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


video See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “Our Color, Our Gender, Our Creed”, then her poems “Death Takes Many Forms (12/8/19 studio TV show recording)”, and “Us, Actually Touching”, originally from her Scars Publications bonus cc&d chapbook “Public Access Poetry” but appearing in and read from the Scars Publications 7-12 2019 cc&d expanded issue collection book “Among the Debris”, as one of the readings in her January 2018 Book Release Reading through Community Poetry! at Half Price Books in Austin (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr).
video See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “Our Color, Our Gender, Our Creed”, then her poems “Death Takes Many Forms (12/8/19 studio TV show recording)”, and “Us, Actually Touching”, originally from her Scars Publications bonus cc&d chapbook “Public Access Poetry” but appearing in and read from the Scars Publications 7-12 2019 cc&d expanded issue collection book “Among the Debris”, as one of the readings in her January 2018 Book Release Reading through Community Poetry! at Half Price Books in Austin (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr).

Death Takes Many Forms
(12/8/19 studio TV show recording)

Janet Kuypers
edited from the poem “Death takes many forms.
performed in studio for Texas Nafas Poetry show

It is winter now.
The trees have lost their leaves;
the city is covered in a thin layer of soot and snow.
The grass is dead.
In the sunless sky black birds circle overhead
searching for prey.
An eerie cold settles over everything.
Nothing is growing anymore.

Death takes many forms.
For you, death first came when you were five years old
and your mother had to give you three shots of insulin a day
until you could take a needle to yourself.
Did it hurt to push that needle into your arm, the first time?
Or did it hurt you more to know you had no choice?

Death takes many forms.
You wouldn’t hear the howling wind of the changing seasons,
but I know what follows the autumn wind.
It is winter now.
Do you remember when it happened?
The changes are subtle, the temperature drops,
first only slightly. It’s almost imperceptible.
Only when the first snow falls do you realize
where the seasons have gone.

Death takes many forms.
Death can be a sweat-soaked shirt, the shakes, dizziness
when you needed food.
You would look as pale as a ghost
as I would hold your cold wet arm and steady you.
Quick, some sugar will make everything better.
Isn’t everything better yet?

Death takes many forms.
I said good bye to you to travel my own road
but I knew you didn’t want me to go.
And now it’s my turn.

Why are we always saying good bye to each other?
...Are you trying to teach me a lesson?
Because if you are, well,
I’ve learned it. Trust me, I have.
You can come back now.

Death takes many forms.
And now, now it seems
you’ve taken me down with you
you’ve taken me into that casket with you
and I’m running my hand along your jacket lapel
and I can feel the coldness of winter all around me
and I can hear them shoveling the dirt over my head
and I want to get out
and I want to take you with me.

Now, you once showed me that winter could be beautiful.
Instead of the dark and dirty snow lacing the city streets
you showed me a quieting snowfall,
over a lake at your parent’s back yard
glistening in an untouched whiteness.
I told you I hated winters
and you told me, “This you don’t hate.”

Well, I’m still learning.

It is winter now.
And death takes many forms.
The seasons change for you and I.
It is snowing. And something is ending.
It is snowing. Somewhere
it is snowing.


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




my hand to an anim of jkchair



Kuypers at Artvilla


scars publications


Kuypers writing