A death confection, here we go

Poetry Scores' friend and contributor Andy Torch tells me he is still languishing over Stefene Russell's great poem Go South for Animal Index, which we scored.

This reminded me that I haven't posted up most of our score. So, here we go. Here is one bit. First, the fragment of the poem and the poet's footnotes.

The fragment of the poem:

O Pitchblende [12] and Bismuth [13], here we go—
piles of rock squeezed to one glowing seed,
A złoty [14] dusted in radium, a death confection,
Her black hats
Trussed up with astral flowers,
The beaker that started all of this,
Glowing on the white table.

The poet's footnotes:

[12] A major uranium ore. Marie and Pierre Curie refined in their laboratory, eventually extracting radioactive polonium. The primary European source was in Bohemia; pitchblende miners routinely developed what was called “mountain disease”; we know it as lung cancer.

[13] Marie and Pierre Curie noted that this radioactive element signaled the presence of polonium in a batch of pitchblende ore.

[14] A unit of Polish currency; literally translated, it means “golden.” Marie Curie, born Maria Skłodowska, was from Warsaw.

The song we got out of it:

Free mp3

"A Death Confection"
(Matt Fuller, Chris King, Stefene Russell)
Three Fried Men

Mixed and mastered by Adam Long

I know, I know, I know, I didn't know how to pronounce "pitchblende". I don't care. "If it doesn't have your mistakes, it's got none of you." - Miles Davis

*

Design for death confection product box by me. Yes, I am keeping the day job.