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Ytterbium, poem from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#70, Yb) by Chicago poet Janet Kuypers

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Ytterbium

Janet Kuypers

from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#70, Yb)
(with references to the poem “Writing Your Name ”)
11/15/13

I’ve searched for you.

Though others may say otherwise,
I know you’re not at all rare —
so I’ll still keep searching.

You’ve always been on time
whenever I’ve wanted you,
but you seem to leave
that fire in the air as you leave…
And you always escape me,
like you slip between my toes
as I’m walking along the beach,
like grains of complex sand,
each grain a nearly microscopic
crystalline rock.

Like you’re minute crystal,
sliding by me
as I walk on by.

I know you’ve always
mixed well with others,
so I’ll go that beach.
I’ll sit there
and take a stick
and write your name
in that precious sand.

I’ll check my watch —
how long have I
been searching?

I’ll run my hands
along those grains of sand.
I’ll study those compounds
making those grains of sand,
those ragged crystalline stones.
Those crystalline stones remind me
of the shards of doped glass
that shattered
when I saw you last.

And now it’s been so long
that I’ve been looking for you.
I’ll check my watch again.

I’ll pull out my pocket
infrared laser light pen.
I’ll shine it on the sand.
I’ll look to see
if anything
reflects light
in different colors back to me,
wondering what I’d see
if my eyes could see
in infrared light
in my search for you.

As I said,
I’ll so anything
in my search
to find you.

I’ll check the time again.
My watch has to be on time….

Because I don’t care
what anyone says.
I wrote your name
in the sand,
and if the elements
wash away your name tonight,
I will be back tomorrow
to write it again.

Xenon, poem from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” by Chicago poet Janet Kuypers

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Xenon

Janet Kuypers

from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#054, Xe)
4/27/13

I don’t care
that you’re no
Zena warrior princess,
I just can’t stand
those high-intensity
headlights of yours
at night.

You may numb me
from my pain
if I breathe you in,
but the only good
your brightness may do
is that your excitement
may add color and life
to my plasma tee vee.

But, you know,
if I love outer space,
I should like the fact
that you are the propellant
in Ion drives —
because if Xenon is the ion,
it can be shot out of a rocket
in outer space,
forcing the rocket
to move faster and faster
through the void
of outer space.

Then again,
I’m not going to outer space,
and there’s no funding
to get us humans
into outer space
right now anyway…

So I’m sorry.
you may think
you’ve got some
bright ideas,
but when I’m driving
at night,
sometimes I think
you should keep
some of your ideas
in check.

Post by John Yotko.

White Phosphorus, poem from the “Periodic Table of poetry” series by Chicago Poet Janet Kuypers

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White Phosphorus

Janet Kuypers

Bonus poem from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series, #15, P
9/30/13)

Seeing bombs from Viet Nam
and the white smoke rising —
with each bomb exploding,
I knew
that smoke…
It was Willie Pete,
white Phosphorus —
you couldn’t put it out
once it started burning.
This stuff would
destroy the forests
foreign to our
U.S. troops.

I know you can’t understand.
But I wanted you to know
that I haven’t felt close
to anyone
or anything
in years.

It sounds sick,
but seeing that footage,
seeing that white smoke
from that file footage,
it brought it all back to me.
It brought the emotions
flooding back to me
like it was yesterday.

Everything that seems
so volatile
about that war,
in a way
has become a part of me,
right down to my DNA.
You look at your tv screen
and think it makes no sense,
but…
It’s a part of me.
I know I’m old now,
I know it’s only
a small part of me,
but I know I need it.
I can’t explain why,
but I do.

When you see the destruction
of Willie Pete…
Yeah, we knew what it was,
white Phosphorus,
but all of us called it that,
it was just easier
to say it then,
but…
When you see the destruction
of that white Phosphorus,
you think of it
on some existential level,
like “oh, violence is bad,”
but when I see those
bombs going off,
and when I think of
what it was like
to live in that war,
that Willie Pete —
that white Phosphorus —
to us, that was our key
to getting through that hell.
You can’t understand,
but that
was the closest we had
to getting out alive.

Vanadium, from the “Periodic Table of poetry” series by Chicago Poet Janet Kuypers

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Vanadium

Janet Kuypers

from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#023, V)
2/24/13

I’ve been going out with my boyfriend
for five years now…

And when he took me to prom
a few years ago,
his bulging biceps
almost made his tuxedo sleeves burst.

And I know he spent
four hours a day lifting weights,
I know he drank raw eggs
and took all sorts of drugs
just so he could be the strongest…

But every girl I knew
did a double-take, all agape
whenever he entered the room.

And it was the coolest thing,
climbing up into his truck
with the awesome exhaust
and the cool flames painted down the sides,
when he would take me to the movies
or drop me off for my cosmetology classes.

Now, I always thought
it was kind of weird
that he would take different drugs
just to bulk up more,
but he’d swear they were legal,
I mean,
he even told me one of them was just
a harmless element called Vanadium,
and I don’t know,
when he said “element”
I just thought about how
I just kind of tuned out
in chemistry class,
so I typed “Vanadium”
into my smart phone,
and I didn’t see anything
about it being bad for you
or illegal or anything…

All the girls in school would ask me
if I would stick with him
after I got a job out of school…

And the thing is,
now that my twenty-third birthday
is coming up,
I’ve got a job
and I’ve been doing really well…

And he’s been dropping hints
like he might pop the question
on my birthday this June.

But he was acting really weird,
so I thought
something was fishy,
so I checked out his smart phone
for any ideas of what he might be doing
for my birthday…

And that’s when I saw
“Vanadium” on a web page link,
and I thought,
‘Oh no, is he doing MORE
to try to get even BIGGER?’…

So I went to the web page,
and I saw that Vanadium
was added to “corundum”
(what? I don’t even know
what corundum IS),
but Vanadium is added to it
to make simulated Alexandrite gemstones.

Now, wait a minute,
I know Alexandrite is my birthhtone,
and it’s only found in like Russia.
It’s really cool, it changes color
in different light,
but it’s WAY expensive,
like more than diamonds or anything,
so I figured I could never afford
any Alexandrite.

And you know,
now that I’m out of school
I’ve got a really good job at the salon,
and after being promoted
they’re looking to promote me again,
I’m starting to feel
like I can actually
GO somewhere in my life.

So now that I think about it,
I mean, it was great
to hang off my bodybuilder’s arm
all these years,
but maybe now I should start
to stand up for myself.
I mean,
he may have thought he needed Vanadium
to make himself bigger,
but there’s no way
I’m going to take an Alexandrite rip-off
with Vanadium
if that’s the best he can do…

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

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Ununtrium
Janet Kuypers

from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#113, Uut)
elements derived from the poem“Tall Man”
10/23/13

I can never hold you.
But when I step
within those walls
where I first found you,
I can then feel your presence
across the room.
A movement, a stir.
I feel it.
I can sense you
as the seconds slip by,
but after only
twenty moments,
I snap out of it.
I know you’re gone.

I compare you
to your friends,
and your heaviness
weighs me down.
You, with your long shadow
stretched across those walls,

you’ll only disappear again.

An occasional glance —
I’ll take whatever I can take.
Glimpses of your strength
is all I can capture
before you seem to
dart away
at what seems
to be
the speed of light.

You’re a stranger.
You stay tightly wound in your world.
But I want crack
your dense shell.
I want to know you.

I’ve sensed you.

And for some reason,
I feel I know you all too well.