humans poem

Potassium Chloride, bonus poem from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series, ( based on Potassium, #19, K) from the Chicago poet Janet Kuypers

by

Potassium Chloride

Janet Kuypers

(bonus poem from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series, based on Potassium, #19, K)
10/25/14

Once worked for a company
who stopped selling their drugs
to state correctional facilities

who used them in cocktails
to kill their prisoners. The company
didn’t have the moral issue —

but religious and political
groups did, and companies
couldn’t justify selling drugs

as sedatives to hospitals
when those same drugs
were used to kill people.

Then I learned that in the cocktail,
pentobarbital was the sedative,
pavulon was the paralytic agent,

and Potassium Chloride killed them.
So I instantly remembered
that us humans need Potassium,

but nobody will sell supplements
because too much Potassium
could easily kill a person.

So, too much of an element
that we need for life
can kill us. Fascinating.

But it’s not straight Potassium
that they use in lethal injections,
it’s Potassium Chloride —

so I wondered, but why
is it not just straight Potassium?
That’s when I heard

that if you take Potassium straight
it would burn, so they use this
metal halide of Potassium with chlorine.

How nice of them, because it would
be cruel if prisoners were in pain
before we killed them. That would be

cruel of us.

#

More than a decade after my state
imposed a moratorium on executions,
then the death penalty was abolished.

And I know the death penalty
costs us taxpayers much more money
than keeping prisoners alive for life.

The death penalty’s not a deterrent,
and the death penalty does take
innocent lives from wrongful convictions.

But all that’s stuck in my head
right now is the Potassium Chloride,
things our body needs, to kills us.

I reflect on the late-night leg cramps
because we don’t get enough Potassium.
Chloride’s needed for metabolism,

and Potassium’s one of the most
important electrolytes in our body.
Still, too much of it can kill us.

It must, somehow, makes sense
that we humans take these elements
and use them as an instrument of death.

I’m afraid I know how us humans think,
so,
of course. It makes perfect sense.

Curium, “Periodic Table od Poetry” poem by Chicago poet Janet Kuypers

by

Curium

Janet Kuypers

from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#96, Cm)
10/23/13

Searching through storage
for my wedding clothes,
I ignored my white wedding dress
and reached for the wedding veil.
It might not be true
to my Halloween costume,
but I had to wear something
to show that my black long-sleeved dress
was actually a wedding dress.
I’ll carry a small bunch
of white flowers
to make what otherwise
seems like a “goth wedding”
look complete, but still,
I’ll have to explain
that my Halloween costume
is my interpretation
of Marie Curie
on her wedding day.

I mean, I had to wear this
for my Halloween costume,
I mean, I’m writing poetry
for every element
in the Periodic Table,
and I know that Marie Curie
discovered a few of these
elements herself, and one
was even named after her.

And maybe it’s wasn’t goth,
but a diligent work ethic
that caused Marie Curie
on her own wedding day
to wear a black dress —
so she could wear the same
black dress later for her work.

And yeah, when she worked
she was getting messy with her
radioactive elements
(ergo the black dress, I suppose),
but when she studied
the radioactivity
of some elements
seeming higher at times,
she deduced that there
must be something else
causing the radiation.

And there was;
she even coined the
term “radioactivity,’
while she discovered
the two radioactive elements
radium and polonium.

But looking back on her life,
maybe wearing the black
dress was appropriate,
because she soared
in all the schooling
she could legally take
(at the time, she couldn’t
enroll in a higher education
because she was female) —
so she eventually had
to go underground learning
for higher education
in makeshift classrooms
that lasted only a few days
before a government raid
would cause the “schooling”
to have to move again.
She then left Poland for Paris,
was able to go to school,
but was still penniless and hungry.

But after her second degree,
she met her Pierre,
who worked with her
even after their marriage
(where they gave each other
bicycles as wedding gifts).

I know, I know, I’m going
on and on about Marie Curie
for my Halloween costume,
and there’s even an element
named after her, but she
didn’t discover that element,
so does Curium have any
relationship to Marie Curie?
Well, other than the fact
that Curium’s radioactive
(Curium is actually one of the
most radioactive elements),
Curium is now used to help
scientists learn and discover,
much the way Marie Curie did.

Curium helps people, to help
power artificial pacemakers.
But it’s even used in alpha-particle
X-ray spectrometers that are
installed on lunar and Mars rovers
like the Sojourner or the
Spirit and Opportunity rovers.
It’s even used on a spacecraft
to probe the surface of a comet.

Hmmm… Because it’s radioactive,
Curium is dangerous to us humans,
even though it really does have
a certain glow to it…
But it is nice to know that,
like Marie Curie,
we can use this element
to research and learn.
Besides, both being a goth girl
and loving to dive into my work
is really making me take a shine
to this black wedding dress idea…

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

by

Promethium

Janet Kuypers

from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#61, Pm)

The end of the world just passed.
Everyone thought that because the Mayans
ended the calendar at the twenty twelve
Winter Solstice, that meant the
World was ending right then and there.

We all waited with baited breath,
in confused anticipation, not knowing
if we should feel a reserved somber mourning,
a sick ignorant religious end-of-days excitement,
or if we should feel nothing at all.

#

Did you know that Prometheus
was the Titan in Greek mythology
who stole fire from Mount Olympus
and brought it down to humans?
Maybe that fire would be the end of times…

Maybe Prometheus symbolizes
both the daring and the possible misuse
of mankind’s intellect. Maybe the Mayan calendar
wouldn’t do us in, but our own ignorance
and abusive ways would.

Maybe that end-of-the-world feeling we got
is from the rare decay of others,
that only produces the very unstable you.
But the thing is, despite your issues,
despite all of the ways of you may do us in,

from radioactivity to your emitting of x-rays,
we’ve learned that with just a little protection
we’re safe through the next calendar cycle.
Now we’re better prepared, and you’ll be the one
wondering about the end of times.

“from Hydrogen to Nothing”, periodic table poem by Janet Kuypers

by

from Hydrogen to Nothing

Janet Kuypers

from the “ Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#085, At)
(with references to the poem “Fantastic Car Crash”, 7/3/98)

Love is like tap water,
free flowing…
Remember when you were little,
just put a glass under the faucet
and quench your thirst?

Wait a minute,
it’s not like that.
Water isn’t free.
You even have to pay
for the water in your own home,
and
it’s not even clean.

What you’re getting is dirty.
And you still have to pay for it.

#

You know, they say us humans
are like seventy percent water.

And when I think of you,
and all the time we were together —

well, if you’re seventy percent water,
I have to remember
that it wasn’t pure and clean with you.
If this was love;
if this was you —
it wasn’t free.
I’m still paying for it.

#

I mean, they say we’re mostly made of water,
Hydrogen, oxygen…
But it’s like you were
an electron from Hydrogen to me,
one electron,
spinning around
the center of me,
always keeping
an all too tight
grip on me.

I would think I was free,
and there you would be,
that one presence
I could never get rid of.

You were spinning, orbiting,
spinning my head…
You were keeping your distance,
but still,
you made sure
you were always there,
holding me down.

If we’re mostly made of water,
and you spun around me
like in that Hydrogen atom,
you kept me gasping for air.
I needed that oxygen…
I know water is Hydrogen and oxygen,
I know I’ve got it in me,
I’ve just got to keep myself together
after dealing with what you’ve done to me.

#

When we’re seventy percent water,
by mass we’re only eleven percent
Hydrogen.
So most of the mass in our body
may be oxygen…
But by an atomic percentage
we’re sixty-seven percent
Hydrogen,
meaning most of the atoms
in our bodies
are Hydrogen.

Just one electron,
spinning around that nucleus,
just spinning,
and never letting go.

#

When I now think of you,
and the fact that you made me feel like nothing —
well, I think of what you’re made of,
and I have to remember:

we’re all made of atoms,
protons and neutrons,
infinitely small,
wound tightly together in the nucleus

surrounded
at a comparatively vast distance
by occasional,
tiny,
orbiting
electrons.

So when I think of you
I have to remember
that you’re made of those atoms
with really tiny cores —
and those atoms are filled with so much space
that you’re mostly made of nothing.

When I think of you,
I remind myself of this.

When I think of the nothingness you made me feel,
and the fact that you should mean nothing to me,
this is how I must think of you.