Sunday, October 5, 2008

Rant of the Taxed Idealist

or, What's the Golden Rule Again?


My paycheck today paid
twenty-two dollars to Medicare
and two-twenty more to 'Federal'
(that must be The mean old Man?).

If i trusted
what would be done with it
then maybe i wouldn't
mind so much;

make that money
go to things i don't know
need to be done, like
bank ruptures or infrastructures.

A bridge in my city disappeared;
while i was not there,
no less.

Now it's me-against-the-
government, because I'm
watching the economy collapse
like a bridge in front of me
with no choice
but to speed up and leap,
praying the impact
leaves my gas tank intact.

No wonder
stolen identity crises
are not uncommon in
our Untied States.

The internet made it instant,
but since the start, our idea
of identity has been only
in opposition to some Other.

Think: England to begin,
then the West Indies or
Caribbean or whatever
we want to call it, then
of course there's the scary Arabs.
who stole our civil rights?

Seems labeling Others left us
little time to identify our selves,
so we grasp at semantic power
where ever we can because we better
know 'us' if we pinpoint a 'them'.

So these days we wear red, against
blue, and maybe a bit of green,
which I guess connects to yellow,
but as long as you're white
and willing to fight, let's not
talk about the rainbow.

So, where am I
left? Am I not
right?

My hair is red,
but my eyes are blue.
My skin is white, but
the back of my eyes are black
as the big fog from Bei-jing;

and I can't see
any sense in outward
embitterment so I
turn in to investigate
what's collected, realizing,
it doesn't matter
who gets elected when
the golden rule is not respected.


July 2008

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