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the poetry audio CD set“HopeChest in the Attic”
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Hope Chest In The Attic
13 Years of Poetry & Prose
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Janet Kuypers - Etc
Live at the Cafe
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off the CD Live at the Cafe, now available in a 3 CD set through iTunes.
Janet Kuypers - Etc
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live 08/27/05 at Poetry Fest
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12:22, of this poem in the entire 2005 Chicago Poetry Fest show on video
(This film’s at the Internet Archive)
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Watch this YouTube video
of Janet Kuypers reading her poem the Muse, the Messiah at Poetry’s “Love Letter” in Chicago 5/8/15 (filmed with a Canon fs200 camera)
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Watch this YouTube video
of Janet Kuypers reading her poem the Muse, the Messiah at Poetry’s “Love Letter” in Chicago 5/8/15 (filmed with a Canon Power Shot camera)
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See YouTube video
of Janet Kuypers reading her poems the Muse, the Messiah and the Cycle at Poetry’s “Love Letter” in Chicago 5/8/15 (filmed with a Canon fs200 camera)
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See YouTube video
of Janet Kuypers reading her poems the Muse, the Messiah and the Cycle at Poetry’s “Love Letter” in Chicago 5/8/15 (filmed with a Canon Power Shot)
video See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers in her 2/5/17 20+ minute poetry reading at Austin’s Recycled Reads, with her poems “the Fourteenth”, “Mapping the Way to True Love”, “the Page”, “the Flashback”, “the Muse, the Messiah”, “Slate and Marrow”, and “just one book” (this video was filmed from a Canon Power Shot SX60 camera; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr).
video See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers in her 2/5/17 20+ minute poetry reading at Austin’s Recycled Reads, with her poems “the Fourteenth”, “Mapping the Way to True Love”, “the Page”, “the Flashback”, “the Muse, the Messiah”, “Slate and Marrow”, and “just one book” (this video was filmed from a Canon Power Shot SX700 camera; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Kurt Irons (it’s just a girl)”,
The Muse, the Messiah”, and “Paranois” from her book “Chapter 38 v2” (followed by a song by John) at “Poetry Aloud” 5/26/18 (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Kurt Irons (it’s just a girl)”,
The Muse, the Messiah”, and “Paranois” from her book “Chapter 38 v2” (followed by a song by John) at “Poetry Aloud” 5/26/18 (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).

the Muse, the Messiah

I

I can see you now
hunched over, pouring yourself into
your work, scattered papers,

dim lights flooding
white over the glaring screen, in
your otherwise

darkened corner of the
world. And I know you can feel me
now, feel me rushing in

through the window
that you leave only slightly open
at night,

rushing in with a faint
whistle, circling around your neck, curling
up around your

jaw, opening your mouth
so slightly. You can feel my rush
chilling your teeth.

You tilt your head
back, closing your tired eyes
from your problems,

from your future in front
of you, on those pages, on that screen,
under that white

light. You let me open your
mouth more and more, you feel me
swirling around your tongue,

down your throat, into
your lungs, like smoke from a clove
cigarette when you hold

your breath to feel
the high, feel the ecstasy just a little
longer, or like steam rushing

down your throat when you
take a deep breath the summer morning
after a heavy fog.

You open your eyes.
You lick your lips. I make you
do that, I make you

forget your world. You can
feel me there, you can’t escape me. I’m
there. I’m your muse.


II

And I’m sitting in my
apartment, and when I reach out my arm
shadows of my hand

stretch across the wall.
There is no music, but I begin to
move my hands, like

a ceremony, as if to
a drummed out rhythm, like the pant
of a mistress as she

walks down the hotel steps
into her car after seeing her savior, like waves at
the sea slowly crashing

at the shoreline.
The phases of the moon are changing,
and the waves are crashing

with more and more
intensity, with more and more
power, faster and

faster. And at this very
moment you walk down a street somewhere,
it is daylight,

and you see the white moon
peering toward you from the sky. The
moon was looking

for you. It wanted to
watch you. You divert your eyes,
step off the curb,

and for no reason walk
in the middle of the street. There is no traffic.
You are safe. And

the moon watches the stride
of your step, and the moon watches my hand,
and the moon hears

the rhythmic pant of
intensity, and the moon rises the water.
We feel the drumming beat.

The phases of the
moon are changing. There is no reason why
you should question this.

You can feel me. I
will keep you safe. I will keep you
alive. I’m your messiah.


Copyright Janet Kuypers.
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