Rocky Island from Seaton Sluice beach autumn 07. Sitting on an old WW2 tank trap to daub this colour sketch.
This “sketch” has perfect tone and is reminds me of Van Gogh is the construction of the buildings and the layers of the landscape itself. The distant figures are Pissaro-like tiny sketches. It’s a beautiful scene which has more in it, a glimpse of art itself.
Rubidium
Janet Kuypers
from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#37, Rb)
(based on the poem “Burning Building”)
10/2/13, finished 10/3/13
You tell me you want to be the hand
that pulls me from the burning building,
but you caused that fire.
They try to put it out with water,
but you turn it into hydrogen gas.
You give everything more heat,
and the fire only expands.
So every time I try to be rescued
you turn your back,
you claim you have more work to do.
So I will rescue myself this time again,
and I will wonder if I should stop trying
and allow myself to perish in the flames.
Now all I have to do is sit and wait
for another disaster to consume me.
I’ll wait for you to do your work.
Sitting and waiting is exactly what I’ll do.
You fascinate me with your fireworks, you think,
oh, what a pretty purple color. She’ll like that.
But I was never that fond of that color,
and I hate the damage you can cause.
When things get hot, it seems you melt
just above my own body temperature.
How can I survive with you like this?
My love for you is the deepest red, but
why do you tell me one thing and do another?
You really charge me when we’re together, but
why do you run away when I need you most?
I’m stepping over the wooden beams now,
and the flames are all around me. Here, look
at the blood dripping from my arms. Here,
smell my flesh burning. This is what you do.
You have been so volatile recently, that you
seem to react to everything I ever do, even
if it’s in an effort to save us. So, let me burn.
Can’t it be easier for me to just perish? I try and try,
and every time at the last minute, my figure
steps over the the charred remains and saves me.
If only you wouldn’t create the burning.
Is only you would exist for more than destruction,
even if it was only for purple fireworks, or
conducting electricity, or cooling lasers,
giving power to batteries, or outer space energy.
But I’m afraid to be with you anymore,
because you’ll even spontaneously ignite
in the air. I know our past, I know I can
absorb you into me, But I only know now
that you serve no purpose for me.
So after all this time, I only wonder if I could
ever feel safe with you, even just once.
Robert Hass is one of contemporary poetry’s most celebrated and widely-read voices. In addition to his success as a poet, Hass is also recognized as a leading critic and translator, notably of the Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz and Japanese haiku masters Basho, Buson and Issa. Critics celebrate Hass’s own poetry for its clarity of expression, its conciseness, and its imagery, often drawn from everyday life.
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Library
We are collectors of years lived,
Stored on invisible shelves
To be counted and remembered;
Decades lined up side by side,
Each volume chosen and examined
As life calls for introspection
And reaffirmation;
A return to who we were,
where we came from,
and lessons learned.
A few moments immersed
Into the chapters of our past
Lift the fog of forgetfulness,
And the fragments of our divided selves
Reassemble into the infinite divine.
Roentgenium
Janet Kuypers
from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#111, Rg)
7/2/13
Being in just the right place
at just the right time
is what getting what you want
is all about.
#
Thirteen nuclear researchers
bombarded Bismuth two oh nine
with Nickel sixty four ions
to make the Nickel penetrate
the Bismuth nucleus,
so they’d come together
to make a bigger atom.
So the Nickel had to go fast enough
to penetrate the Bismuth nuclei
(not too fast, but not too slow),
and still, you’d lose a lot of atoms
to
space.
Enough experiments,
enough times,
created more atoms
of element
one one one.
They looked for so long,
and no one knows for sure
what Roentgenium looks like,
so the researchers started
predicting it’s properties
because it has such a short
half life.
#
And on the anniversary
of when this all came together
in just the right way,
at just the right time,
that’s when John Hinckley,
after stalking the rock star
and watching his habits,
that’s when he walked
from the sidewalk
and shot John Lennon.
Because as I said,
you have to be
in just the right place
at just the right time
to make everything
come together,
don’t you.
#
But if we got enough
of one one one,
we’d love this precious metal —
even if only for a short while.
Robert Pinsky writes poems that have earned praise for their musical energy and ambitious range. Born to a working class family in Long Branch, New Jersey, in high school he was voted “most musical boy.” The three time U.S. Poet Laureate writes his poems to be spoken, with a focus on the timbre and musicality of the words. His PoemJazz project, in which he “plays” his poetry with jazz musicians, brings a new level of performance to his reading.
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