religious poem

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

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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.

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

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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.