Poem: Let Us Mouth

A poem about Pelicans and Penguins and Doves and Bread. All capitalized, as is proper.

Let Us Mouth
Scriptum est: non in solo pane vivit homo, sed in omni verbo quod procedit de ore Dei.

The Pelican feeds its young with blood,
The Penguin with a vomit flood.

The Pelican feeds its chicks on ichor,
The Penguin spouts a sicker liquor.

Every Mouth can go two ways:
The one that eats, the one that says.

The Ever-Verb’s a loaf of bread
On platter served, a Baptist head.
To some it is Death’s very smell,
A gaping mouth to toothy Hell.
To us it is the scent of Love:
The toothsome savory breast of Dove.

He will not give his sons a stone:
Man lives not by bread alone,
The scribes recorded long ago,
But by the Mouth of God’s own flow.

The coastal cities wail and spout!
A stone is struck and vomits out
A Prophet on the world’s beach.
I hear the Verbings each to each.

The fruit of lips fed Nicodĕmus.
The Mouth divine decrees: oremus.

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