Periodic Table of the Elements Poems

Calcium poem by Janet Kuypers

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Calcium

Janet Kuypers

from the “ Periodic Table of Poetry” series

The media shoves it down your throat now:
how important it is to have Calcium,
especially women.
Make sure you don’t get osteoporosis
and take Calcium.
Drink an extra glass of milk each day.
It’s healthy.

And you know, I take my supplements
and have to take two Calcium pills daily
just so I can say I’ve ingested what
the USRDA says I should consume,
but I’m sure those pills barely get absorbed,
so I should at least eat more cheese
(since as an infant at six months I rejected milk,
and I can’t understand why it’s smart to drink
milk from another species as an adult,
when no other species would ever do the same).

But really, the more I think bout it,
the more I wonder:
adults didn’t suffer with osteoporosis
before the seventeen hundreds.
Was osteoporosis not discovered because
they didn’t know how to discover it,
or was it not discovered because no one had it?
And if it didn’t exist before,
what has changed in our society to make
osteoporosis (porous bones) a real concern
for so many people as they get older?

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Just watched a documentary recently
that advocated a plant-based diet.
They even had a segment showing
the global promotion of meat consumption
so you could have enough protein in your diet.
And this documentary showed how China
had lived for millennia without excess
red meat or processed food in their lives.
And now with dietary modern “luxuries” in China,
alone with new record highs for heart attacks,
youth were interviewed on the streets of China
and asked why they needed to eat more meat.
They all said… for protein.
So it makes me wonder how vegetarians can do it,
or how vegans with a plant-based diet
can get enough Calcium into their bodies
to save them from bone decay and osteoporosis.

So as I looked into how to get Calcium,
I found that on earth it’s seldom alone,
but is chiefly found in sedimentary rocks,
and over the years us humans
have even used Calcium in construction
(makes sense, if we need Calcium so
we can have stronger bones).
Calcium carbonate is used in concrete
and mortar, lime and limestone,
and can even take part in glass manufacturing.
I mean, when researching, I found Calcium
is even used as a refracting agent
in the extracting of other elements,
like uranium, zirconium and thorium…
It’s a deoxidizer sometimes, it’s even
used as an alloy agent in the production of
aluminum, beryllium, copper, lead and magnesium.

Then again, Calcium arsenate is an insecticide.
Calcium carbonate can be used for acrylic torches.
Calcium chloride, in addition to it’s other uses,
can even provide body to car tires.
Calcium hydrochloride disinfects swimming pools.

Calcium phosphate is used in animal feed,
and Calcium is a food additive in vitamin pills.

Which brings me to Calcium in the body,
because ninety percent of all of our Calcium is in
our bones and teeth (which we wanna keep strong).
And some wonder if there’s a link between
too much Calcium (like twice the USRDA)
and testicular cancer, but hey, I’m just
worrying about getting enough Calcium
in my diet in the first place, you know,
to ensure I won’t get osteoporosis (much less
rickets, or difficulty with blood clotting).

And while researching this, I found
an additional place for getting Calcium:
egg shells. Yes, literally grinding them up
to add to your diet can give you lots of Calcium.

But when looking for ways Calcium is used,
here’s where the learning jackpot
paid off for me with food and health:
when making cheese, Calcium ions
influence the activity of rennin,
to actually make the milk coagulate.

So seeing this bonus application for Calcium
in this pizzatarian’s favorite food (cheese),
it then made me wonder if this “plant-based” diet
can actually provide enough Calcium…
And it really made me feel good to know
that although cow milk (i.e., drinking the
lactations from another species as an adult)
is an excellent source of Calcium,
soy milk and other vegetable milks
are fortified with enough Calcium
to make then a just-as-rich in Calcium
alternative to milk from an animal.

I know, I know, Calcium and it’s ions
are used in a ton of different things,
but I’m stuck on obsessing over my bones
right now.

And granted, Calcium carbonate (that stuff
that also aids in the creation of acrylic torches)
is the same form of Calcium in diet supplements,
and I do make a point to take them twice daily
with food, but… It made me smile to learn
that a doctor in a study found that as women
got older, if they took Calcium supplements,
they tended on average to gain
five pounds less than other women.
(Granted, that doctor even said he’d really be
“going out on a limb” to link weight loss
with Calcium supplements, but I’ll take whatever
I can get, or at least laugh at the coincidence.)

And hey, even though this relatively non-toxic
Calcium can be hazardous as Calcium metal
(found in cleaners), and taking too much
Calcium carbonate in antacids (like Tums)
can lead to serious health problem,
doctors have still found that enough Calcium
may seem to prevent some cancerous pollups…

So yeah, even though we’ve found a ton
of other uses for this element, I’m sticking with
possibly dairy (you know, for this pizzatarian) —
and definitely vegetable sources —
for getting this vital element into
my extended bones.

The Quiet One, poem about finding ways to be charming poem by Janet Kuypers

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The Quiet One

He doesnt talk much.
So I have to remember not what he says
but what he does.

I had a live performance
that he couldnt attend
but when I went to see him after my show
he was dressed alone in a nice suit
waiting for me.
When I saw him, he told me
he remembered what I thought
looked sexiest;
a man dressed in a suit,
with the tie a bit loosened
like it was the end of the day
& it was time to unwind & relax.

And I laughed,
because he was right
that it looked sexy,
and he knew how to act,
all without saying a word.

Poetry With Music

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Poetry with music is our thing and has been for years.

From Nashville to Chicago to London, our poets voices and musicians work over the internet together to produce poetry and music together. A poet can write a poem every day. A musician can compose a piece of music every day. Together the poetry and the music on the net can be prolific.

Our poetry with music includes these free concerts:

Dreams of David Michael Jackson

Janet Kuypers and the DMJ Art Connection

Fluorine poem by Janet Kuypers

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Fluorine

by Janet Kuypers

of Scars Publications
from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series

Just got a postcard from my dentist
telling me it’s time to schedule
another dental appointment.
I thought about the fluoride toothpaste
I just changed to, and then
I wondered about water fluoridation,
the government adds fluoride
to public water supplies, you know,
to reduce tooth decay and hopefully
prevent cavities. Hmmm,
how much water would I have to drink
so I wouldn’t have to go to the dentist
so regularly?
Wait a minute, I just read that
for the fluoride to work, it has to remain
in contact with the teeth, so fluoride ions
that are swallowed won’t help.

Maybe I should just gargle with water more.

But fluoride is just one of the ionic compounds
of Fluorine, and I thought it was funny
when I found out that the name
for the mineral fluorite is derived
from the Latin word “flow”,
because it was added to metals
to make them flow.

Kind of like water, I suppose,
which we now add flourine to.

But you know, it’s not just teeth
that Fluorine can help…
I mean check this out,
Because of the stability
of the carbon-fluorine bond,
many drugs are fluoridated
to stop their metabolism
and prolong their half-lives
(I always wondered how they made
time-release drugs work..)
And now over twenty percent
of commercial drugs use Fluorine.
I mean, scientists have even used
the radioactive isotope fluorine-18
when performing PET scans —
and it’s amazing that liquid fluorocarbons
can hold gas in solution,
and can even hold
more oxygen and carbon
that our own blood…

Wow, I didn’t realize
how useful Fluorine was
for helping humans out.

But the thing is,
Fluorine’s actually really toxic,
some isotopes are used for insecticides,
and Fluorine attacks the eyes,
lungs, liver and kidneys,
and Hydrofluoric acid
is a pretty nasty contact poison.
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)
have even been strictly regulated
through international agreements
for fear of our environment
and the depletion of the Ozone…
I mean, the U.S. Government
even has a slew of signs
for the dangers of this element:
It’s a toxic gas.
It’s corrosive.
It’s an inhalation hazard.
(wait a minute,
I thought it was so good for me,
how can it also be so bad?)

So too much of Flourine
in the right way
can be devastating for you,
and in other ways
it can help your bones
or help your medication.
Fascinating. I guess this is another way
we have learned to take
the bad with the good
(or is it that we have learned
to take the good out of the bad?).

Maybe I won’t start to gargle with water
because of the Fluorine,
and maybe I should just deal
with everyone’s inherent fear
of the dentist, and just go,
and come out of it
with cleaner teeth
for the next six months…

Radon poem by Janet Kuypers

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Radon

Janet Kuypers

from the “ Periodic Table of Poetry” series

Went into Austria,
to the Gastein Curative Tunnel
where the ambient temperature
was close to one hundred degrees,
the humidity was almost eighty percent,
and the natural tunnel also contained
a shocking amount of radon in the air.

Now, I know the EPA reports
that radon exposure in the home
can lead to up to twenty thousand
lung cancer deaths per year.

And you know, I kind of
don’t want to get lung cancer.

But in the Gastein Curative Tunnel
in the “Hohe Tauern” mountains,
first explored to mine for gold,
they noticed the extreme heat and humidity.

But then they noticed that mine workers
with rheumatic problems
were getting better when there,
and they all had more energy.

After discoverig the Radon in the air,
they found that staying in the tunnel
for certain lengths of time
helped their ailments.

The Radon in the air helped
make their body heal itself faster.

I mean, people today still use this tunnel
for curing assorted ailments,
so I thought,
one visit won’t give me lung cancer,
maybe this is something I should try.

So I went to the Radhousberg tunnels,
wore a swimsuit and rested in the tunnel
for 45 minutes in silence with other attendants.

From breathing training,
I tried to take deep long breaths
as I lay in the tunnel
to get all the air I could
and soak in as much Radon as possible.

I saw someone opening and closing their hands
while they were laying in the Gastein Curative Tunnel;
it made me wonder if it would help my hands
from typing so much on the computer.

Yes, I was dripping wet
from the heat and the humidity,
and drank a ton of water,
but it was probably novel
to travel four thousand seven hundred miles,
to defy the EPA
and overload myself just once
with a radioactive element.