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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.

Watch the YouTube video of this in a live performance in Chicago of the “a Very Goth Beach Party” feature 07/03/11 at “Beach Poets”

Watch the YouTube video of the eye cam recording of this in the “a Very Goth Beach Party” feature, live 07/03/11 at “Beach Poets”

See feature-length YouTube video of many poems read 07/03/11 at Beach Poets from the live feature “a Very Goth Beach Party”

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 the chapbook with this writing in a Very Goth Beach Chapbook