destruction poem

Francium, “Periodic Table of Poetry” poem by Chicago poet Janet Kupers

by

Francium

by Janet Kuypers

of Scars Publications
from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#087, Fr)

Thinking of you,
I’m reminded
of someone taking his mother’s guns
and killing her in an elementary school,
then taking out twenty children,
then five more adults,
before taking his own life.

Remembering your destructive ways
reminds me of going to a movie on opening night
before someone walks in,
cloaked in dark clothes
setting off smoke bombs
before killing anyone he could.

Your metallic personality,
you and your radioactive ways,
you decayed anything you touched.

So you wonder why I correlate you
to any and all destruction,
the way you’d be the instrument of death
by slamming so much fuel,
so much metal, so much life
into the tallest building you could find,
killing anything that crossed your path.

And yeah, I’d correlate you
with the government claiming to play nice
while you helped over eighty faithful followers
disintegrate in a fiery cataclysm.

I’ve seen what you can do.
I can’t help but make the connections.

In such a short burst of time,
you’ve killed seven
in a Sikh temple.

I’ve never seen you for long enough
to think I can know what you
might be like in bulk.
As I’ve said,
I’ve only seen you in these short bursts.

But oh,
what you’ve done
in those
short
bursts.

I think it’s funny
how you unintentionally
chose Hitler’s birthday
to kill thirteen teens,
injure over twenty more,
on an otherwise average school day.

I know, I know you’re rare,
but when I see you,
the world sees you,
and we can’t forget.
I know it’s such a little amount of you
that exists at any time
throughout the entirety of the Earth,
and I know others
have tried to create you synthetically,
to try to learn from you,
but those amounts have still been too small
to make any difference.

It’s sad, that this is the way
you normally are —
your instability make me think
that you just can’t be real—
and I know that your rampages
usually last no more than twenty,
maybe as long as twenty-two minutes.

I’m just afraid
that you are becoming
more and more common in life.

After all of these years,
you have always been rare,
but your repeated appearances
in our lives scare me.
I know that with you, everything falls apart
so suddenly, so quickly so violently.
How much longer
will we cross our fingers,
while we anticipate
our next chance encounter?

Astatine in a Fantastic Car Crash

by

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.