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Carbon Janet Kuypers from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series 4/21/12 I used to see the magazine ads and the tee vee commercials. All I was taught was that a big busted blonde was all I could aspire to be. So I would dye my hair. So I could act the dumb blonde. I could still beat them at any mind games, but men don’t like the truth shoved in their faces, because they refuse to believe anything that doesn’t stroke their ego. So yeah, I was a carbon copy of what the media shoved down America’s throats. And yeah, as time went on the dark-haired women started to gain some popularity back, but they still had to be anorexically thin and they still had to battle the notion of all men still adoring the dumb blonde. And yeah, as the years wore on I didn’t have to die my hair, but I still had to be thin, I had to be the carbon copy of the dark-haired, gaunt, soulless faces plastered on billboards, papers and screens. I pass the magazine stands, see carbon copies of the models on multiple magazine covers. I pass the media store with rows and stacks of repeated tee vee screens, showing carbon copies to the world of what we’re supposed to be. I don’t want to be a carbon copy of anything. I want my own thoughts. my own ideas, and I want to spill them out for the entire world to read and hear. But carbon copy or not, I end up resigned, knowing that despite our differences, we are all carbon— based life forms. I mean, when scientists look for life on other planets, they always only look for water first. Well sure, hydrogen, oxygen, life as we know it needs it, I get it. But carbon-based life forms are all we know. I mean, whether or not they have arms or legs, or gills, or a mouth, or a brain, they all have carbon in common. So when I see the atrocities mankind causes: when I see Adolph Hitler, the vegetarian artist wanna-be, when I see Adolph Hitler collect his cult followers to systematically slaughter millions... when I see the stacks of the skin and bone emaciation, stacks of bodies in ditches, or in rooms, stacked in a pyramid to the small hole for air in the ceiling after their final “shower”... when I see the pope visit Cuba and wear a sombrero... when I see chickens crammed into rows of cages they cannot move in, for their eggs, for their flesh... and when I see the rows of pre-packaged barely recognizable cow flesh wrapped in cellophane, row after row in the grocery store... It is then I have to remember that despite everything, and as much as I hate to admit it, we are not all that different. I mean, if nothing else, we are all carbon-based life forms.

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Like Janet Kuypers’ writing on any of these links below:

Download the free chapbook with this poem of the 2012 Poetry Bomb, with the Periodic Table of Poetry poems.

Watch this Youtube video of this poem read live outdoors at the Chicago “L” train for the 2012 Poetry Bomb 4/29/12

Watch this Youtube video of Kuypers reading ALL Periodic Table of Poetry poems (including this poem) at the Chicago “L” train for the 2012 Poetry Bomb 4/29/12

See YouTube video of Kuypers reading this poem 11/7/12 at the Café Gallery in Chicago (Canon)

See YouTube video of Kuypers reading this poem 11/7/12 at the Café Gallery in Chicago (Sony)

See YouTube video of Kuypers hosting the open mic 11/7/12 at Gallery Cabaret’s the Café Gallery in Chicago, plus this poem

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her Periodic Table poem Carbon live 2/23/14 at Chemistry, Poetry and a Brat in Kenosha WI at the Brat Stop (C)

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her Periodic Table poem Carbon live 2/23/14 at Chemistry, Poetry and a Brat in Kenosha WI at the Brat Stop (C, Edge Detection)