Does any of it really matter?
Beyond the golden moment of now?
It seemed so important at the time
Irreplaceable
Unforgettable
Even immortal
A circle with no beginning or end
Protagonist on one side
Antagonist on the other
A story told ten thousand times
Somehow new with each new telling
Never to be forgotten
Leaving onlookers stunned
And silent
Pondering the profound new implications for their lives
Never to be forgotten
Except that it was
Eventually it vanished
And no one remembered
Immortality washed away
By several generations
Of the newest thing
The oh so meaningful
Newest thing
It seemed so important at the time
But as the circle continued to turn
None of the performance held fast
Only the truth of the golden moment
Which was gone as quickly as it had appeared
Until its next appearance
A story told ten thousand times
Somehow new with each new telling
As greatness and nobility continue to exist
Only so long as we remember
Only so long as we have one another
Only so long as we continue to care
Otherwise it dies with us
A phoenix that cannot rise
Meaningless
Finished
Without purpose
With no golden moment left
To give us another chance
At now
To care more for one another
Than for the story
Janet Kuypers
from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#104, Rf)
7/3/14
And when I get that engagement ring…
I don’t want Zirconium, I want a diamond!
I want something stronger!
Even the band,
everyone wants Gold,
but Platinum is stronger,
even Tungsten
(which has a cool goth sound to it)…
What’s the strongest element out there – Iridium?
Hey, that’s the stuff that was in the asteroid
that killed all the dinosaurs!
‘Cuz that stuff’s so strong that it’s brittle
and can’t even be bent into a wedding band…
But I want the biggest, strongest ring on my finger
because I want EVERYONE to know
that I’m gonna be the bride!
Because I’ve really had my heart set
on this one amazing man, Ernest.
(Isn’t that the coolest name, Ernest?
I mean, I’m being earnest with you,
that’s his name, and it sounds so cool!)
You see, he’s from the Rutherford family
and I’m so taken with him.
Oh, and get this, he was born in New Zealand
and now lives in the U.K. — this man
must know the world,
and I think I’m gonna melt!
But the things is, whenever he’s around
he’s only around for fleeting moments,
he mixes with friends
and his isotopes are around for as long as an hour,
but sometimes only for ten minutes,
and sometimes just for a minute or two…
So I ever get the chance to be with him
long enough to tell him how I feel.
My friends tell me not to bother,
because his radioactive personality
(that I’m so drawn to)
means that if I get too close
he might be trouble for me.
Well, I may not be the smartest girl
if he is such a strong and intelligent man,
but I’ve been doing all the research I can
about him. When it comes to researh,
I want to work with him,
and I want to learn.
I only hope he’ll let me.
Janet Kuypers
from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#75, Re)
(started 8/7/14, written 8/8/14, finished 8/9/14)
Okay, so I’ve been researching
these elements in the Periodic Table,
and when I got to Rhenium
(named for the Rhine river, by the way),
I was kind of stumped.
What comes to your head
when you hear the word “Rhenium”?
Other than the fact that
“Rhenium” was an LP from Parliment
released in nineteen seventy,
I was stumped.
But hey, this element was named after the Rhine river
stretching through Europe,
but in ancient Greek Times,
they thought of the Rhine
as the outermost border
of civilization and reason,
beyond which were mythical creatures.
No lie.
But I don’t know if that mythical nature
of the unknown is what drove scientists
to search for this element,
and to learn everything they could
about what was otherwise unknown to them…
I mean, Mendeleev, the “creator”
as we know it of the Periodic Table,
postulated this element’s existence,
but it wasn’t found in his lifetime…
and it was later predicted
by an English physicist in 1913,
but it still hadn’t been discovered.
But people in different countries
claimed the discovery
through X-ray analysis,
but after a ton of dispute
this elusive element was finally found,
and as all scientists like to think,
this discovery has to mean something,
I mean, we have to use this discovery
for ssomething, so people
will appreciate our precious work!
Well they found out that Rhenium
(now that airplanes were being used more and more
by both vacationers and business travelers)
can be used with super alloys
to make jet engine parts
(well, I guess that’s cool
for the jet-setters out there…) but, after people figured out
that putting lead in high-performance fuel
might not be good for the environment
(okay, or for people),
they found that Rhenium
could be a catalyst
for making lead-free
high-octane gasoline.
Since we now have means to travel faster and farther
(thanks to Rhenium in part, by the way),
we might not think of the Rhine as the edge of our existence
with anything beyond it being so mysterious.
But when it comes to Rhenium,
it’s one of the rarest elements in Earth’s crust
(I wonder if that’s why it took so long to discover it.)
Because of it’s radioactivity,
it’s used in the treatment of liver cancer
(and maybe pancreatic cancer too),
but with the skyrocketing price of this rare element,
scientists still worry about the potential toxicity of Rhenium.
So, maybe like the mythical creatures
beyond the Rhine the Greeks foretold,
maybe, after discovering Rhenium,
maybe we should be looking
at both the bad — and the good —
that can come out of the rare,
but radical,
and remarkable Rhenium.
Janet Kuypers
Bonus poem from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series, #15, P
11/4/14
Overheard a crime scene investigator,
after witnessing in a home large amounts of Red Phosphorous
say
this must have been the lab site
for making crystal meth.
So, as the reporter in me comes to life,
I instinctively turn over my mobile device
and type in
Red Phosphorous
space
meth
and hit enter,
and lo and behold,
the first site lists
a Red Phosphorous and Iodine
methamphetamine synthesis.
And I swear
I’m not looking
to make crystal meth,
but my thumb
must have pressed a link
(I hate these mobile devices)
and the site came up
for an amalgamation
of many different methods
for the simplest, fastest
and cleanest method
for producing meth-amphetamine
in the highest yields possible.
Like I want to make crystal meth.
I wonder if the government’s
going to be on my back
for following this link —
because recently,
after renting a biography audio CD
from the local library,
I saw ads appearing
on every web site I went to
for a week
suggesting I purchase
the autobiography
I just rented.
So if government agencies
are selling their data
to the highest bidder,
maybe I should also rent
while visiting on the Internet
Hitler’s Mein Kampf
along with books
on building a nuclear bomb.
That and I’ll send
a ton of emails
including the President’s name.
’Cause if corporate America
and my ever-intrusive government
are watching over me,
I may as well try
to get on their hit list.
I mean,
a girl can only hope.
#
But then I looked down
at my crystal meth web page,
and quickly closed the window,
but then I thought about it —
we need both Phosphorous
and Iodine in our bodies.
You can even find
Red Phosphorous
in every matchbook,
in flares and fireworks,
but we humans had to go mix it
with what’s in Sudafed
to make crystal meth…
And you know, I’m tired
of only being able to purchase
one package of Sudafed at a time,
and I still have to sign for it
and scan my driver’s license —
you know,
because I have sinus problems.
But if there’s anything I’ve learned
I’ve found that all the elements we need
can also be used to destroy us.
I think of all the Hydrogen in our bodies
and the H bomb, or then I think
of how our bodies need Potassium
but we use it for lethal execution injections,
there are some elements used for cancer detection
in x-rays that are products from nuclear explosions,
the list of good and bad things from elements
goes on and on, trust me…
And you may think,
“but it’s just crystal meth,”
and you may be right,
if you only do it once
it probably won’t kill you,
but it supports my point:
we ingenious humans
find a way to take everything we need,
everything that makes us… us,
and make it all something
that can also lead to our destruction.
It’s funny how we humans do that,
how we search, explore and discover
to find that the flip side
of the elemental coins
that keep us alive —
well, it’s scary to see
when we flip the coins
just how messed up
the other side can be.
Janet Kuypers
from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#91, Pa)
7/1/14
Wanted to talk about P A,
element ninety one,
but gotta keep this brief,
because the first people
who discovered an isotope
of element ninety one
found it had had an
insanely short half life,
so they wanted
to name it “brevium”.
Than again,
after a German scientist
found another isotope
with a much longer
half life,
they figured that maybe
they’d try “protoactinium”,
because this element
is the progenitor of element 89,
Actinium, because
when element ninety one decays
and loses and alpha particle,
Actinium (element 89) is created.
But proto-actinium?
That still sounds
a little long,
maybe we can remember
that brevity
of the one isotope’s
short half life
and call it
Protactinium
instead.
But really,
this stuff’s radioactive
and highly toxic,
and no one has found
a single use for this element
besides maybe scientific research.
But right now they’ve discovered
when measuring the ratios
of Protactinium and Thorium isotopes
in ocean sediments, they can
reconstruct the movements
of bodies of North Atlantic water
during the melting of the last ice age.
Kind of cool.
But an ice age can take
millions of years.
Hardly brief,
like the first isotope
discovered of Protactinium.
But who knows,
maybe if Protactinium
is only good to us humans
for scientific research,
maybe we will
start to learn some cool stuff
about Earth’s past —
and maybe Earth’s future —
thanks to a brief little element
we otherwise have no use for…
