"I’m Not a Knight Who Says..."

I don't get topiaries
all those circular and rec-
TANGular masses, like steps
or stairs or shaved pregnant bushes.
How are these awkward masses
ever attractive?

Once, I suppose, at a French Chateau,
there were some shrubs shorn
like mossy bolts of lightning,
but with curves formed to fit the earth --
those, I suppose -- those were OK.

But my neighbor and his giant
graying green ball and the nice folks
across the street with their admittedly
greener green ball and smaller green
balls gaining on it --
what the hell are they thinking?

And what of the shrubs themselves?
Do they beam with pride, heralding the
grinless grimace of a reindeer or tyrant-
osaurus? Or do they shudder at
their fate, somewhere deep inside
dying to shrivel up, to lose a limb,
to become the first amorphic, leprotic rebel
on the block to scream, "I'M UGLY AS HELL.
AND I'M NOT GONNA TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"
but in tones so subtle as to be raked up,
lost in the depths of a mower bag
(for lawns are as pointless as topiaries),
only to be heard
by the blind.