An Ode to Digestion

(Inspired by a non-fiction classic, 'Stomach Ulcers and Acidity', published in Australia in 1985)

Chew it slowly, chew it long,

As saliva flows.

Let it linger on your tongue,

Then down the tube it goes.

Food balls dropping down the chute ;

Oesophogal descent.

As acid does the chow pollute,

The gullet pays its rent.

The stomach ends this lumpy drop ;

Expanding (fits the meal).

A pause for a digestive stop ;

Reviews ingestion's deal.

Mucin, Gastrics, Hydrochlorics,

Hormones and Lipases.

This is science, not folklorics !

(Eating's many faces.)

Onwards to the twisted bowels ;

A journey through the colon.

Rivers (unlike Enoch Powell's):

Keep those enzymes rollin' !

Ending in a putrid mess,

When all the good's been taken (my word !)

Where the rectum's spasmic press,

Invades a toilet, shaken (not stirred.)