Feeling the Discovered Workings of the Genome

‘First HEAT from chemic dissolution springs,/ and gives to matter its eccentric wings…. ATTRACTION4 next…The ponderous atoms from the light divides,/ Approaching parts with quick embrace combines,/ Swells into spheres, and lengthens into lones./ Last, as fine goads the gluten-threads excite,/ Cords grapple cords, and webs with webs unite;/ And quick CONTRACTION5 with ethereal flame/ Lights into life the fibre-woven frame.-/ Hence without parent by spontaneous birth/ Rise the first specks of animated earth;/ From Nature’s womb the plant or insect swims,/ And buds or breaths, with microscopic limbs…3. The matter of heat is an ethereal fluid, in which all things are immersed… Without heat, all the matter of the world would be condensed into a point by the power of attraction; and neither fluidity nor life could exist….4…. Particular attraction, or chemical affinity, must likewise occupy the spaces between the particles of matter which they cause to approach each other….[Darwin’s notes]’ Erasmus Darwin, 1731-1802, The Temple of Nature


‘*The word ‘mechanics’, in this context, is provocative. It stands in opposition to the concept of ‘vitalism’. Vitalists maintain that life is driven by unique processes that are not explicable purely by the standard laws of physics and chemistry, while ‘mechanists’ maintain that life simply required complicated chemistry.’ Note, Ian Wilmut and Keith Campbell, The Second Creation, Headline, 2001


‘Chemist, you breed/ In orient climes each sorcerous weed/ That energises dream – ‘. Herman Melville, 1819-91, The New Zealot to the Sun

‘SURLY: “What else are all your terms,/ Whereon no one of your writers ‘grees with other?/ Of your elixir, your lac virginis,/ Your stone, your med’cine, and your chrysosperme,/ Your sal, your sulphur, and your mercury,/ Your oil of height, your tree of life, your blood,/ Your marchesite, your tutie, your magnesia,/Your toad, your crow, your dragon, and your panther;/ Your sun, your moon, your firmament, your adrop,/ Your lato, azoch, zernich, chibrit, heautarit,/ And then your red man, and your white woman,/ With all your broths, your menstrues, and materials,/ Of piss and egg-shells, women’s terms, man’s blood,/ Hair o’ the head, burnt clouts, chalk, merds, and clay,/ Powder of bones, scalings of iron, glass,/ And worlds of other strange ingredients,/ Would burst a man to name?” SUBTLE: “And all these named,/ Intending but one thing: which art our writers/ Used to obscure their art”.’ Ben Jonson, 1572-1637, The Alchemist

Feeling the Discovered Workings of the Genome

I rub my hands together, feeling frizzy chemical combustion;
skin spawning elastic cell-seal - muffled hinges of articulate
stem-star bone crackling silently under our muscular gloves,

that can stroke notes from gappy piano teeth, but strangle;
comfort, strengthen, punch or pray - the organic red pump,
battery clock and wires, pulsing wrist guages industriously.

I run my fingers through my hair, frazzling the yellow factory,
sparking seed-silk filaments into animal fuzz - ghost remnant
sprouting arty follicles with no imperative for such a display -

kept like a peackock tail, physical halo, scripture of decoration.
My stomach oven growls - independent hunger, acidic machine
processes. Dust launches from me in dirty sun; my own glittering

galaxy of spent particles - each authored with potential me -
my universal signature floating nowhere, nano person-planets
seeded with the means of life, wandering or returning to earth.

I feel the Genome; writing, powering. My own chemicals
dancing - combining, producing, housekeeping, adapting;
such quadrilles, Eightsome Reels, a-waltzing in the heart

and brain. Pagan and religious ecstasy as one, as life.
So much vibration, I burn blue/red/gold as Autumn -
as sparking leaf, touch my small child’s spring hand;

feel silver spiral-fires of reciprocal DNA, sparkling,
chemical crackling of growing hand - practicalities
of bone, blood, skin; presence of art, beauty settling

this pristine home, universal energy flowing around
his head - the mark of a child, child halo; new light
called from old, original - yet still illuminating stars.