2017 Poem A Day (PAD)

Tags

Alden Nowlan, Alliteration, Down River, Haiku, Hamza al-Khateeb, metaphor, PAD, rhyming, Sonnet, Voice

This post is about my experiences at the Writer’s Digest blog Poetic Asides; where each April Robert Lee Brewer runs a poem a day (PAD) event. In 2016 I posted every day with my poem and thoughts. It was too much, and I didn’t want to invest that effort this time. It becomes pretty dull after only a few days of mediocre poetry. Sorry bloggers, but reading our unedited, off-the-cuff poetry is too often a painful exercise.

This season I want to write about what I have learned, with examples. I don’t know how many of the 54 poems I wrote this month I will post, but it will not be double digits.

April is National Poetry Month, and for me, it has become a month to focus on poetry. Not entirely. I met with an editor this month about my novel. In my mind it is finished and ready to go, but what does ready to go mean? I am not sending it off in queries, yet, as the forces are telling me to self-publish, and do it NOW! Including my wife who has finally read my work. More on that later.

I read one complete book of poetry this month and about 30 pages of another. I picked up a copy of Alden Nowlan’s Early Poems for $8. A steal as other shops are charging $30-$40 for this 1983, posthumous publication by UNB’s Fiddlehead Press.

Nowlan writes earthy poems of simple life-events and often adds a dramatic twist. His rhyming can be forced, and he willingly strays into the dirty areas of life. You will not find a light, airy, emotional Alden Nowlan poem. I sympathize with the style and it has influenced my poetry this month. Here is one example of his work.

Down River by Alden Nowlan

In cities the embittered ones are cunning;
anguish sharpens their wits, I’ve seen the eye
glint in whoresons and beggars, its approach
quick and malicious as a common fly.

But here persistent misery endures;
growing thick-headed like a cow, it chews
thistles in mute protest against the rain
of innocence it cannot lose or use.

This poem I wrote is about a man in a funeral procession carrying a casket, upset at others, his tailor who screwed up his pants is sitting in the back of the church and the guy in front of him wearing jeans, yet he cannot see the irony of himself wearing boots. Most definitely Nowlan-influenced.

Untitled

It is so disappointing when people don’t show respect,
forty dollar dress pants too long, and the haberdasher knew Tom;
he sits at the back of the church, head bowed, embarrassed
as I step on the cuffs with the heels of my boots
afraid I’ll fall while hauling this casket
the weight of Tom’s miserable life on my shoulder,
and the guy in front of me who pretended to cry
while buddy spoke of friendship and sadness and told lies
is only wearing jeans.

Nowlan uses simple rhyming but more complex and subtle alliteration: In, cities, embittered, wits, glint in, its, quick, malicious, persistent, misery, thick, it, thistles in mute, innocence, it, cannot. Fantastic when you look for it and read it a few times. And as I sit in this down-river city with the painting of Nowlan on a brick wall along Canterbury St., look at the persistent fog and drizzle outside my office window, and walk among the thick-headed denizens, oh, do I feel this Nowlan poem beating!

I attribute the following to Nowlan Influence, especially the simple rhyming scheme.

Platinum 3776 Century SF

The sound of this fine gold nib
an this smooth, heavy paper
is the sound of a clean sheet of ice
being etched by a smooth figure skater

It traces ornate twirls as it glides
through the jungle of imagined words
jumps and spins as it writes attacking
the loudest clashing of swords

The following is in many ways concrete and earthy but the conceit is abstract: sitting in a coffee shop wondering if you fit in.

The Sound of Youth

I try to sit in silence
sip my coffee
read my book
the pages won’t lay flat
but keep closing
my eyes wander the rows
tables full of chatter
incessant social banter
not looking at faces
straining to decipher
the deafening sound of youth

I also worked through In The Palm of your Hand by the late Steve Kowit out of San Diego. I read this with some trepidation as Steve called a friend of mine illiterate after she submitted poetry using Canadian spelling. American exceptionalism? Myopia? I can’t comment, but she was not pleased. Anyway, while this book has issues with generalization, examples you have to track down in back pages, and editing snafus, this is actually a stunning read. I highly recommend it.

I am also working through the book Studying Poetry by Matterson and Jones. This is another stunning book. It is advanced and assumes you understand the basics of poetry. These authors dig deeper and discuss how poetry actually works. This month, some of this text has led me into exploring alliteration and forms of metaphor deeper, such as in the following poems.

Haiku 17417

Clothes hang from the line
strung-out lives, histories dancing
in the cold, spring wind

And this poem combines Nowlan subject matter and twist with alliteration.

Untitled

Their 54 Plymouth, festooned
with Green Giant corn cans
and full Cracker Jack boxes
rambled down county road one
scaring the deer and raccoons.

I tried not to, but I also strayed into politics again. I have often made statements such as, “America will never be able to change its ways; it can’t even adopt the metric system.” And when Robert gave a prompt of ‘metric’, I knew what I had to write.

Untitled

When hicks talk in klicks
you can bet they’ll accuse
the country of Bolshevik
influence and interference
calling the president a lunatic
and march on Capital Hill
with night sticks and booze.

The following poem hurt to write. When you write a poem, the emotional impact is many times that when you read it. I spent half a day reading about Syria; because I didn’t understand it. I stumble across this article in Al Jazeera and decide I needed to write a poem about it. It put me in the darkest mood I have ever been in. Ever! After dinner my wife and son went out and I was home alone. I couldn’t take it, so I went to my favorite pub and played trivia a night early with friends. Oh the beer went down fast!

Hamza al-Khateeb

You loved it when the rains came
filled a simple irrigation ditch
a makeshift swimming hole; you weren’t to blame
for giving your family’s money to a boy without a stitch

The Arab spring promised freedom
a loner, you joined the protest
an easy target, young and without wisdom
al’aman, security; we all assume it protects

They whipped you with steel cable
shocked your knees, elbows, hands, and face
left your tortured body on a table
a bullet in your belly, they cut off your penis

Hamza al-Khateeb, what have you seen?
you were an innocent boy; you were only thirteen

Yeah, a tough one.

Of course I also had some fun this month. Some of my poetry was light and airy and even made me smile 😉

This aphoristic poem in response to ‘in <blank> of love’

Laws of Love

There are no laws of love
no rules or conditions.
There is no bad love
to avoid
and there is no good love
to prefer,
no rolling of the dice
no depending on tossed rice.
The only love that matters
is the love you live to make.

And another metric poem.

Untitled

I waited for you
until the parking meter
ate all of my coins

It was a very good month for me. I wrote 54 poems in 30 days, learned a lot, and I explored much. I took another baby step towards learning my poetic voice and becoming a confident poet, if there even is such an animal.

#FATCA Hearings (4/26/2017) – a very brief introduction

Tags

cbt, citizen-based taxation, fatca, FBAR

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (#FATCA) is a law requiring all foreign financial institutions (FFI) to provide the United States’ Internal Revenue Service (IRS) with financial account details of any American Persons who has accounts with it. If a FFI does not comply, then it is subject to a 30% withholding tax on all its American transactions.

There are arguments for and against #FATCA, and even though I am fully against it, I will try to present both arguments.

Argument For

• The United States has suffered from tax evasion where its citizens and residents park their nest eggs abroad tax free. FATCA forces other countries to report these monies to the IRS. Estimates of taxes that will be recovered vary from $250 million a year to $792 million per year. The actual amounts received in taxes to date is only about $400 million.
• Since implementation in 2010, the Treasury Department has received about $8 billion from FBAR penalties — fines for not reporting overseas accounts; which are not tax revenues but reporting violations.
• More American Persons living abroad have become tax compliant. I cannot find figures on this, but I know it is true because it is true for me and many I know (online).
• There is no cost to American taxpayers. *At least this is argued. There is an indirect cost via increased compliance costs of US banks and the associated lost tax revenue.
• FATCA adds a layer of transparency — money cannot be squirrelled away anonymously.

Summary: the positives are compelling. FATCA is bringing home lost tax dollars, is preventing at least some tax evasion, and this is the argument commonly made.

Argument Against

• FATCA infringes on the right to be free of unwarranted searches as described in the 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution:

  

• It imposes costs on foreign financial institutions whose only ties are American customers. #CBT
• It imposes burdens on non-American persons. #FATCA & #CBT
• It infringes on the sovereignty of foreign nations (by applying American tax law on foreign soil). #FATCA & #CBT
• It helps capital from foreign economies into the American economy. #FATCA & #CBT
• Americans are being denied basic banking services.
• American small businesses abroad are less competitive through higher taxes and compliance costs. #CBT
• Threatens $2.2 trillion in American exports.
• Increases the impetus for the world to move away from the U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency.
• American livelihoods are impacted and threatened. #CBT
• In some cases violates attorney client privilege (when an attorney living abroad has foreign clients whom he or she has authority over their financial accounts).
• Exposes personal financial information to hacking.
• American citizens are renouncing their citizenship in record numbers.
• Americans living abroad are becoming disenfranchised and may be acting as a negative force on the global opinion of the USA.
• It exacerbates the world’s existing image of America as a bully.
• The US refuses to comply with its promise of reciprocity.
• There is no tax revenue gain.

Summary:

Most of these negatives are real. Others such as loss of trade are as yet undocumented. I take the individual citizen living abroad as the canary in the coal mine. Americans have lost all financial accounts and have even had mortgages cancelled, small businesses have suffered through loss of financing, and some individuals have lost jobs (existing and potential) due to their signing authority on foreign commercial accounts. And over 4,000 of us are now renouncing annually with no signs of letup.

Discussion

Some of these negatives are inextricably linked with citizen-based taxation (CBT). CBT was not as much an issue before FATCA as most Americans ignored their American income tax obligations. Actually most did not know they had tax obligations, and many today still don’t know they do. Others simply refuse to comply, and while I don’t know the compliance rates, all discussion I’ve seen says they are still far below 50%.

Most of us who live abroad think CBT should be abolished and replaced with residence-based taxation. This is how the majority of the world taxes its citizens: you are taxed if you live in a country, but if you move away, you are not. Why the US continues with this practice boggles our minds. It is virtually the same practice King George imposed on American colonists which is commonly known as taxation without representation. We get zero American services, so why should we be taxed?

One way to look at these issues is to reverse the roles. Suppose all other countries taxed their citizens in the US. Some 40 million foreign nationals would then have to file taxes abroad, and because of all the flimsy tax treaties the US has, the estimated $400 per head would leave the US ($16 billion annually versus the $3.6 billion the US extracts from foreign lands.) Plus, every American bank would have to supply financial information on every foreign person they had as a customer; which would mean verifying each customer’s nationality. The American financial services industry would not go for it; the American people would not go for it; and the American government would not go for it (as evidenced by the existing refusal to comply with its own law).

This is a bi-partisan issue. CBT was first created by President Lincoln, a Republican, and these laws have been supported and added to by both parties. Many of the Republicans are now understanding the complete immorality of CBT and FATCA, but most Democrats are clinging to their need to control.

There are better ways to catch tax cheaters. Recruit some business schools. Consult countries like Canada who have logical processes to protect taxes. tax money as it leaves, not the people. But Americans don’t want to do things the best way; they have to do things their way; because American way is always the best.