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Look at the Downs

Janet Kuypers
01/18/11

I go every week to my favorite bar
and pick up a “Reader” newspaper
to thumb through while I drink

and once I looked at their “Ink Well,”
their crossword puzzle,
and their second clue, 5 across, was

“Things on a cat’s penis.”
So... I started looking
at every other clue:

14 across: “Defender of NAMBLA.”
16 across: “Sex column topic.”
Okay, maybe I should look at the downs.

So I randomly picked another clue
and read “Get off my _____.”
So, I thought about the pain in my back,

then thinking about how everyone
worries about their back,
but no one ever talks about their front.

My front’s killing me.
I’ve got a pain in my front.
Get of my front.

I seriously had to find something else
to read, so I saw within their “matches” section
a section called “I Saw You”.

Now, I never look at the Matches section,
I prefer drinking in my favorite bar
by myself, but the voyeur in me

had to read some of these
hundred words or fewer
one chance writings and hopes.

‘You said you liked a dirty martini,
then you left.’ ... “Care to see
how dirty you next martini meet up

can get? You: man. Me: man.”
And I thought... hmmm...
then there was a meeting date and time.

So I read the next one:
“Thanks for opening the door for me
and letting me use the ATM

because I got there first.”
Wait a minute, that’s called etiquette,
not a budding romance.

But I have to admit,
when I sit here every week
at this bar, drinking by myself

it’s nice to hear about stranger’s stories
in pen and ink like this
every once in a while.


Copyright © 2011 Janet Kuypers.

All rights reserved. No material
may be reprinted without express permission.


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of this in a live performance in Chicago of the “a Very Goth Beach Party” feature 07/03/11 at “Beach Poets”
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of the eye cam recording of this in the “a Very Goth Beach Party” feature, live 07/03/11 at “Beach Poets”
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video of many poems read 07/03/11
at Beach Poets from the live feature
“a Very Goth Beach Party”
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See feature-length YouTube
video of the eye-cam of the entire show at Beach Poets 07/03/11 from the “a Very Goth Beach Party” feature
download chapbook PDF filePDF Download the chapbook with this writing in a Very Goth Beach Chapbook


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