Dysprosium, poem by Janet Kuypers

Dysprosium

Janet Kuypers

from the “ Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#66, Dy)
12/26/12

I knew I could cut through you like a knife.
But, you were always difficult to get at.
With you, I couldn’t get my fingers wet
when I wore surgical gloves in my searches
for you. I couldn’t feel what I was doing
when I was looking for you, but I kept looking,
because you had the highest magnetic strength
of anything I had ever dealt with in my life.

You drew me to you. I couldn’t help it.

I know you’re not free, and the thing is,
you’ve always tried to bring along
some of your mineral compatriots
whenever we had the chance to meet.
And still, I’d have to search the world
for you, go to the other side of the planet,
because I swear, I thought you were worth
more than all of the tea in China.

I couldn’t help it. You’d put a whole new
light on everything after you hit me
with your laser-like intensity. As I said,
you had this magnetic effect on me.
You’re rare. And I couldn’t help it.

I should have known that if you got close,
if I got the chance to breathe you in,
you’d probably be an explosive hazard
to me. I should have known that
what we have could be ignited
by the sparks we would make.

But as I said, I couldn’t help it.
Even if you cause this spark,
even if you cause this explosive reaction,
I’d still have to come back,
because no matter what,
the burning I feel for you
doesn’t last as long as you do.
You burn readily, but you’re hard to get.
And I’m waiting for that next chance
to feel those reactions with you again.

Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle Revisited. 3 Poems. Ian Irvine (Hobson)

 

 

Tree of LifeImage: ‘Darwin’s Tree of Life’ [from public domain image, drawn by Darwin]

Poems

A Power Denuded the Granite

The Devil’s Confervae

The Work of Minute and Tender Animals

 

Poems by Ian Irvine (Hobson), copyright all rights reserved.

 

Please Note: many of these poems meditate upon or, in some cases rework/recombine, random phrases appearing in the 2nd edition of Charles Darwin’s The Voyage of the Beagle. The first edition of the work appeared in 1839. I hope I have done some justice to the natural lyricism evident in Darwin’s relaxed prose style.

 

(i.)

 

A Power Denuded the Granite

 

All that glitters in the sun’s rays

suggests a profound ocean

and a growing burden

 

How many years

short of infinity

to polish these

burnished stones?

 

I have come to the tides

and the rivulets

the countless inundations,

the waves on the black rocks

the cataracts, the great rivers

the stubborn work of millennia.

 

I am growing old and weary

on this boat,

this salt-stained boat

of Empire.

 

(ii.)

 

The Devil’s Confervae

 

Can you see us from behind?

early morning salt haze—the sun

rising. And the boat slowing

enters an eerie stretch of

ocean, velvet-red, and

glides between a god-infested heaven

and a godless carpet of sea stuff

This blood track—it must be

two miles long—of

infernal waters.

 

The boat slows, we glide

Can you see us from behind?

The morning is huge

as we plough

the pulp of our sorrow

the whole surface of the water

pulses—and the waves lapping.

 

Under the lens, I observe

the contraction of tiny granular spheres

their number must be infinite

 

I’ve heard they make

the Red Sea

(appear) red.

 

(iii.)

 

The Work of Minute and Tender Animals

 

Not far off shore

we test the bottom

(the bottomless ocean)

The line spins down and down.

 

Envisage:

a steep edifice

(theorise: underwater ramparts, sheer

and dense).

 

In awe of these submerged mountains—

accumulated stone of ages!

 

The island, the reef, the coral—the coral

the living part of the greater death,

a vast, eroded, sedimentary death.

 

Once a volcano—spewed hot

then froze into a geologic form

then whipped by the wind

and lashed by the water

for countless millennia.

Amazing to contemplate—

the splendid work of ages.

 

It looms from obscene depths

and bleaches in the diving—

the underwater kingdom of

vegetable bones!

But near the surface

such colours, such vividness, such

intricacies of fish and frond.

 

Coral! The epiphanies of coral

their various shapes

their complex textures

marvellous life on a bed of death!

 

Our ancestry as sediment—

compacted into memory.

Today, for the first time, I sense

their concrete presence.

This self, mere fruit of their tragedies—

(the past beneath the waves).

 

 

Darwin’s The Voyage of the Beagle Revistited. Audio. 3 Poems. Ian Irvine (Hobson)

Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle.3 Poems.Ian Irvine(Hobson)

Ian Irvine Photo

Ian Irvine is an Australian-based poet/lyricist, fiction writer and non-fiction writer. His work has featured in many Australian and international publications, including Fire (UK) ‘Anthology of 20th Century and Contemporary Poets,’ (2008) which contained the work of poets from over 60 nations.His work has also appeared in a number of Australian national poetry anthologies, and he is the author of three books and co-editor of many more (including Scintillae 2012, an anthology of work by over 50 Victorian and international writers and poets). He currently teaches writing and literature at Bendigo TAFE and Victoria University (Melbourne) and lives with fellow writer Sue King-Smith and their children on a 5 acre block near Bendigo, Australia.

 

Trust the Breeze Poem by David Michael Jackson

Trusting the Breeze
When the breeze settles upon the
buildings
like the cat settles into
the empty box or
basket,
when the dust settles
after floating in the air
or appearing
in the shaft of light
from the window,
when suddenly the odor
of ozone in the air before the
storm
settles into the corners of
the afternoon,
then, and only then,
will I turn the page

– David Michael Jackson

***

Ants Poem by Prasenjit Maiti

Ants
——————————————————————————–

Seething in ignominy
teething through honeycombed cells
like years of blessed, prison virginity
tonight was so much like a tangent
to the great aura of life
and so acutely, actually poignant
you would say my dolls are no more,
my teddy bears have all thumped out
and left a great slump to wonder at,
to stare serenely past
at the whiteness shrouds
of all our aged miseries,
widows seeking together places
to enter one another,
to stare at the vast and
vivid stretches
of our vacant shores
to delve down the mysteries and
the walking shadows of our
nothingness
to draw a finger cracking across
our dragging lips, stretches of
heartbreaking, remote nonsense

***