TAXPRAYER

By James Craig Green


I suffered a tax, that deserved forty whacks
but instead grew fast like a cancer
I stumbled around, looking all over town
finding only the means to enhance her

Though the practice is olden, I need not embolden
this claim on my own honest labor
With coveters galore still trying to score
and hiding my stuff from my neighbor

I asked at the shop what need is this slop
that resembles a hog’s evening dinner?
You see, said the fray, each one must pay
for the worst of us to be winners

I counted the neighbors who covet my labors
but I had to give up in disgust
For they were so many and sought every penny
that now I have no one to trust

How can I win the game that I’m in
when half of my money is taken?
For worse things and bad, mediocre and sad
though my arms and my legs are a breakin’

Why, oh why, is pie in the sky
so compelling and thought to be noble?
Seems simple to me, as plain as can be
the tax just an un-busted bubble

My life is obsessed with doing my best
for those things I judge beneficial
But taxman beware, you're losing your hair
and someday your job will be wishful