LPiA-25 Nov. 24

[Tiger the Lion]

Let's Pretend it's April - Nov. 24
Rules: Write a poem for LPiA on the topic or form described. Each poem should appear as a New Reply to this thread. The goal is to, at the end of the month, have written 30 poems for the month of November. (or one, or six, or fifteen) Prompts may be revisited at any time. All members are welcome.

Topic : Write a poem inspired by Taxes.
Form : Any
Line requirements: 8 or more

Feel free to reply with comments or kudos as you wish. 

Questions?

[Todd]

Final Accounting

Ben Franklin understood the symmetry
of death and taxes,
tied a key to a kite
and waited for the sky to answer.

Every April I schedule
another autopsy of myself,
draw the scalpel
along receipts and deductions,
smell the ozone
crackling close,
lightning searching the ground.

The dead pay nothing.

[Mostly Holy]

"Leviathan's Due"

They croak "Taxation’s theft" in practised spite,
hoard freedoms like a dragon guarding blight.
"Starvation's Nature's audit on the poor--
if they really wanted life, they'd buy some more."
The Public Good is none of their concern;
as widows weep, they clutch each coin they earn.

They dream themselves freed from the weight of law,
preferring the war of all against all:
Where each man defends what's his, righteously,
as wives and children suffer as they flee.
They’d free us all from safety’s common band,
and trust a contract to patrol the land.

I yield a portion of my rights today
to keep the would-be tyrants at bay.
The least of us, united, may yet still
bind Mammon's greed to serve Leviathan's will,
and arm the Giant built of every soul
to drive back Anarchy from Freedom's fold.

[busker]

Commie dreams

They taxed the billionaires,
then the millionaires,
even their heirs,
then ultimately the poor peasantry.
Wealth doesn't grow on trees,
but in value added. These
simple truths evade the pheasantry
of bird brained useful idiots
of a non-communist country
(Exhibit A: Rachel Reeves).

Taxes are like an apothecary's
administering bitter medicine:
in excess bad. Only necessary
in moderate doses. Sort of like how gin
wards off the cold in winters freezing,
otherwise a habit better to be ceasing.

For the state grows big, and the public greedy:
soon everyone's a victim, everybody's needy.

[dukealien]

Big-Number Simplicity


It’s all shockingly simple:
the US spends ten trillion dollars
each year in round numbers
and has one hundred thirty-three million
households, which is more of an
amoeboid number.  So,

tax seventy-five thousand
from each household
and we’re done.

Wait, what about corporate profits
or franchise taxes?  Or something?
Just to take the pressure off?

Without those, companies can afford
to pay employees high enough
to cover that household poll tax–
as any honest economist
(either one)
will tell you, corporations
don’t pay taxes, only launder them
collected from their customers.

But what about rich people?
Shouldn’t they owe more?
Why?  To get butlers, chauffeurs,
and so forth
not to mention workers
at their many concerns
they’ll have to pay enough to cover
that elegant poll tax.

All a Lady Bountiful fallacy,
of course,
not because it wouldn’t work
but because it leaves politicians
nothing to sell.  And, then,
how would they pay the poll tax?
Start a war,
probably.

Still hunting for that nonsense prompt...