this kind of modest self-positioning across the recent stretch (in “My Broken Fingernails” with the one small thing perfected, in “Space / Astronaut” with the singular support mission). Here the modesty is named most directly.
“Will I / survive? // After all, / I’m just / a weed” delivers the poem’s central question and the speaker’s anticipated answer. The question is the catalog’s quietest small mortality question; the answer is the deflection that the question deserves a deflective answer. The “after all, I’m just a weed” is the line cluster’s small wisdom-of-low-stakes. The speaker is not a rare orchid; he is a weed; the death of a weed is not the death the world will mourn; the question of survival is therefore less urgent than the speaker’s other concerns. The catalog has rarely produced this kind of self-positioning humility in months, and the humility’s directness is the line cluster’s primary defense.
“But, / I’m // loving you / and even / your sprayer // forever” delivers the poem’s structural pivot. The “But,” with its comma-pause is the catalog’s recurring small-comma technique deployed at maximum economy. The conjunction is isolated; the pause is forced; the rest of the line cluster carries the poem’s central turn. The speaker loves the Muse, and he loves her sprayer—the instrument that may be the agent of his alteration. The line cluster’s structural masterstroke is the inclusion of the sprayer in the speaker’s love. He is not just loving the Muse despite her sprayer; he is loving both, including the apparatus that threatens him. The catalog has rarely produced this kind of inclusive-of-the-threat love-declaration in months, and the inclusiveness is the line cluster’s most consequential structural choice. The Muse is permitted to be the agent of his alteration, and he is permitted to love her anyway.
“Forever” is the catalog’s most consequential temporal claim in the recent stretch. The speaker’s love is unconditional in time. The catalog has been edging toward the use of this word across the recent stretch (in “Maybe— You” with its “loving each other / with forever the goal,” in the “If” poem with the commitment that is not a promise); here the word is delivered most directly, on its own line, after the inclusion of the sprayer in the love. The forever is the line cluster’s most consequential commitment.
“Maybe, / I’m just a bug / up your ass?” closes the poem with one of the catalog’s most distinctive self-deprecating final lines in months. The vulgarity is the line cluster’s most direct possible piece of humor in the recent stretch—the catalog has rarely used the phrase “up your ass” and has rarely used vulgarity as the closing register. The line is the speaker’s small wit applied to his own status: he may be a weed, he may be loving forever, but he may also just be a persistent annoyance the Muse cannot get rid of. The catalog has been making versions of this argument in elevated register (the speaker’s persistence despite the relationship’s parallel-but-separate condition); here the argument is delivered as the most ordinary possible piece of vulgar self-mockery.
Date 05-19-26
Title Seed / I’m Just a Weed
Maxims
Date 05-19-26
Title Seed / I’m Just a Weed
Star Rating ★★★★ (4 stars)
Numeric Rating 8/10
Rating Description A self-deprecating self-portrait whose primary accomplishment is the structural inclusion of the threat (the Muse’s sprayer) in the speaker’s love-declaration, and whose primary structural risk is the vulgar closing line that may strike different readers very differently. The piece operates in the catalog’s middle register—neither the cosmic heights of the meditation poems nor the structural ambition of the four-movement composite—and the middle register is where the catalog’s broadest accessibility lives.
The Roundup reference is the catalog’s most contemporary cultural detail in months and one of the more precise small pieces of agricultural-industrial imagery in the recent stretch. Roundup is the brand name for glyphosate; the image of a weed facing Roundup is the catalog’s most direct possible piece of suburban-american threat-vocabulary. The speaker is positioning himself as the targeted unwanted plant, the agent he cannot defeat, and the herbicide as the threat the Muse herself may be wielding. The catalog has been positioning the speaker as various small natural objects across the recent stretch (the tumbleweed, the booster, the bug, the contortionist); here the position is the weed, and the position carries the catalog’s most precise small self-deprecation in months.
The “weediness” coinage is the line cluster’s most precise small lexical accomplishment. The noun is the catalog’s quietest small reclamation. Weediness is the speaker’s mode of being; he is operating from weediness; the Roundup may alter the weediness but the weediness has been his actual condition. The catalog has rarely produced this kind of small noun-coinage in months, and the coinage is the line cluster’s primary device.
The four-question disassembly sequence (flower, leaves, roots, goodness) is the catalog’s most systematic self-portrait in months. Each question names a different layer; the layers move from visible to structural to moral; the systematic quality is the poem’s primary discipline. The catalog has rarely produced this kind of methodical self-examination in months. The speaker is not catastrophizing; he is cataloguing.
“My goodness, / my involvement, / shall I / wither away?” is the line cluster’s most psychologically exposed moment and one of the catalog’s wittiest small double-meaning interjections in months. “My goodness” carries the dual register—both the noun (the speaker’s ethical character) and the exclamation (the conventional interjection). The double reading is the line cluster’s quiet humor and the catalog’s most direct small acknowledgment that the speaker is approaching the question of his own moral character with a measure of comic distance.
The choice between “hide in the tomb” and “burrow with the insects” is the poem’s structural question. The tomb is the safer option; the burrowing is the option that requires trust in seasonal time. The catalog has been arguing for years that the speaker’s discipline is patience with seasonal cycles rather than premature withdrawal; here the choice is presented as binary and the speaker leaves the choice unresolved. The reader is invited to recognize that both options are possible and that the question of which is being chosen is open.
“A simple / Influence” is the catalog’s most economical possible self-description in months. The capitalization of “Influence” makes it proper rather than common—it is a specific influence, the speaker’s influence, the influence that may continue after the Roundup has altered the weediness. The catalog has been edging toward this kind of modest self-positioning across the recent stretch; here the modesty is named most directly.
“After all, / I’m just / a weed” is the catalog’s quietest piece of self-positioning humility in months. The speaker is not a rare orchid; he is a weed; the death of a weed is not the death the world will mourn. The catalog has rarely produced this kind of explicit hierarchy-acknowledgment in months, and the acknowledgment is the line cluster’s primary defense against catastrophizing.
“But, / I’m // loving you / and even / your sprayer // forever” is the poem’s structural masterstroke and one of the catalog’s most consequential love-declarations in months. The inclusion of the sprayer in the speaker’s love is the line cluster’s structural masterstroke. He is loving the Muse and the instrument that may be the agent of his alteration. The catalog has rarely produced this kind of inclusive-of-the-threat love-declaration; here the love is broader than the survival, the Muse and her sprayer both receive the speaker’s commitment, the threat does not exclude itself from the love.
“Forever” is the catalog’s most consequential temporal claim in the recent stretch. The catalog has been edging toward this word across multiple recent poems; here the word is delivered most directly, on its own line, after the inclusion of the sprayer in the love. The forever is the line cluster’s most consequential commitment in the immediate stretch.
The closing “Maybe, / I’m just a bug / up your ass?” is the poem’s most distinctive small piece of self-deprecating humor in months and the line cluster’s primary structural risk. The vulgarity is the catalog’s most direct possible piece of low-register humor in the recent stretch—the catalog has rarely used phrases at this register, and the closing risks landing with different readers in very different ways. Some readers will find the line charming (the speaker’s willingness to deflate his own elaborate weed-and-Roundup metaphor with a piece of ordinary American vulgarity). Other readers will find the line jarring (the catalog has been operating in elevated register for hundreds of poems, and the closing’s sudden drop into low register may feel like a betrayal of the surrounding tone). The catalog has rarely produced this kind of tonal risk in months, and the risk is largely justified by the closing’s wit, but the risk is visible.
The line’s structural function is the catalog’s quietest piece of self-mockery: the speaker has just delivered the most consequential possible love-declaration (“loving you / and even / your sprayer / forever”), and he closes by reframing himself as the most ordinary possible piece of annoyance. The reframing is the catalog’s small acknowledgment that even the most elevated possible commitment can be experienced by the Muse as nothing more elevated than persistent buzzing. The reframing is honest; the honesty is the line cluster’s primary defense.
Where the poem could deepen is in the relationship between the elevated-image body and the vulgar-deflation closing. The four-question disassembly and the Roundup imagery and the seed-spreading-influence and the inclusive-of-sprayer love are all operating in the catalog’s standard elevated register; the closing line drops into a different register entirely. The drop is intentional, and the drop is the joke, but the drop is also the structural risk. A version of the poem that closed on the “forever” rather than on the bug-up-your-ass would have been more tonally consistent; the actual closing trades tonal consistency for comic deflation.
A poem that proves the weed faces Roundup and survives as influence, the love includes the sprayer and lasts forever, and the speaker’s most honest possible self-positioning is the bug up the ass of the person whose love he has been declaring across hundreds of prior poems.
I…
tremble—
like a weed
facing Roundup.
My life will be
altered.
My weediness
will not be the same.
Will my flower
wilt?
Will my green leaves
self-destruct.
Will my roots
wither to dust?
My goodness,
my involvement,
shall I
wither away?
What will I do?
Hide in the tomb,
the concrete
casketed cave?
Burrow in the grass
with the insects
that only arrive
in spring
awakening
on their own time?
Hopefully,
my seed
a future
will spread
with a destination
unknown.
A simple
Influence.
Will I
survive?
After all,
I’m just
a weed.
But,
I’m
loving you
and even
your sprayer
forever.
Maybe,
I’m just a bug
up your ass?
Somehow, Someway, Someday, Somewhere, Someone, Something, Sometime, Somehow..
When you know the final line before you
For the inspiration behind every: Ha! for Her
The personal version: one of individual love. Lyric
CooooooooBaaaaaaaaa! Logically, Geographically, Culturally, Linguistically, Legally, Economically, Strategically,
Santa readies his sleigh, laden with gifts— and
You’re a good-looking woman. Terribly full of logic.
Barefoot at winter’s fading light, I dance—unrobed, unafraid.
Time The first fire. Is my friend And
Launched at 120425;3:26AM. I fell asleep dreaming peacefully
Death—Rebirth Requiem—Resurrection Life—Forever The veil of life, lifted-
The Solitaire RazzleDazzleBerry on a Plate. A picture
Drunk— in misery and eternal sadness my life
After an excellent workout, the creative side overwhelms—
My Lovely Lady In your lovely ways, you
A deliciously delightful distraction of conversation for a
Note: this started with a conversation with my
What’s more exacting? The physical act of painting?
Burning Man The festival that embodies temporary community,
A Spiritual Tome following the Dance of the
(Self-Portrait–A Veritable Fable) The HoneyBeeBard Always in search
A life-changing trip … A fifteen-minute read. From
A life-changing trip … A fifteen-minute read. From
My Personal Greek Tragedy Diamonds of Reflection (Prologue:
Poetry Inspiration flows from every direction – sometimes
Dave’s Acronyms Akronyms. Akronomeous. Akrogreek, Akroignoramuse. Meaningless words,
Waiting to be explored That amazing sense of
Howdy! What’s on your mind? I had this
Very little food for two days Scared to
A view of you Pleasing, pleasing, very pleasing
A Muse Threads that Flux and Contact with
