Dave Bonta packs a quiet joke about government into four short lines. The first line plays on sound and sense: a parliament that runs on a pen is really just made of paper, so its power is words on a page rather than anything solid. The title, "Parliament of fools," suggests the speaker doesn't think much of this kind of rule-by-document.
The second stanza turns the pun inward. "Owe" and "ow" sound alike, so a debt seems to produce pain: what's owed hurts. Read this way, the poem hints that paperwork and obligation, the stuff of politics, leave real people hurting. The last line, "how to think with no ink," is a puzzle. It could mean thinking without writing things down, or being unable to think clearly once the official words run dry. The mood is dry, wry, and a little weary, more a sly shrug at bureaucracy than an angry protest.