[the Writing of Kuypers]    [JanetKuypers.com]    [Bio]    [Poems]    [Prose]

Open Book
(jacket of stories)

Janet Kuypers
8/30/15

I’ve put on my jacket.
I’ve set about my work.

It’s the same thing,
day after day,

I do my work, and...
everything feels heavier.

I don’t know
what is wrong with me,

I’m not sick
but I know I’m not well

and I know there’s
gotta be something

I can do about this.
It’s become so desperate

that I inject medication in me
to try to make the pain go away.

And I continue to work,
and the weight grows stronger.

Now, I know my soul,
I keep things hidden

but I’m otherwise
an open book —

I’ve worn my heart
on my sleeve,

and even kept a tissue
when the weight was too strong.

My book fills libraries.
It’s a never-ending epic.

And I look through the pages,
I look deep inside of me.

I scan the pages.
I scour the text.

And for the life of me,
I can’t find what ails me.

And as I said,
I’m an open book —

so someone should be able
to break the code of me

and figure me out
once and for all.

And all I get
are blank stares.

No one else seems
to have the answers,

so

I continue my work,
until I realize

that my jacket —
that my book jacket —

that this open book
becomes the burden.

Not because
of what I write,

but because the answers
may be buried so deep

in the reams
of written word

that no one will be able
to unlock the key

to figure out
what is truly me.


Copyright © Janet Kuypers.

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

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

Add to Twitter    Add to Facebook    Add to digg    Add to Del.icio.us    Add to Google Bookmarks    Add to Mister Wong    Add to reddit    Add to Stumble Upon    Add to Technorati


video See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers in her 9/2/15 show “Like a Lamb to the Slaughter” in her feature at Poetry At The Gallery Cabaret in Chicago (Canon fs200), with her poems Entering the Lake of Fire, unless it happens to you, Open Book, electromagnetism, an edited version of the poem Everything was Alive and Dying, Death Takes Many Forms, and Under the Sea.
video video See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers in her 9/2/15 show “Like a Lamb to the Slaughter” in her feature at Poetry At The Gallery Cabaret in Chicago (Canon Power Shot), with her poems Entering the Lake of Fire, unless it happens to you, Open Book, electromagnetism, an edited version of her poem Everything was Alive and Dying, Death Takes Many Forms, and Under the Sea.
the “Like a Lamb to the Slaughter” 9/2/15 chapbook
Download poems in the free chapbook
Like a Lamb to the Slaughter

of the NEW poems read 9/2/15 at the Café Gallery show in Chicago


my hand to an anim of jkchair

deep thoughts on the writing of Kuypers

Kuypers at Artvilla

scars publications

Kuypers writing