01/31/2019

Today, I learned the true extent to which I loathe the IRS. To be fair, I've always known that I hated them. I've had plenty of legitimate reasons for this in the past. For instance, every year, they casually extort our wage and salary, pretending to allocate it for the building of bridges, roads, and schools. While in reality, the infrastructure and educational system crumble, and defense spending grows without limit.
But then again, I do suppose that in a certain sense, roads, bridges, and schools are built indirectly with these funds; but only after the funds are used to blow these institutions to smithereens in third world countries, and private corporations like Halliburton are contracted to rebuild them for egregious profits. Profits, mind you, which are shuffled to dozens of offshore shell corporations, ensuring that they are taxed at a rate exponentially lower than the profits of the average working citizen.
But today, I experienced a type of hatred entirely novel to my conceptions of what is even possible in the realm of consciousness. A loathing so intense that it paralyzed my rationality, sending me into fits of rage and bewildered astonishment that I would wish on NO ONE . . . except Cheney or Kissinger, the ******* *******. For today, for the first time in all my 28 years of life, I filed my federal income taxes. I knew that one day the chore would inevitably arise, but I still consider it an accomplishment to have made it through an entire third or more of my life without ever actually dirtying my hands with the wretched muck. All that aside, the story goes like this:
I work as an “independent contractor” for a friend who runs a small business. I perform various services around the office, and he cuts me a check at the end of the week. I've been working there “on paper” for about a year, really a bit longer, but “what they don't know...” so goes the old adage. We had, the both of us, anticipated with tempered irritation, the arrival of this bureaucratic beast of burden. However, neither of us knew that the deadline mailing date for “independent contractors” comes nary two months sooner than for payroll employees. This information was sprung on us at the very last minute by his tax attorney who, from this point on, will be referred only to as 'G.S.' (grease stain).
As I was fulfilling my duties, my friend urgently beckoned to me “STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING. TAXES ARE DUE TODAY, AND WE HAVE TO FILE THEM NOW!” Naturally, I panicked. I had seen an income tax form . . . perhaps once or twice? . . .  much less filled one out . . .  maybe once at 17 during the employment process at a fast food joint? . . . Initially, we had thought it would be a simple matter of the W-2, the likes of which had been filled out automatically for me by employers in the past as a part of the hiring phase. Nonetheless, since my status of “independent contractor” placed me into a different tax category, I had to fill out what is known as a 1099-MISC. “Simple enough!” thought I, “I'll just fill in the relevant details and get back to work.” . . . “NOT SO FAST, CASEY JONES!” screamed the form, with all its talk of “fishing boat expenses” and “crop insurance” . . . “O...K?” “and what precisely has this to do with me?” thought I.
My employer, courteous as he can sometimes be, called up (t)rusty old G.S., who referred us to a site where the form could be understood more intelligibly. After a bit of head scratching and chin stroking, we figured it out. No matter, though! Because once we figured the form out, we couldn't figure out what to DO with the ******* thing. 'G.S.' was once again consulted, and he told us that we could simply print the form, and take it to an H&R Block office for submission. “Okay, simple enough!” thought I . . . but alas! It was not to be so. When we arrived at said office, the agent . . . who looked like a burned out caricature of William H. Macy . . .  reviewed the forms, and said that to apply the deductions I had calculated, he would require a $300 fee for his services, and that I would need to fill out a “Section-C.” This lanky, rasp-voiced, twig of a man then withdrew from his cubicle, at which point, my employer whispered to me “**** that, I've done Section-C forms hundreds of times, we're ditching these crooks”
At this point, we retreated back to the office, found what we thought to be the relevant forms, but were soon swept up in a vicious monsoon of bureaucratic legalese which, although it resembled English, bore few similarities other than word spelling and grammatical form. It is sometimes alleged that Kafka was haunted by ghosts which had an insatiable appetite for stories. The legend further has it that he would write for them to quell their unyielding wrath. Those of us who have read Kafka know intimately of his satirical preoccupation with the absurdity of bureaucracy. Perhaps these stories pleased the ominous specters which loomed over him like the fluorescent light beaming down upon me as I type these words. Some things can never be known for certain. If, however, this were truly the case, then it would seem that Kafka's ghost had now taken the role of writing MY story for his own amusement. Every cliché of the DMV and social services building was present in this ghastly affair. “Fill out this form; stand in this line; oh, I'm sorry, sir. You've got the wrong form. You'll need to file a (…) and take it to (…), their hours are MwAhMwAhMwAhMwAhMwAh” This futile circumlocution went on for SIX HOURS. All the while, thoughts of a perfectly wound noose, crafted of thick hemp rope, with thirteen pristine wraps forming a slipknot to be fitted as though tailor made around my neck filled my mind, as the acute stages of benzodiazepene withdrawal began to set it. Luckily enough, or so we suspect. We figured it out, and now I have only to wait for my return to come in the mail to see what I owe.
But once I got home, I got to thinking. There is a copy of 'Infinite Jest' on my coffee table. A literary epic whose magnitude cannot possibly be overstated. I began to think deeply reverential thoughts of the author of this book, and then something clicked in my mind: on that fateful day when Wallace took his own life  by the noose, he was in the middle of writing a novel about nothing less than the 1985 Tax Code in Illinois, and a group of IRS agents. Being the adamant researcher of all topics that he was, we can hardly imagine that he did not give this terrible ******* of language what he felt to be its due diligence. Of course, any responsible thinker understands that correlation does not equal causation; but as the admittedly ironic thoughts of suicide filled my mind over the course of this afternoon and evening, I can't help but be left to wonder if a mind so vastly superior to mine as his did not experience these ideas with markedly less irony as he reveled in the vile idiosyncrasies of bureaucratic jargon. Again. Some things can never be known.

Nobody mourn,
nobody get hurt

We just project
redirect the blame
and sink back
into interactions
with coping devices
of mass distraction

The artificial womb
of the masses

Tethered by an invisible
umbilical cord
feeding us way
too much
information

Like hungry ghosts
salivating
the next notification

We can’t run.
We can’t hide.
There’s a threat to survive,

But we’re so ******* desensitized

Seduced by the school shooter
we don’t hear him coming
singing siren songs
heart-beating shotgun blasts

That leitmotif
in sync with
The American Horror Story allegory

Just forget it
Too much in the queue
Too many new things

We can’t reject this reality
It’s really ******* broken

Em, I’m sorry we’re descending
Much Madness has lost its meaning

It’s just the means to
unlock an achievement

Emulate another scumbag.
romanticize a villain
amplify the bodycount
Like how many do you need to ***** out
before they give you the cover
of the Rolling Stone?

It's comedically-tragic,
Stranger than satire.

The Judge, the jury
Executioner cutie

cut all your losses for ya
cashed in your lil tax deductions

The most sacred snuffed out
before the light could become them

Get woke a-f,
This is enlightenment!

Come on get
your mind blown!

He’s the one who loves
to shoot his gun
But he knows not what it means
knows not what it means.
Do you know what it means?

The end of
the six day
work week
blessedly
arrived for
the weary
seamstresses.

The thought
alone
returned
dexterity
to fingers
numbed
by the
monotony
of repetitive
motion and
eased the
incessant
ache of
lower backs
and stiffened
shoulders.

The
exhausted
women
would soon
deposit their
subsistence
wages for
piece meal
work into
worn knit
purses,
mentally
noting
items to
purchase at
the market
on the way
home.

At the head
of the line
stood the
bumptious
paymaster
barking at the
compliant women
"to keep in line
and keep in mind"
any honorariums
due him.

The workers,
youngest
to the oldest
counted the
tokens
in hand to
discern
the weeks
approximate
payout.

Lack of
math skills,
the uncertainty of
unjust deductions
and poor command
of English
made net pay
calculations
impossible
to deduce.

Passing time
in the pay line
the swelling
sound
of trilling
voices rolled
along the queue.

Wise
Yiddish
axioms
and Italianate
passions joined
to bespeak
the ecstasies of
the human
condition.

The strange
hybrid dialect
filling the room
busily hailed
the coming
day of rest,
blessed
the faces of
kissed children,
imagined
the warmth given
from a lump
of coal,
explored
the bumpy feel
of hardened
scabs,
sounded hope
for a cloudless
Sunday,
expressed
remorse over
calloused hands
and the hope
that they could
become soft
and youthful again.

One woman
with a swollen jaw
mouthed an
anguished dread
of rejoining a
violent husband.

A buoyant
Rose,
with glittering
eye,
whispered
the joys
potential courtship
with a distant cousin;
while the
***** laughs
of a randy group
of union maids
imagined
the luxury of
a Saturday night
bath and amorous
encounters with
broad shouldered
lovers.

One thick legged
woman hummed
happily as she imagined
picking up a ham-bone for
the soup kettle.

A freckled faced girl
and a mid-aged
German woman each
tearfully fretted over
the ritual turnover
of their wages
to a disabled father
and drunkard husband.

The hope of a
speedy and safe
delivery of a child
was prayed for by a
late term, big busted
mother of four,
while another worried
that the infection
of a cut finger
would heal and
her home bound
children afflicted with
terminal hunger
will have some bread
tonight and
porridge tomorrow.

The outbreak of the
fire changed all
their day dreams
and concerns
into frightful
screams,
nightmarish
death leaps
and eternal rest
for 146 workers
of the Triangle
Waist Company
on March 25, 1911.

May their
small knit purses
be filled with the
pleasant dreams
they wished for
themselves and others
as divine compensation
for their earthy labors
and may
they find a restful
peace in an
eternity of Sundays
enjoyed in the
company of
family,
lovers
and
friends.

Selah

Today marks the 100th Anniversary of the Triangle Waist Company fire in New York City. It killed 146 people the vast majority immigrant woman who worked at the company. The Triangle Fire is a seminal event in the US labor movement that lead to the recognition of labor unions as vehicles for workers rights and social justice. More on the Triangle Fire can found here on this wonderful sight from Cornell University.

Oakland
3/25/11
jbm

You are Sherlock Holmes; cold, unyielding
I'm here just praying to be your Irene Adler
We match in intelligences, looks and laughs
I keep up with you while you spit theories and deductions  
Even when you poke holes in mine
You make me better smarter faster stronger
....I make you soft...
There are alot of poems about unrequited love
This is not one of them
This is not one of them
I knew you loved me;
Since that day on bikes
Well aware of how the sun shone
Through my hair
But... Backed away at your advance
The rejection, to hard for you to handle
And as you peddled, away, uphill...fighting
With each pump of your legs
I wanted to say
I can't
Because just one kiss and I'll explode with love for you
I saw through your reasoning and never tried to fix you
This is not a poem about unrequited love.
**This is a poem about when to realize some characters and some ideals are fiction for a reason

My life is well documented
on thin strips of paper
usually thrown in a trash bin.
My attachments
are well preserved
in a thin sheet of ice
covering an overflowing trash bin.
So when its time for taxes
I thaw out the bin
and re-record the trail
of 20's and 40's
60's and 80's
pulled from my account of time been in passing
I shake my head and laugh
at the time I spent trying to change the end
to Tuck Everlasting
Knowing now that when you tucked me in
it was to say goodnight,
not good-morning.
A foreshadow that you would be passing
and I would be lasting.
I've crunched the numbers
made the deductions
and came out with a lengthy profit.
Thanks to the money I've invested
in being possessed,
with the best
intentions,
paying attention to you
So when I file my W-2's,
I can do them with a smile knowing
I never wasted a dime on you.

Here's an adage to evaluate:

God helps those who help themselves.

Allow me please to start debating,
Speaking first on race relations;
Then you might go on on tax deductions,
And I'll rebut with school age shootings,
And all the *** and moral misconduct;
But the pinnacle's reached
With hedonistic fate,
The Oval Office of those United States.

A man got lost in the thick of the city,
A forest of people or the walking trees,
He wandered around, for hours and days,
Yet couldn't find the moss to guide his ways.

He looked up at the stars,
Looking for direction,
But all he saw,
Was the light of delusion.

Our man was no hero,
Nor a person of the people.
He knew what he learned,
Through his own deductions.

No signboards guiding,
No hotspots lighting,
Just a lost sense of direction,
The type that leads to conclusion.

And through these lost days,
Did our anti-hero find,
His unpaved road,
His route home.