Autumn is a Beautiful Wake Poem

autumn leaves
autumn leaves

Autumn is a beautiful wake
with the orange
and red colors it makes
a funeral of leaves.

Birds and
butterflies flutter south
away from the mouth
of the winter stream
of cold air

Leaf raker’s it makes
of us
and we pile them
and children
jump into them

and the leaves
in orange and
the trees in black
dance for us
against a blue sky

I am always a little sad in autumn
to see the summer go
like a friend leaving town for a year
packing his shorts
and the Bermuda shirt
and his sandals

Every Spring I say
I have made it through
another winter,
every Fall I wonder
will this be the one

It’s best to just
jump in the pile of leaves
instead

david michael jackson

Potassium poem by Janet Kuypers

Potassium

Janet Kuypers

from the “ Periodic Table of Poetry” series

Every once in a while, in the middle of the night,
I wake up in massive pain as one of my legs convulses,
and it feels like my leg’s in a vice grip
as my muscles cramp at me defiantly
until I attempt to stand to battle the pain,
while I hold on to my bed frame,
struggling until the pain ends.

And that’s when he tells me
“Leg cramps? You’re low on Potassium.
You should eat a banana every day.”
So if there are bananas in the house,
I’ll eat one the morning after one of those
leg cramp episodes,
because even though I’m a vegetarian,
I’m really not that fond of bananas.

So then I have to remind myself,
you need Potassium, and bananas
are apparently high in Potassium.

But wait, I take a multi-vitamin daily,
that has to have all the Potassium
I should never need.
So I read the label on my multi-vitamin jar,
scan for Potassium, and see
that it only has two percent of my USRDA…

Wait a minute… That doesn’t make sense.
So I look for Potassium supplement jars,
And as a rule they don’t exist.
(At first glance on line Potassium Hydroxide
is available after you fill out a hazmat waiver form,
and besides, Potassium Hydroxide is used for livestock,
and Potassium Chloride is an injectible for pets.)
And that’s when he tells me,
“Oh, they don’t sell supplements
of just Potassium,
because it’s toxic if you take too much,
So, since it’s a a health risk they won’t sell it.”
And all I could think
was that if I took a ton of multi-vitamins,
that would probably be toxic too…
So then in frustration I looked
to find the average amount
of Potassium in a banana.

It was three percent.

Really? Three percent?
That’s all I need to stop my leg from cramping at night?
Then why is the USRDA For Potassium so high?
And how bad for you can Potassium be
that they won’t put enough into multi-vitamins,
and they won’t even release it as a supplement?

Then while shopping, I looked at a flip-top sale can
of Chef Boyardee at Kmart for a dollar.
The can was for whole grain lasagna.
I looked at the back label
with the Nutrition Facts, and saw that it had
ninety-eight milligrams of Potassium,
which was twenty-eight percent

So even though there is a ton
of sugar and salt and fat
in a can of Chef Boyardee,
should I start shoveling down
that pre-processed pasta
instead of a banana
when my leg cramps at night?

I mean, if I can find a surplus of Potassium
in a pre-packaged can of Chef Boyardee Lasagna,
maybe I should look for Potassium
in other sales at the front of this local store….
So, let’s see. Jolly Ranchers don’t have Potassium.
Swedish Fish don’t have Potassium.
Willie Wonka Nerds don’t have Potassium.
Nestle Goobers don’t have Potassium.
A can of Green Giant Sweet Peas doesn’t have Potassium.
A bottle of Italian salad dressing doesn’t have Potassium.
A bag of rigatoni noodles doesn’t have Potassium.
And I really doubt I should be living off of cans
of Chef Boyardee whole wheat pasta lasagna.
(Besides, I think I’d be too afraid
to even eat lasagna from a can. Really.)

So I’m sorry, but I’m just trying to figure out
why you need Potassium in your diet so much
if I can’t even find it easily in foods…
And since they say bananas have Potassium,
I looked into it: since Potassium is needed
in all living cells, a depletion of Potassium in humans
can also lead to cardiac problems.
But from what I’ve found, Potassium is needed
in plant production, because it’s found
in many vegetables as well as fruits
(like bananas, I suppose). But the way we
mass farm now in this global economy,
it’s even leading to a depletion of Potassium
in the soil… And the thing is, Potassium
is usually found ionized in salts, meaning
that it’s water solubility gives Potassium
many chemicals in it’s ionized form…
(Which I suppose is good for us humans,
since we are over fifty percent water.)
And this is the weird part: because Potassium
is so water soluble, it is never actually
found as the pure elemental Potassium.
The English first called Potassium “Potash”
(derived from an old Dutch word for the way it was
extracted, after evaporating solution in a pot
to leave traces of Potassium like ash),
and was first primarily used in the production
of glass, bleach or soaps (which seems
totally fitting because of it’s water solubility).
Then a German researcher introduced
Potassium into fertilizers, which is awesome
for us humans who need Potassium for our cells,
so Potassium could be in all of our plants and fruits,
but now it seems due to our mass farming
that Potassium fertilizers won’t be enough,
especially when in this modern age
we usually opt for processed foods lacking
Potassium instead of fresh fruits and vegetables.

And yeah, because of it’s solubility with water,
it can react with some of the elements
like hydrogen (producing a ton of heat)
or halogen (detonating with a bromide),
or even have explosive reactions with sulphuric acid.

That just totally reminds me how Potassium,
like so many elements we need in our lives,
can also have terrible repercussions when mixed
in just the right way with just a select few elements…
Because if I can get Potassium into my body
in just the right — and natural — way,
maybe then I’ll stop having muscle spasms
at night, reminding me that I’m deficient
in the element that all my cells so desperately need.

Say the Art Was Good Poem

abstract vase painting
Get out there
fall down or something,
where is Buster Keaton
when you need him

all they want
is a laugh
some love
and a coke

Say the art show was good
and you saw a piece or two
that maybe mattered
to you only

Say the dog walked across the street
and he was a brown dog
the kind that follows you around but
never gets in the way
and his name was Buddy

Say the night was good
to the street
and the streetlights
and you passed people
and smiled
and they smiled back

Say the art was good
but you came home longing
for the girl you couldn’t have
and she left you
breathless and in love
anyway

david michael jackson September 26, 2012

Billie Holiday Concert Kinda

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PITqFAipZxs&feature=player_embedded#!
Billie Holiday – All Of Me / The Man I Love/ Can’t Get Started With You

There are three songs here. What is it about Billy Holliday and her voice? Some of us are given a talent by accident or design. Her voice fits her times. It sounds so much like a horn of some kind, maybe a trumpet that is muffled. It is truly unique.
Often with all artists we know the story.The pain of her life comes out in that voice and the intonation.
I wonder if I had wandered into that club on that night……. I imagine myself sitting at a small round table. It is dark. I order a drink from a waiter in a white jacket. He brings my drink on a small round tray. He leaves.
A piano starts to play……..
Would I know I was hearing something, really something, or would I be lost in my problems. Would I talk above her? Would I leave before hearing all because I had to be somewhere “more important” or because the “drink was too high”?
I lean back in my chair. I play with the glass. I look to the stage. I’m staying this time.
Her Story in video: Billie Holiday!

 

 

david michael jackson     September 26, 2012

The Wine Was Good Poem by David Michael Jackson

deer grazing

I am a guy on the streets
smiling at the people
he meets

the wine was good

the wine was good

the food was good too
the tasting of it
left us wanting more wine
and oh
the wine was good

and the days flowed
like water wind and wine
and we loved and made love
and the love was good

the love was good

so let the water flow and the wind blow and the birds sing
of the days we left behind us like spider webs in a room

 

 

Sulfur poem by Janet Kuypers

Sulfur

Janet Kuypers

from the “ Periodic Table of Poetry” series

When I’ve always thought of Sulfur,
I thought of it’s caustic smell,
or the fact that it’s mixed with things
so its used to bleach paper,
or as a fixing agent
when making photography prints.
It’s been used for vulcanizing rubber,
and it has been used as a fertilizer;
I know they use it in compounds
to make anti-inflammatory drugs, too.
(I only know this because
I’ve had an allergic reaction
to taking sulfa drugs, giving me
a rash all over my body.)
But I know it’s needed for life
by many small organisms (and it’s
even needed for keeping human
skin and hair healthy).

Wait… So if us humans need it,
why am I allergic to it? I mean,
my hair’s not brittle, and my skin’s
not falling off… I really hope
that it’s just a matter of me having
just enough of this stuff, because
too much can be bad for me…

And the thing is, I had no idea
that Sulfur was also mentioned
in the Torah and in the Bible…
Historically it was even used
to make the best gunpowder,
and it was commonly used
in Ancient Greece, China and Egypt.

So I guess it makes sense
that if we have combined Sulfur
(though I really prefer to spell it
in Latin with a “ph” instead…)
with so many other things
for our needs in life right now,
that it would have been used
throughout history so much
that this element finds it’s way
into religious books
throughout history too…