I like all muddy mucused things
that crawl in silence on my plate
I like secretions of the glands
the stench of sea: its gills opaque.
I like the tears that dim the eye
To look beyond eternity
Detritus thrown by planets past
that crook the balanced universe
These skins we shed upon our love
To make one metamorphosis:
This wine that jinxes each white cloth
The oozed volcano, chaliced ash,
The scramble up the rotting slope
The ugly child, the bitch in blood
Man's severed wings caressing earth:
Old splintered scabs, our sweat cast off—
For all these line God's birth canal
Abstract, coherent—And in the flesh.
LOVELY AS DUST
I awoke from death
And read your poems
And they were great.
But they were not me.
Your testicles contracted
To release the sea
As your fingers spread out
The ecstasy of mountains forming
and groaning
While your eyes, half closed
Transfused the sky with raining.
Oh there was thunder and
lightning too,
A revenge upon yourself—the sun
Peeking out from always
Thrusting its sword
To stalk the vintage;
And your issue was a man
Walking to find you, unknowing,
With a cane that was sometimes a
cross
And forever more wanting.
But nothing was left for me
:the
dark matter:
Except for the singing.
Laura Manuelidis is a physician and scientist who has delved
into the shapes of chromosomes and their repeated DNAs as well as the causes of
dementia. She has begun to publish some of her poems, written over many years,
in various journals, including The Nation, Connecticut Review, and Oxford Poetry, has been
nominated twice for a Pushcart prize, and has read in European and American
university and other venues. Her book of poems, Out of Order, is available online
from popular book sites, and samples of her written and spoken poetry
(accompanied with music by Paul Jordan) (in addition to other linked
published work) can be accessed at http://info.med.yale.edu/neurosci/faculty/manuelidis_poetry.html.
