Human Genome (2a)

When the crude embryo careful Nature breeds,/ See how she works, and how her work proceeds;/ While through the mass her energy she darts,/ To free and swell the complicated parts,/ Which only does unravel and untwist/ Th’invelop’d limbs, that previous there exist./ And as each vital speck, in which remains/ Th’entire, but rumpled animal, contains/ Organs perplext, and clues of twining veins;/ So every foetus bears a secret hoard/ With sleeping, unexpanded issue stor’d;/ Which numerous, but unquicken’d progeny,/ Clasp’d and inwrap’d within each other lie;/ Engendering heats these one by one unbind,/ Stretch their small tubes, and hamper’d nerves unwind./ And thus, when time shall drain each magazine/ Crowded with men unborn, unripe, unseen,/ Nor yet of parts unfolded; no increase/ Can follow, all prolific power must cease.’ Sir Richard Blackmore, 1650?-1729, The Creation

‘Until now, human genes were an almost complete mystery.’ Matt Ridley, Genome, Fourth Estate, 2001

Human Genome (2a)

Unpluck your shining eyes;
time-tutored stones - bright

miracles of light’s yearning
to be seen, even in darkness -

biology’s artistic manipulation
of willing, original molecules -

by what advantage imagined,
partially configured, rehearsal

polished, to Nature’s unnatural glass -
like brilliant jewellery lay them down.

Slip easily from your supple skin,
perfectly fitted, slinky pink suit -

shapely garment of seamless weave;
rain-proof, snake-sloughed, corseted

with ribs - escape that imprisoning bone
bodice, as white harp for earth and wind;

rattle free from your broken Gothic
architecture of bones, amused skull.

Empty your heart’s red cauldron -
dampen the fiery circuitry, ticking

pump, pressured blood - pulsing
branches; excise the saintly liver,

washing, washing all the toxins
of the world - the humble bowel

remembering the fruitful processes
of earth; alchemy of meat and green

to energy, sunburst fuel in water.
Deflate - fold up internal wings,

with accordion/organ sounds -
cast off these snugly fitted feet,

like comfortable white shoes -
peel hyperactive starry hands

like kid gloves, break off
their battish stick-bones –

unwig your thatch of parasol/
pashmina hair, luxuriant scales;

winkle from rippled limpet-lips.
Hang up that clanking skeleton,

like a tailor’s dummy stripped -
uproot the thinking cauliflower;

sparkling, incessant nest of electric bees -
and what’s left, the living Genome ghost;

speckled net of shifting lights,
immaterial communications -

star patterns still speaking secret
languages with time’s first words;

chemical galaxies, messengers
in this old, communal universe -

black matter of the worm;
wing, tail, fin still snoring,

golden shimmer, shine, crackle,
as sequenced sparks luminesce,

like bright firefly talk, love,
in heavens of tropical trees.

Incandescent coils, strings switching,
blushing silver - surging, connecting,

flushing - lighting with intention -
expressing letter streams engraved

with being’s secrets; typset by Nature
in her single font, empowered by life -

rising each from heart, soul of water -
love kernel still a mystery in darkness;

orchestrating themselves - singing
into existence, touch; writing now.


And look here, curled sleeping
in the long dark, old cat-in-sun

who slept the day, found himself
among the stars – a dim pattern -

means of a tail - still-printed codes
at willing spine, bone-root knobble;

peacock-spread, almost comatose,
tea-lights in the electric cathedral,

size of furthest possible seed-stars -
but still dreaming, dozing, dreaming,

ah, of turning on those dazzling bulbs again,
that strutting, Beyonce, bootylicious shuffle;

rustling, drastic luxury, display - tugging wind
through a billion, hooked, iridescent blue hairs.

And here still, our enormous wings,
nature-painted at the shoulder - see,

by candle-light - swan-white fossils
in a holy church of bone; ourselves -

blade-nubs jagging bluntly for escape -
massive bat skeletons in Da Vinci pose;

we are the eagle still - pterodactyl -
kingfisher flash, fish luminescence;

glow-worm signalling retained -
on beckoning cliff-edge we hang,

splendid, noble beyond angelic -
animal-angels, awake, re-grown;

air roaring encouragement -
soft beaks sniffing welcome,

ambered sun, blue mother-sky -
muscular swan-shoulders bulge,

hollow-bone quiver-quills coming;
eight foot span, ox-chest - feathers

aching to sprout, like strained seed
stomachs engorged with messages

of air and light, braille earth, mouthing
water, coaxing the explosion of flower.


Free of our elaborate, working crusts -
organic evidence, presence, decoration,

the gleaming, dreaming Genome
shows us yet animal and flower,

shrew and fish, bird still hording wings;
indelibly printed with our invisible kin -

stamped with the mark of earth,
baptised with the sign of water -

our flesh in common with stars;
under this skin - already angels.