Glitches of A Broken System
Ongoing support fiber with the Universe.
Ticket #001: Common Sense
Status: Depreciated since 1999
User: Common Sense won't boot up in group settings.
Tech: We replaced that feature with " Comment Section "
Workaround: Nod slowly and back away
Ðo? not feed the trolls. Ticket Closed
Ticket #404 The Middle Class I submitted a ticket to the Universe last Tuesday.
Subject line: Existence.exe keeps crashing at rent.
Tech: " Have you tried being born to different parents?".
Clear your cache of dreams and restart your bootstrap, upgrade to Premium Reality.
Note" Premium not available in Zipcode 12345
Ticket#503: Healthcare
User: " I clicked "see doctor" and got an error " Insurance not found.
Tech: " That's a feature, not a bug. Please
Sacrifice 3 chickens and 1 deductible to continue.
Estimated wait time: Your whole life
Ticket #006: Climate
User: Planet. Earth is overheating. Urgent!!!
Tech: Did you try turning it off and on again?
We recommend recycling. Have a nice day.
Auto-closed due to inactivity.
Billionaires oh billionaires
Stop counting your stocks and shares
While the workers break their backs
You need to pay more bloody tax.
It is rather funny
That you make much of your money
From government contracts
While the poor face your attacks.
Just stop being jerks
Enjoying tax deductible perks
And resist the need
For unquenchable greed.
Give money to worthy causes
Don’t worry about your future divorces
Don’t worry about IRS raids
You might save someone with HIV/AIDS.
This is something I’m sure you know
“You can’t take it with you when you go”
So make human compassion
The overwhelming fashion.
Please listen to my gentle persuasion
And go easy on the tax evasion
People won’t just like you for your wealth
They’ll be attracted to your generous self.
It’s never too late to start
So think of others and open your heart
Do what the mean spirited lacks
And pay your fair share of tax.
the streets still hum the same tired tune—
neon promises,
beer bottles rolling in the gutter
like broken dreams with barcodes.
everybody’s got a phone
but nobody’s got a pulse.
we scroll past each other
like ghosts in a supermarket aisle
looking for god between the cereal boxes.
the rich keep smiling
because smiling is tax-deductible,
and the poor keep hoping
because hope’s still free—
for now.
politicians shake hands
as if they’re testing the weight
of your wallet,
preachers pray on Sundays
and prey the rest of the week.
the poets still write,
not for fame,
but to keep from setting the place on fire.
and maybe that’s enough—
a few words in the dark,
a whisper over the static,
saying:
we’re still here,
damn it—
we’re still here.
Make sure you shake your shoes out before putting them on.
I once got bitten by something (I suspected a spider)
on the long toe of my left foot.
It swelled, itched, and throbbed on and off for three weeks.
I wasn't insured at the time
So, I self-remedied-mainly with ice, aspirin, and cheap spirits.
I'm insured now but rarely meet my deductible.
Always shake life out before you put it on.
Poison is the love of shadows and the unemployed.
It sits out in your driveway
a glittering metallic sculpture.
It costs more than your house,
you love it more than your spouse.
You can hardly drive it, it’s too high,
you can barely park it, it’s so wide.
Like an exotic compulsion, you need it,
though you can barely afford to feed it.
There’s a cockpit with winking tech,
offering a printer, wi-fi and refrigeration.
It can pull a house off its foundation.
Is there a tendentious ecological statement,
in this prestigious resource you need for work
is the fact that it’s tax deductible just a perk?
With this polished and pampered machine,
you get the rewards of effective parenting,
as it literally reflects the care that it’s given.
It’s a spaceship ready for expedition,
what else in creation is as elysian,
as your gigantic pickup truck.
.
.
songs for this:
Dreamin’ by G. Love and Special Sauce
Driving by Everything but the Girl
Little Deuce Coupe by Andrew Gold
Pity the Poor Octopus
The octopus is a curious creature
With eight long tentacles his most outstanding feature.
But because of his oddly shaped cephalopod bod,
He's not one of those who looks stylish in clothes,
For his head's much too big to put a hat upon.
And like the squid and the manta,
He could never play Santa,
'cause he has no lap to be sat upon.
Christmas Q and A:
Q: What's a favorite Christmas holiday entertainment for many domineering women?
A: "The Nutcracker"
Q: Why is it better to give at Christmas than to receive?
A: it might be tax deductible.
Q: What would the Sugar Plum one be if she had a bad case of hypertrichosis?
A: A very hairy fairy.
Merry Christmas Poetry Soup!
A cat runs across the road,
then a rabbit, then a deer.
I look left, a barn is airborne,
it flies away in slow motion,
boards silently flapping.
We have a deductible of $500, you say.
A gull rolls over the hood, sea-legs
scrambling over smooth metal.
The car is rocking.
“Did you turn off the coffee-maker?”
We are just talking;
our minds already rowing ashore
somewhere.
We have seen every ghastly act and recorded it.
Grisly deeds yellow in archives waiting to be refined and improved.
Tyrannosaurus Rex wakes in a drop of amber, takes a look around,
decides to go extinct again.
Cell phones retweet daily holocausts over coffee and donuts
Evil has friends on Facebook,
the commonplace entertains the unspeakable
as if it were merely an eccentric uncle.
The unborn and the born are culled and are tax deductible.
On the other hand the plague business is thriving.
There are killings on the market –
and of course everywhere else.
We have seen every ghastly act and recorded it.
Grisly deeds yellow in archives waiting to be refined and improved.
Tyrannosaurus Rex awakes in a drop of amber, takes a look around,
decides to go extinct again.
Cell phones retweet daily holocausts over coffee and donuts
Evil has friends on Facebook,
the commonplace entertains the unspeakable
as if it were merely an eccentric uncle.
The unborn and the born are culled and are tax deductible.
On the other hand the plague business is thriving,
there are killings on the market –
and of course everywhere else.
Death by Insurance
She sits in her car,
in the parking lot
of the emergency room,
with the worst stomach ache of her life.
Watching the fluorescent lights rhythmically blink,
she blinks back her tears.
Caught in a web of indecision,
she doesn’t know what to do.
She thinks about her health insurance,
and her $8,000 deductible,
and she wishes she lived in Canada or England or France,
because she needs that money for food, and rent,
and life.
Her brain exploding with uncertainty,
her stomach erupting in pain,
she stays in her car and drives home.
And she eats some antacids and goes to bed,
promising herself that if she doesn’t feel better in the morning,
she will return to the emergency room.
Her mother, devastated and ruined,
identifies her body at the morgue.
What a waste of a life, they say.
Such a shame.
If only she had gone to the hospital sooner.
February 11, 2020
A cat runs across the road,
then a rabbit, then a deer.
I look left, a barn is airborne,
it flies away in slow motion,
boards silently flapping.
We have a deductible of $400, you say.
A gull rolls over the hood, sea-legs
scrambling over smooth metal.
The car is rocking.
"Did you turn off the coffee-maker"?
We are just talking;
our minds already rowing ashore.
He could suck joy out of a daisy,
turn a Spring day to dust and grit.
His belief was a second-hand fire-sale.
His wife practiced adultery,
gamely trying to perfect the craft.
She would join him at the pulpit,
to appreciative applause.
Her blond hair a halo
glowing with an electric light.
She was his tax-deductible angel,
but he did not love her.
He loved only the vengeance
of an unforgiving deity,
long since cast in the role
of divine curmudgeon.
When he returned home
to find his angel sucking the joy
from a parishioner’s upright daisy,
he had no doubt in his God’s words,
and the power in them
to enslave.
Shattered bottled up dreams
strewn in callous fashion,
litter those Tobacco roads
of man-made poverty
Cancerous amorality
is the accepted dystopian reality
Majority rule by the metal ballot law ...
second finger got a gun pressed to the jaw
Diablo destiny decree:
Dos digital corrects any uno analog flaw
This warped sensibility
is the venal logic served pucker raw
A lot of lip sizzle buttery undercooked,
a lot of dead bang thievery overlooked
Ash fault neglect
is heaped on the next generation
of social experimentation
Petri dish promises
are furtive cloned assertions
Silky slick politricking on the wifi
(why fi-nance poor citizens’ aspirations)
is a web of deceit ...
tax-deductible alm desertion
Roll the lively military drums,
let the drones deliver
a hollow incoming death hum
Victory is counted as being “less of,”
cull the bottom feeders of a wolfbane society —
This is the favorite poison ivy scheme
of the power pyramid builders:
Soulless architects
erecting a crooked obelisk dystopian reality
And this fractured,
motion picture reel nightmare
still ain’t murky half as bad as it’s gonna be
I have seen enough and have to speak out
These health insurance companies making money off people
Is so disturbing and beyond words.
People with less money cannot keep up with these premiums,
Deductibles and co-pays.
A friend of mine couldn’t even get stitches recently
Due to a high deductible due.
These companies have no conscience.
People are dying over these issues and losing their homes
I once saw a man in tears because of losing his home
Unable to keep up with the health costs for his wife’s health issues.
And look what is happening to our Veterans!
It goes on and on and costs keep going up and up.
I have started to take action, speaking out.
--- I hope more people do too ---
Heidi Sands
7/18/17
Tax Time
File by April 15th,
avoid penalty and interest.
Declare all income from:
gainful employment
investments
state refunds
poker winnings
bingo winnings
jury duty
or even if you sell your old jalopy
to your cousin.
But your losses are not fully deductible,
must be reduced or prorated,
spanning future years.
There are limits, you know -
and those limits - well,
tax credits apply to others,
in every case . . .
you've exceeded the limit.
So dig deep . . . and pay up.
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