I Wish My Tongue Were a Pen

BY HUGO AXEL FLORES
I wish my tongue were a pen
For my pen mounts high upon currents of light
a stag in search of a mare
But my tongue wags slow contemplating the plight
sequestered in the barn for the night

What a dilemma to know what to say
but say what you will, to store it away
For my pen is ready and able
but my tongue stands still in the stable

Arise in me oh mighty foe!
be loosed my tongue oh member slow
Whoa, Whoa, Whoa
charge forth my tongue oh member slow

If my tongue were a pen I would whip up a song
Like a boss! like Sinatra! and you’d ALL croon along
If my tongue were a pen I would feel no more fear
I’d RANT like a king, like a man on a beer
“HA!” you would say, “there’s a man who thinks straight”
“from his mind to his gate at an outstanding rate
the ink GALLOPS with quickness and weight”

But “lo”, you exclaim “how does one who can frame
a sonnet, a poem or phrase
fall so short in the oral when the verbal’s ablaze?”

My tongue chews the cud in a barn in the night
Away, hid from sunlight and men
My hand will transcribe for reasons known not
I were that my tongue were a pen