Knightmare on Maple Street (with thanks to Jack)

NOTE: Once again, tax season is upon us. Before Jack invested in TurboTax, he insisted on calculating and filing our taxes by hand though he hated this heroic if somewhat quixotic quest to conquer the IRS windmills. It’s the only obsession he ever had, and I never understood why. Nevertheless, it didn’t dim his appreciation for this 1998 poem of gratitude in his honor.

The winds of March and showers of April ever signal spring,
But for 511 Maple’s man they mean a dreadful thing.
He must become a hermit, an utter stays-on-tracksman,
And all pitch in to clear the decks when Jack becomes The Taxman.

Eraser (true companion), calculator, stapler sweet–
They do not ease his painful Nightmare on Maple Street.
As piles of this and heaps of that assail the hapless stacksman,
To organize for IRS poor Jack must act The Taxman.

Gone the jeeping Moab man, the carefree New Your tourist.
In its place, possessing him, a calculating purist.
Friends ignored and e-mail shunned, no more the social faxman.
His company we do without when Jack becomes The Taxman.

O noble effort! Gift of gold! The rest of us he spares
From having so to agonize. Behold how much he cares!
‘Tis said that there’s just one other inevitable Axeman,
But between the two, I choose not Death—no, I love Jack The Taxman.

Musters he, through act of will, a superhuman focus,
Wishes he that there could be an act of hocus-pocus.
Or could he find a substitute, a Madame Tussaud waxman
To sit for hours in his place? No, Jack’s the only Taxman.

And so he bolsters up his heart to overcome his fears,
Anticipating words which will be music to his ears,
More dulcet than the smoothest blues produced by any saxman:
He forges toward a promised poem of “Thank you, Jack The Taxman.”

Days roll on. The drudgery must surely take its toll.
Though he knows I’ll turn it down, he offers me the role.
Finally! He pushes through, a Take-It-To-The-Max-Man,
And on the 16th, dragon slain, my knight is Jack The Taxman.

P.S. Feel the tax prep hug.