Joker's Pay

If you can make a week old prolapse seem
Romantic as a school girl's dream
Describe the sweet and lovely things
That are held together with hog rings

You'll deserve a gold B.S. degree
In Western cowboy poetry
But writing poems and jokes and such
For this cattle crowd won't pay too much

You see they can't afford to pay to hear
The real value of a dying steer
Or all about that market mess
That brings on all their money stress

And doubt about tiny checks towards giant notes
Wore out over shoes and coats
And old gloves turned inside out.

And don't forget the numbers, write those great big numbers down
You see all that pretty equity and forty cents
Will buy a cup of coffee almost anywhere in town
And who here hasn't visualized that long dreaded day
When some sympathetic crowd, and a somber auctioneer
Sells your world away

Some bitter husband, weeping wife
Decides what now to do with life
And where to go, how not to feel
Like failures at the only thing they know

And so, Joker, if you make the poems and jokes
To entertain these Western folks
Who herd the cows and tend the sheep
For their sake, keep it light

And take the laughter for your pay
Because right now 

Tears are cheap