So I went to find him. Sat on a bench
For two long hours until he arrived.
I waved him to me, he waved me away.
I shouted “come here right now.” He contrived

To ignore me again. I disrupted
The game, entered the court, gave him the stuff
And left. For two days now, primed to erupt,
I’ve seethed, contemplating his rough rebuff—

Composing vicious rebukes in my head.
I wanted him to dredge his fertile mind,
Explain his contempt; but—mellowed—instead,
Discovered the reason. He was deaf, blind.

He lived in a parallel universe
Different from mine, and his was crimped, cursed.
The physics seems odd, but how else explain
That inexcusable and rude disdain?
(3/29/13)

Unsurprising how ancient an idea
Taxation is! Gracing Hebrew Bibles
With some random priestly lines here and there—
Funding temples, armies—often tribal.

But times change, and a few lines just won’t do.
We must build roads, aqueducts, patronize
The arts, pay governments that grew and grew—
New taxes raised for thoughts not always wise.

Who dreamed ‘twould come to this—a buzzing hive
Of rules and regs, amendments that off-load
Sixteen thousand eight hundred forty five
Pages: our IRS taxation Code!
(3/23/13)

Smarts, not strength,
Control the world—
“Kill regulation—
Foul, depraved!”
(Those masters suck
What we produce—
We’re, once again,
Enslaved.)

But times have changed,
Smarts must take heed,
Attend to need,
Wash away the mud—
Or desperation,
TNT,
Will draw the smart ones’
Blood.

It’s in the books
(Yeats knew it well)—
Jeroboam, Robespierre,
And Lenin found solutions.1
It’s just not smart
To suck us dry
And foment
Revolutions.
(5/10/12)
1William Butler Yeats theorized that history worked in 2000 year cycles (for every Christ, an anti-Christ waiting to be born). When King Solomon died, Prince Rehoboam went before Israel requesting that they accept his sovereignty over the United Monarchy of Judah and Israel. When Jeroboam complained that Solomon imposed unfair taxes on Israel, and asked for relief, Rehoboam threatened to increase their burden. His intransigence resulted in a civil war that destroyed the United Monarchy. Robespierre was an influential figure in the French revolution. You all know who Lenin was. Damn! It can’t be right when the footnote’s longer than the poem.

Festooning Christmas, Easter—holidays
Galore—those landmark seasons of each year.
Our merchants’ joy, our families’ hoorays–
Those days off work, weekends of boozy cheer.

But ev’ry bright is shadowed by the dark.
Our bleakest season, like a threat’ning ax,
Extends three months (or more!) a rav’ning shark—
The season when we calculate our tax!

That maze of rules, the danger of rebuke—
Nauseating, enough to make you puke!
(4/28/12)

They keep the country warm,
Provide security,

Arrange the nation’s
Gaudy panoply.

And yet, those rules the I.R.S. lays down each turmoiled year—absurd, grotesque—
Define insanity.
Marvin Klotz (3/10/12)

A correspondence from the I.R.S.
Arrived in March, addressing my distress—
Responding to a PLR request,
It gave a name and number—swift access!

I called his number, sure that I would hear:
“You’ve reached the IRS—press pound, press star—
Press, keep pressing until your eyes leak tears—
Traverse technology, confront bizarre!”

Instead, a brisk male voice proclaimed: “Hello.”
Stunned, I stammered, croaked, “Mr. Brambilla?”
“Yes, can I help? What do you need to know?”
Empathic, caring—no fierce Godzilla!

A humanistic lawyer! Priceless gem!
He taught me how to make and plead my case.
He organized his office (all of them),
I later learned, and issued this ukase:

“In order to preserve our human psyches
We will engage in noontime scenic hikes!”
Brambilla, Bob Brambilla is his name—
Humanity and justice are his game!
(6/18/11)

Sternly focussed thought (though short of panic).
A mild chest pain on the right side—muscle
Perhaps, not artery—then cyclonic
Drain of breath, like a toilet flushed, tussle,

Until the air returned (the bowl refilled),
Sett’ling that dreadful whirl of dizziness.
I knew these symptoms well—I saw them spilled
Before by one near, dear to me, in great distress.

An EKG might show a heart defiled—
My first (or last) thought: get our tax forms filed!
(4/3/11)

II

I think I’m dying, though I may be wrong.
That’s the grim part—here’s the strange part, quite weird:
I find I’m not depressed, nor do I long
For more years on evil Earth, so shit-smeared.

Why, then, am I whelmed with anxiety?
Not, I assure you, by contemplation
Of hell or heaven! It’s sobriety,
That denies a peaceful culmination.

I have responsibilities you see—
Others, innocent, unjustly suffer
Consequences of my demise, pay fees
In spirit, cash, that chip their lives rougher.

Yet I’m OK with death, though still quite tense,
Regretting my death’s inconvenience.
(4/16/11)

Beware the libertarians
(A most unseemly lot).
They’re certainly not agrarians—
They wish to sail on yachts.

“Drop regulation—leave us be—
Chop away those taxes!
Don’t you see, that markets free,
Yield the best climaxes?

“It’s true we don’t produce much stuff
(Though very skilled at lev’rage).
We’re rough and tough and good at bluff—
Champagne’s our favored bev’rage

“We wish we could go back to when
Work was commodity.
When wages could be cut at whim—
There was no SEC.

“When unions were a felony
And workers docile, weak.
Those are the days we yearn to see
The days when profit peaked.

“Those robber barons (much maligned!)—
They made this country great.
Let’s emulate them, stop decline
Enhance our country’s fate.

“Taxation’s theft! We all know that!
And regulation sucks!
Free us to be aristocrats
And suck up all the bucks!”

Thus speak the libertarians—
And, what is most obscene,
They mock us poor contrarians
(Who oil our guillotines).

Their lust for pelf makes them forget
Historical solutions—
Downtrodden folks rise up—reject—
In bloody revolutions!

So listen, libertarians—
To best insure your wealth
Attend the proletarians,
And thus protect your health.
                   (3/13/10)

Capital gain—good!
Qualified dividend—good!
Interest, wages?
Not so good. How strange. Reward
The rich, pummel workingmen!
                  (10/7/09)