Was it Now Poem by Edy Lou Benjamin

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Was it Now ?

Was it April love
what snapped a pic
of her reflection
in a mirror
a feeling never shared
why she did not know
she only found the celluloid
there is a smile for the thought
a frown for the missed.

From Lawrence Welk
to Harry Chapin and beyond
Chopin and beyond
music / laughter / truthful eyes
Leaving on a jet plane
Dream Baby
Imagine.

“Then leave me now,” he says,
there on the rails praying,
someone who gave me trust –
a golden sort of trust.

There he sat praying
poet’s pen in hand
for the souls lost
as they consume and destroy
our source of life,
this planet Earth.

Ah, so
we have all made our choices
may peace thoughts have global reaching
may no stomach be sated until
no stomachs growl
may we all find peace.
Amen

Astatine in a Fantastic Car Crash

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Astatine in a Fantastic Car Crash

by Janet Kuypers

from the “ Periodic Table of Poetry” series

And our life is one big road trip now,
and we set the cruise control
and make our way down the expressway.

And most of the time we’re just moving
in a straight line, and the scenery
blurs. There’s nothing to see.

But I know what’s inside of you
and I know what you’re made of.
There’s no such thing as a calm with you.

You are a fantastic car crash.
You stop traffic in both directions —
In your twisted way, you come from the decay

of others… And what do you leave
in your wake? More radioactive destruction,
as all around you slows down to stare,

and all the gapers gawk, as the decay grows.

Everything shatters with you, you know.
It’s a spectacular explosion,
until your instability corrodes you down

to the basics in the world. And yeah,
what was left of you after you were gone
is so much more stable than what you were,

but still, I’d duck and cover
as metal flies through the air. Every time
you leave the scene of the accident,

I am left picking up the shards of glass
from the windows. You know, the glass breaks
into such tiny little pieces. They look like ice.

It takes so long to pick up the pieces,
and even though I’m careful,
I’m still picking up the pieces

after dealing with only fractional amounts of you.
I’ve only been able to infer what you’re like
by knowing your brethren,

while I’m stuck here, picking up the pieces,
and I’m still on my knees.
The glass cuts into my hands,

because it was only after so much
of your destruction that you left blood
dripping down to the street.

think of this as your contribution,
this radioactive short-term flash of decay…
think of this as your contribution

to this fantastic car crash
that is you, that is me,
that is us.

I’ve tried to learn, I’ve tried to study
these microscopic parts of you
to make sense of you…

But whether or not you ever leave enough,
despite your destruction,
despite this decay of yours,

I have to keep reminding myself
that when it comes to you,
This is what you do.

This happens all the time.
So,
I to pull the glass from my hands

and I wave my hand to the line of traffic:
go ahead, keep driving, this happens
all the time, there’s nothing to see here.

“from Hydrogen to Nothing”, periodic table poem by Janet Kuypers

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from Hydrogen to Nothing

Janet Kuypers

from the “ Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#085, At)
(with references to the poem “Fantastic Car Crash”, 7/3/98)

Love is like tap water,
free flowing…
Remember when you were little,
just put a glass under the faucet
and quench your thirst?

Wait a minute,
it’s not like that.
Water isn’t free.
You even have to pay
for the water in your own home,
and
it’s not even clean.

What you’re getting is dirty.
And you still have to pay for it.

#

You know, they say us humans
are like seventy percent water.

And when I think of you,
and all the time we were together —

well, if you’re seventy percent water,
I have to remember
that it wasn’t pure and clean with you.
If this was love;
if this was you —
it wasn’t free.
I’m still paying for it.

#

I mean, they say we’re mostly made of water,
Hydrogen, oxygen…
But it’s like you were
an electron from Hydrogen to me,
one electron,
spinning around
the center of me,
always keeping
an all too tight
grip on me.

I would think I was free,
and there you would be,
that one presence
I could never get rid of.

You were spinning, orbiting,
spinning my head…
You were keeping your distance,
but still,
you made sure
you were always there,
holding me down.

If we’re mostly made of water,
and you spun around me
like in that Hydrogen atom,
you kept me gasping for air.
I needed that oxygen…
I know water is Hydrogen and oxygen,
I know I’ve got it in me,
I’ve just got to keep myself together
after dealing with what you’ve done to me.

#

When we’re seventy percent water,
by mass we’re only eleven percent
Hydrogen.
So most of the mass in our body
may be oxygen…
But by an atomic percentage
we’re sixty-seven percent
Hydrogen,
meaning most of the atoms
in our bodies
are Hydrogen.

Just one electron,
spinning around that nucleus,
just spinning,
and never letting go.

#

When I now think of you,
and the fact that you made me feel like nothing —
well, I think of what you’re made of,
and I have to remember:

we’re all made of atoms,
protons and neutrons,
infinitely small,
wound tightly together in the nucleus

surrounded
at a comparatively vast distance
by occasional,
tiny,
orbiting
electrons.

So when I think of you
I have to remember
that you’re made of those atoms
with really tiny cores —
and those atoms are filled with so much space
that you’re mostly made of nothing.

When I think of you,
I remind myself of this.

When I think of the nothingness you made me feel,
and the fact that you should mean nothing to me,
this is how I must think of you.

Easter Egg Hunting a Poem

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easter eggs hunting poem
Remember the Easter eggs?
Remember running
and hunting them,
finding them,
remember the taste?
and your favorite color?
Remember finding them
under a leaf or
behind a tree
where they were
carefully hidden
lovingly hidden,
and you ran
oh you ran
and you laughed
oh how you laughed
Remember you had the bag?
or a basket?
There was always a bag
or basket,
at Christmas,
Halloween,
Easter,
and we were
always running
with our bag
and laughing
and our laughter
was the best
music of
our times.

david michael jackson

The Twitch Poem

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I walked into the
room and James
was there and we were
both twitching,

same eye,

INTRAC it was called,
some name they made up,

we had t-shirts,
there was golf,
there were picnics,
there were banners,

James and I can be seen
in the pics,

you can’t see the twitch.
but the eyes do look blurry,

it started at the cheek
and went to the eye,
this twitch,
it showed up especially
after the speeches,

there was a team
there was a coach,

he didn’t have the ball,

we had the ball.

James twitched,
I twitched,
we worked,
we made it work.

One night at eleven
we were there,
the team,
the ball,

He came roaring
out of his office,

James and I looked up,
twitched,

Where is the list I gave you people?
Is this the best you can do?
I have people.
They want to know our level of confidence.
Is it really eighty percent
and how can we get to
eighty
five
?”

You can see him
in the picnic photo
with his thumbs up

……………..david michael jackson