Month: January 2014

Sodium, Periodic Table poem by Chicago poet Janet Kuypers

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Sodium


from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series
8/31/12

It’s funny that something
so common on this Earth,
the 6th most abundant element,
something so common
that it’s usually found
mixed with the ocean water…
It’s funny that something
so common on this Earth
was actually used as currency,
given to ancient Roman soldiers
in addition to their wages.
The English word for it
was even derived from “salary”,
derived from “salarium”
for the wafers for payment.
In Medieval times, “sodanum”
was used to relieve headaches.
And the element name
is probably derived
from the Arabic “suda”
for headache…
It is in the soaps we make,
and we add it to the food
we eat. It has been used
in making and bleaching paper,
it’s in water softeners,
it’s used in compounds
for industrial cleaners,
or even as a tissue dissolving agent.

It’s funny, how we have it
in kosher, iodized and rock forms
in our kitchen.

So I guess it’s fitting
that this silver-white element
(which does not occur in nature
but is derived from it’s compounds),
it’s amazing that
this abundant element
has been used in so many ways,
from creating soaps
to industrial cleaners
to even dissolving tissue…
To even flavoring our food.
In us animals, Sodium
is even needed for nerve impulses
generated in our cell membranes.
So yeah, it makes sense
that if Sodium’s so needed,
and Sodium’s so abundant,
we’d use it in as many compounds
as we possibly can
to make our lives better.

Lawrencium, Periodic Table poem by Chicago poet Janet Kuypers

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Lawrencium

Janet Kuypers

from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#103, Lr)

I’ve always tried to figure you out.
I could never pinpoint your true destiny.
All I know
is that your radio
activity to me
left my bones so brittle.
I know your heart is a hand grenade.
You’ve made my skin so paper thin.
You’re corroded me
until my lips
are forever shut.

Ask of Me, a poem by Seymour Shubin

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Ask of Me

Ask of Me

I could have asked
so many things
like what was it like
leaving old friends
and an old land
then learning a new language
and even starting a business
and of her my mother
so many questions
I never got around to ask
of her either
and now I wait
for it is my turn
with children
for though from the same country
we don’t always speak,
so to speak,
the same language

A brief autobigraphical statement by Shubin:


I start off by saying I could have asked of my father what it was like leaving old friends and an old land and even starting a new business (here), all of which my father did when leaving the Ukraine (as a young man). And there were many questions I could have asked of my mother, too, who too had come from the Ukraine, and met my father here for the first time. But I found out as a young man that age more than anything else separated.the old from the young. Yes. we don’t always speak the same language.

Why Me

Vladimir Mayakovski the poet, poems & poetry.

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300px-vladimir_mayakovsky1
 
 
Vladimir Mayakovski was a Russian revolutionary poet of the Trotsky/Lenin era, who took his own life at the early age of 36 with a revolver to the heart. His influence on European poetry has been considerable but also in the USA, after a brief visit, extending to such poets as Frank O’Hara and Alan Ginsburg.
 
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