Janet Kuypers

Rubidium, “Periodic Table of Poetry” poem by Chicago poet Janet Kuypers

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Rubidium

Janet Kuypers

from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#37, Rb)
(based on the poem “Burning Building”)
10/2/13, finished 10/3/13

You tell me you want to be the hand
that pulls me from the burning building,
but you caused that fire.
They try to put it out with water,
but you turn it into hydrogen gas.
You give everything more heat,
and the fire only expands.

So every time I try to be rescued
you turn your back,
you claim you have more work to do.

So I will rescue myself this time again,
and I will wonder if I should stop trying
and allow myself to perish in the flames.
Now all I have to do is sit and wait
for another disaster to consume me.

I’ll wait for you to do your work.
Sitting and waiting is exactly what I’ll do.

You fascinate me with your fireworks, you think,
oh, what a pretty purple color. She’ll like that.
But I was never that fond of that color,
and I hate the damage you can cause.

When things get hot, it seems you melt
just above my own body temperature.
How can I survive with you like this?

My love for you is the deepest red, but
why do you tell me one thing and do another?
You really charge me when we’re together, but
why do you run away when I need you most?

I’m stepping over the wooden beams now,
and the flames are all around me. Here, look
at the blood dripping from my arms. Here,
smell my flesh burning. This is what you do.

You have been so volatile recently, that you
seem to react to everything I ever do, even
if it’s in an effort to save us. So, let me burn.

Can’t it be easier for me to just perish? I try and try,
and every time at the last minute, my figure
steps over the the charred remains and saves me.

If only you wouldn’t create the burning.
Is only you would exist for more than destruction,
even if it was only for purple fireworks, or
conducting electricity, or cooling lasers,
giving power to batteries, or outer space energy.

But I’m afraid to be with you anymore,
because you’ll even spontaneously ignite
in the air. I know our past, I know I can
absorb you into me, But I only know now
that you serve no purpose for me.

So after all this time, I only wonder if I could
ever feel safe with you, even just once.

Roentgenium, “Periodic Table of Poetry” poem by Chicago poet Janet Kuypers

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Roentgenium

Janet Kuypers

from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#111, Rg)
7/2/13

Being in just the right place
at just the right time
is what getting what you want
is all about.

#

Thirteen nuclear researchers
bombarded Bismuth two oh nine
with Nickel sixty four ions
to make the Nickel penetrate
the Bismuth nucleus,
so they’d come together
to make a bigger atom.

So the Nickel had to go fast enough
to penetrate the Bismuth nuclei
(not too fast, but not too slow),
and still, you’d lose a lot of atoms
to
space.

Enough experiments,
enough times,
created more atoms
of element
one one one.

They looked for so long,
and no one knows for sure
what Roentgenium looks like,
so the researchers started
predicting it’s properties
because it has such a short
half life.

#

And on the anniversary
of when this all came together
in just the right way,
at just the right time,
that’s when John Hinckley,
after stalking the rock star
and watching his habits,
that’s when he walked
from the sidewalk
and shot John Lennon.

Because as I said,
you have to be
in just the right place
at just the right time
to make everything
come together,
don’t you.

#

But if we got enough
of one one one,
we’d love this precious metal —
even if only for a short while.

Rhodium, “Periodic Table of Poetry” poem by Chicago poet Janet Kuypers

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Rhodium

Janet Kuypers

from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#45, Rh)
10/15/13

When you say the word “menthol,”
images probably crop up in your head
of women holding a cigarette stick
like she’s using her smoke
as an orchestra wand,
tracing the line of smoke
like she’s conducting a symphony
with her mint-tasting cancer stick.

But menthol’s also used in lip balms
(I really like that stuff, too,
I like the minty flavor on my lips) —
it’s even used in cough medications.
It can be used in those Icy Hot patches,
menthol’s in decongestants
like Vicks VapoRub, it’s in
aftershaves to relieve razor burn.
Yeah, and speaking of the taste
in cigarettes or lip balm, menthol
is in mouthwashes, toothpastes,
even chewing gum.

So really, now that you know how
widely it’s used now, you can see
how menthol’s demand is now so huge
compared to the natural supply.
So in Japan, one man even won in 2001
the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for
a process to meet the demand
for more menthol worldwide.
This Japanese team used Rhodium
based catalysts for menthol synthesis.

And yeah, Rhodium is used in catalysts
for anything from automobile
catalytic converters, or making
certain silicone rubbers. And sure,
Rhodium is used for jewelry,
coating sterling silver to stop tarnishing
or electroplating white gold and platinum,
making it white and reflective.

I mean, the Guinness Book of World Records
gave Paul McCartney a Rhodium-plated disc
in 1979 for being history’s all-time best-selling
songwriter and recording artist.

Not gold. Not titanium. But Rhodium.

(And because Rhodium’s so expensive,
that World Records award disc given to
Paul McCartney isn’t even solid Rhodium.)

So I guess it’s kind of interesting that
this expensive decorative jewelry addition
is also used to give our chewing gum
that excellent minty flavor. So yeah,
when you’re worrying about how money
can seem tight sometimes,
don’t worry about the jewelry.
Just pop a stick of mint chewing gum
in your mouth, thanks to Rhodium,
and realize that we all probably
don’t have it that bad after all.

Radium, “Periodic Table of Poetry” poem by Chicago poet Janet Kuypers

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Radium

Janet Kuypers

from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#088, Ra)

Women got jobs
painting luminescent Radium
on clock dials —
These Radium Girls
would lick the tips
of their brushes
to get a finer point
for painting the Radium
onto these clocks,
and some of these women
even painted the Radium
on their fingernails,
or even their teeth.
But before the Great Depression
began, five Radium Girls
started getting sores,
anemia, bone fractures,
necrosis of the jaw,
and even cancer,
because when it’s ingested,
the body treats Radium
like calcium, so the Radium
went straight to their bones.
They sued the Radium
Luminous Material Corporation
for damages,
because the Radium
was doing them in.

In an effort to
avoid liability,
the Radium Luminous
Material Corporation
even tried to suggest
that the Radium Girls
actually had syphilis.

Really.
That’s what they said.

So although the corporation
was very careful
to not expose themselves
to Radium,
they apparently didn’t have
the same concern
for their employees.

So, the Radium Girls
may now be known
for bringing on labor laws,
but scientists,
five years after
the cases were settled,
could still measure Radium
in the exhaling
of one of the painting employees.

I wonder if there was enough
Radium on their breath
to give these Radium Girls
a radioactive glow,
because at one point,
Radium was even added
to toothpastes and hair creams
because people believed
Radium had curative powers.
Imagine going to a spa
with Radium-rich water,
because if you tell
anything to people
in just the right way,
you’ll be amazed
at what people will believe.

Praseodymium, “Periodic Table of Poetry” poem by Chicago poet Janet Kuypers

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Praseodymium

Janet Kuypers

from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series (&#03559, Pr)
with elements of the poems “a Match” and “Rings Like Gravestones”
10/15/13

“I once set fire to my fingernail.
I wanted my finger to be a
human candle.”
She dropped another match into her glass.
The flame sizzled
in the drops of drink at the bottom.

In a corner booth, in this small club
the flame she aroused looked like
any other table light.
But if you looked too closely,
the light would scorch your soul,
would burn your eyes hollow.
That little piece of energy she held
could be so intense
that you needed that Praseodymium
in your eye glasses
just to look for another second.

The flame she aroused
looked like any other light,
but she knew she was destined
for the big screen,
complete with studio lighting
and projector lights
from the motion picture industry
broadcasting her to the world
through arc lights.

So she struck another match
at the side of the box.
Six or seven lay on the cocktail napkin,
ten more at the bottom of the glass.

She’d watch the reflection
of the gemstones in rings
across her fingertips
reflecting that flame.
The yellow-green cubic zirconia
on each of her fingers
bounced the light of the flame
in thousands of directions.

She likes gemstones
on her rings, she doesn’t bother
with big earrings
or expensive necklaces —
she looks at her hands
because she likes rings;
she can’t help it.

A few of those peridot-inspired stones
were gifts from a loved one,
because they knew they were dying soon.
So she becomes the only one
treating these rings live gravestones,
even when no one has even died yet.

And the person that gave her these rings,
she knows they want to be cremated.
Just then you could see the flame
dancing at her fingertip.
She shook the match. She dropped it in her glass.