I Will Not Be Paying My Taxes

It’s the thirtieth day of May
Not just another day
I sit wound in a tight knot,
anger rises bitter in my throat.
My fingers hesitate to sign off my sweat
into the bottomless pit of corruption.
This day in May,
a woman is raped,
a baby aborted,
a mother, from hunger dies.

This May,
a father’s life is lost:
potholes cradle his blood
to be savored like a rare wine
on the lips of a corrupt contractor
This day,
a traffic cop
holds out his blood thirsty hand:
his signature, permission for murder.
The people’s trust he disregards
to keep the rich man’s defective
fleet on the road.

Today,
another desperate and jobless
young man determinedly tightens
the noose around his neck
and kicks away the stool that holds his future.
A woman wails,
her screams bounce off
the hospital’s dilapidated walls:
‘No medicine’, she howls again and again,
echoing what the doctors said
as her child died in her arms.

This May,
a young girl lays her heavy head
against the urine stained wall.
Glazed eyes stare at hopelessness honed
to perfection by the illegal drugs
she sells herself to buy.
And the minister’s wife
Just back from abroad,
from pomp, romp and designer shops.
In her fancy car, back-left she sits
driven by the tax remunerated chauffer
This is the life, she thinks
while looking through the tinted glass
with disdain
at begging street
children

On this last day of May,
bent over my tax forms,
I believe I will not
be paying my taxes next year.

PoP © May 31 06