The Infrastructure Crumbles

The infrastructure crumbles
While I must service debt--
The situation humbles,
But I’ve no answer yet.

Meanwhile the dollars that I pay
In tax rain havoc in Iraq,
In their deployment with no say
Unable yet to take them back.

Taxes require a high percent
While I keep nearly threadbare poor,
Meanwhile largesse of government
Has plenty to expend on war.

The infrastructure crumbles,
Who knows what else is yet
To come—stock market tumbles,
Deflation? Take your bet.

The bombs are falling in Iraq
And in Afghanistan today,
While who knows where discharges flak
In secret places none will say?

Meanwhile one hardly makes the rent,
Though treading water far from shore:
One works to serve the government
So that it may conduct the war.

The infrastructure crumbles,
While people curse, upset,
The bureaucratic bumbles
Which can’t do nothing yet.

The infrastructure of Iraq
We have destroyed, but yet we may
Not fix our own, so how, alack,
Might we make reparations, eh?

I pay my taxes, one red cent
Not with representation, or
A say in how the government
Disperses it, e.g. on war.

The infrastructure crumbles,
The hungry belly rumbles,
The government yet fumbles
And bumbles its attack;
The population grumbles,
While politicians’ mumbles
Do little as war stumbles
On daily in Iraq.