The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Debt. Poem by Wojja Fink

Emptiness and heartaches
Adorn pages by the score
The editor cries foul
The fans cry out for more
The colour of emotions
Lay splattered on a page
The strangled voice of reason
Goes looking for a sage.

The choir master sings
A note to tune their throats
While the hungry back street baker
Makes a curry of his goats,
And the tired bald pied piper
Plays tunes that no one hears
And lost and lonely teachers
Put their fingers in their ears.

And the rock band they play loud
On a dusty desert plain
As the drummer twirls his sticks
Whilst the singer prays for rain.
Out on the wooded slopes
The trees stand patient in the sun
And the sheep beside the river
Get their fleeces all undone.

The tangled barbs of wire
Hold skin stretched tight like drums.
Like the hearts of money lenders
blinded by their sums,
And the psychiatrist in his castle
Eyes the nurse whose mind he keeps
Wrapped up inside his notepads
Where his conscience soundly sleeps.

All along the highways
Tills ring out the price
And the coffee that you just paid for
Is cold like arctic ice.
The sheriff he came looking
For the man who stole the fun
And the carnival was cancelled
Before the day begun.

Across the meadows and the mountains
The grass grew straight and tall
And the dealer in the back room
Cried 'Deal', and sold it all,
And when he’d sold the grass
He started selling debts
And the price went through the roof
When the bankers placed their bets.

But someone woke from sleep
And stumbled upon the floor
How come you’re selling debts?
We can’t hide these any more,
And the clowns inside the circus
Lay in tatters on the floor

And the poets all felt lonely
And tore up all their rhymes
And headed for the exits
Where the juggler juggled mimes.