Poem : A Fish Story by Seymour Shubin

Child's fish drawing

A Fish Story

We took our little son to a carnival
He must have been five or six
And we came across a game
Which if you won, you won a goldfish.
I didn’t want a goldfish but my son did
So I threw something that connected
With something
And the little boy came home with a goldfish
in a water-filled plastic bag
He was so happy and we were happy
For him
But the next morning he came to our bed
Crying
It seems he tried to change the water
But he did it over the toilet
And the fish dropped down
Forever lost
The boy was crying so hard, poor thing
And so I told him that the fish
Had made its way to the river
And was with his mother and father and brothers and sisters
And friends, oh yes friends
A 60 year old lie which I wish I could believe in now
To meet my mother and father and sisters
And brother again
And oh yes, all those old friends.

Poem by Seymour Shubin   Drawing by Michael Franklin 1999, age 6

Seymour ShubinSeymour Shubin-02Seymour Shubin Witness To Myself

Socks in the Corner Poem

My brain is tired

the left side

in the front

the part that thinks

it’s in charge.

I drink the bottled water and try to

make the other side say that it is there

that I don’t have to add things up

that the socks in the corner will be

fine for now

that it all didn’t matter anyway

but the socks in the corner

need washing

and they lie there staring at me

like dishes

 

 

 

david michael jackson

The Cat and the Moon Poem by Yeats

The Cat and the Moon

 
The cat went here and there
And the moon spun round like a top,
And the nearest kin of the moon
The creeping cat looked up.
Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon, 5
For wander and wail as he would
The pure cold light in the sky
Troubled his animal blood.
Minnaloushe runs in the grass,
Lifting his delicate feet. 10
Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?
When two close kindred meet
What better than call a dance?
Maybe the moon may learn,
Tired of that courtly fashion, 15
A new dance turn.
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
From moonlit place to place,
The sacred moon overhead
Has taken a new phase. 20
Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils
Will pass from change to change,
And that from round to crescent,
From crescent to round they range?
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass 25
Alone, important and wise,
And lifts to the changing moon
His changing eyes.

 

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939).

He Folds His Words into Pastry Shells

He folds his words into pastry shells
and bakes them at 98.6
for as long as it takes to type these words
then he reads these words
and makes changes until
just maybe
for a moment
you can see the line in the water
and the float
bobbing
bobbing
THERE
it disappears
a strike!
It’s gone
and you grab the pole
and yank
and just maybe
for a moment
you remember.

david michael jackson

“Iridium” poem by Janet Kuypers

Iridium

Janet Kuypers

from the “ Periodic Table of Poetry” series

I was looking for different pieces of jewelry
at the more expensive jewelry store;
I knew Christmas was coming
and I wanted to splurge on an expensive gift.
But I wanted something truly unique,
so more than thinking about the gemstones
I was looking for the most original setting.
Silver, 10k, 14k, 24k and White Gold, Platinum…
Then I thought I should look at the Periodic Table
to see what other elements there are in the
same Platinum group metals,
so I can find just the right metal
for the perfect setting.

Okay, on first glance at the Periodic Table,
before I even looked at the Platinum group metals,
I see Aluminum. But that’s right out,
when it can be as flexible as tin foil…
Tungsten’s used for environmentally-friendly
Bullet shell casings, but I don’t know…
Wait a minute, if I think aluminum’s
too malleable, then IN the Platinum group metals,
actually right next to Platinum in the
Periodic Table, what about Iridium?
It’s the 2nd densest element there is,
and it look silvery-white like Platinum,
but also has just a hint of a gold hue to it.
This sounds perfect.

Wait a minute, I think because Iridium
is so hard, it’s also brittle — I hope
it wouldn’t break apart. So actually,
because it’s so dense and resistant to heat
or corrosion, people probably can’t
work with it to actually make it
into anything… So I guess Iridium’s out.

But the fascinating thing about Iridium
is that when scientists studied the
Cretaceous period and Paleogene period
boundary from 65 million years ago,
they found a strong layer of Iridium-
rich clay… And although no one knows
for sure, scientist Luis Alvares
lead a team in 1980 who theorized
that a massive asteroid collision —
or a comet impact — which historically
drove the dinosaurs to extinction —
that these interstellar objects that
collided with the Earth — were rich
in Iridium, leaving Iridium in the clay
that separated these two geologic periods.

It’s just a theory, but it sounds
kind of cool, and it’s just one more way
to find Iridium so fascinating.

It’s a shame I can’t have it made
into the right jewelry setting…

And you know, Iridium is obtained
as a byproduct of copper and nickel
mining, and was even used in 1834
in fountain pen nibs mounted on gold,
so apparently they were able
to work with Iridium then…

Now that I think about it, there might be
something to this Alvarez hypothesis,
because right now there is
what they call the Iridium satellite
constellation, which literally is
a set of satellites covering voice
and data storage around the world
for everyone using cell phones
or mobile electronic devices…

So yeah, if Iridium can relate to
a change in geologic historic periods,
and if it can relate to satellites
orbiting the Earth now for our communication,
that’s all the more reason to admire
this dense, heavy element anywhere
we can find it.