It is like some steampunk nightmare
Where working overtime is a racket
When what was time and a half pay
On the day I get my check, I make less;
Some kind of tax bracket scam thing
Where working extra hours put me
Into another category and increased
The tax they use to grease the wheels
Of a bloated government that hates me.
Maybe that dates me and it isn’t true;
That things have changed and it is
No longer arranged that way. And maybe
The way things became done was that
I got it all back as a refund. But isn’t that
Redundant, that I had to pay it to them
To use it like per diem for their games?
The shame is that I chafed and did nothing
Besides ******* and frothing at the mouth.
It’s not like I could go south to Ensenada,
Buy a piñata that looked like Mickey Mouse,
It was just that the house always wins.
But I have to pay for my tiny, mundane sins.
Why don’t they? Why does it go on and on
And then the money’s gone and I pay more
The next time some fat ***** of a politician
Begins a petition to increase their slice
And nicely reduce ours to a pittance
So low there is no admittance to a show
Or enough to replace a car that is a wreck?
The albatross around my neck gets larger
As it I move farther from the day it died
Even though I have tried standing up straighter.
It’s The Grand Guignol Theatre that life is
And the strife is to not let it get me down;
To be the happy clown and not the sad one
In a game that was begun to make me lose.
I am not confused. I see it, but it seems
Even in dreams I get no kind of relief
From a governmental thief with immunity;
The pillages with impunity and teases
That he does what he pleases. Neener, neener
What in hell could possibly be meaner?
