Understanding what’s Crazy
Janet Kuypers
3/4/16
1
Had a boyfriend.
Wait,
had a Judeo-Christian boyfriend,
which meant...
When we were off in college
getting tanked on the weekends
his Sabbath
was from sundown Friday
to sundown Saturday,
so,
he wouldn’t go out on Friday nights.
A male friend of mine
had tickets for a concert
one Friday night,
I was so psyched to go,
but my boyfriend,
well,
it was his Sabbath.
I know
he wouldn’t
go.
But he had no problem if I went.
I mean, this other guy was just a friend,
so before sundown Friday
my boyfriend came over
and helped me style my hair
before my big concert night
with another guy.
Now, that might seem a little odd,
but I swear to God,
this other guy and I
were just friends.
Really.
Which is why it seemed a little more crazy
That during the concert
my friend licked the side of my face.
I mean,
he stuck his tongue
to my jaw bone
and ran his tongue
up to my temple.
And he never explained why he did it.
2
The public gymnasium hall
was often in demand,
so when I couldn’t find a tennis partner
I reverted to racquetball,
practicing a different kind of swing,
and knowing that room of walls
would always bring the ball back to me.
But a guy who liked me
wanted to play racquetball,
so to the gymnasium we went,
and as I said,
these rooms were in demand,
so we had to keep looking
through the eight inch square windows
of every racquetball court
to see if any were empty
and we could enter,
and play.
Well, we finally found a room
and we made it our own,
dropping our cases in the corners,
and we started to practice our moves.
But one shot he hit,
well, it was fast,
but it must have come
at just the right angle
in the far upper room corner,
because it reflected repeatedly
before it shot right into my right eye.
Okay, okay,
it was more like just right of my eye,
below my right eyebrow,
but it was still really close,
and it was still really fast,
and it was still really hard.
I dropped my racquet
and turn my back to the nearby wall
so I’d have somewhere to fall to.
He instantly ran over to me,
then he put down his racquet
and put his hand to my face.
“Are you okay?” he asked
as I was trying to catch my breath.
I moved my hand,
and his eyes were two inches from mine.
It wasn’t quite crazy,
but it was a bit surreal
when I looked to the door
and saw someone trying to look in
to see if they could use the room.
Sorry, we’re not in a make-out session,
but the room is taken.
3
Maybe it’s not crazy
to drink in the sewers,
but it might seem crazy
when you’re a prim and proper girl
with a bottle of champagne
to share with your man,
and they suggest a great place to share it
would be in the sewer.
And this prim and proper girl
is wearing a suede miniskirt and shoes,
but prim and proper girls
are taught to follow their man,
so agrees she does,
and off they go.
Of course she has no idea
how to get <>Ito the sewer,
but of course, he does,
so they bring two disposable paper cups
(you know, the kind
you used to find
at office water coolers)
and he opens a grating
to below a deserted street
where they make their way
down the metal tubes for steps.
It wasn’t what the prim and proper girl had in mind.
And, oh well for the suede shoes on the metal steps.
Just try not to touch anything down there,
Just drink your champagne out of your mini paper cup
and remember that you’re finally some place
where no one else will think to find you.
4
As more and more
of your family dies,
after you’ve almost
been killed yourself,
well, do something
to say you’ve done it,
before it’s too late.
So take a flight across the country
to jump from an airplane
and have a view of the Rockies
during your fall.
Spend hours in training,
then wait hours
because of an afternoon rainfall.
The locals say,
it’s okay, wait a few hours
and the storm will pass,
in time to make the jump today.
So the woman is waiting,
the camera crew’s there too,
and the only thing she was told to do
for the camera was,
“If you’re having fun,
do ‘jazz hands’.”
Seems simple enough,
but when the time came
and they were on an airplane
with no door
and their altimeter said
they were at twelve thousand feet
and it was time to go,
she completely went numb.
It was like her eyes
went out of focus
and she just blindly
followed the staff’s commands
and went through the motions,
without thinking.
She didn’t remember how to move her legs
when she first fell,
but she did everything perfectly.
But after they landed,
a cameraman had to ask her,
“What were you doing with your hands?
They were flying all over the place.”
And she looked at him quizzically
and said, “I was doing ‘jazz hands’.”
Even though a hundred twenty-five
mile per hour wind resistance
gave her no control over her hands,
she thought he had to be able to tell.
Doing ‘jazz hands’.
Of course she was.
If you jump out of an airplane,
what else would you do?
5
Because the rock band “Wham!”
was the first popular European group
to hold a rock concert in China,
they made their “Freedom” video
back in the ‘80s of the China concert.
All of the Chinese people
will want a photograph with you
at the Great Wall of China
because everyone is half your height.
Well, maybe you can break away
from the locals, so you won’t look
so crazy, when you walk along the wall
and break into song.
“I don’t want your freedom,”
(That’s a perfect line for the Chinese),
“I don’t want your freedom...”
6
I know I wasn’t supposed to be hanging out
with the two brothers from up the street —
they weren’t really bright,
but their screw-ups were so entertaining...
So I was out with them at an empty field
that led to an abandoned storage building,
they set up cans and extra metal sheets
as targets for shooting their guns.
Okay, no harm there,
but one of the shots hit a metal sheet
and ricocheted straight into my leg,
right by my knee. Okay, okay, the bullet
slowed down from the ricochet,
it’s right under the surface, it barely hurts.
But, my parents don’t want me hanging
out with these boys, so hopefully
I can just push the bullet out and stop the bleeding
and no one will be the wiser.
7
What am I thinking.
I’ve never really been crazy.
But I’ll tell you what is crazy,
a bunch of Democrats
supporting an old Socialist
because eighteen year olds
who are going to college
like hearing someone tell them
that college will be free,
because right now
they’ll be in debt for years
because of their education.
I know they’re too young to know
that any Socialist system
won’t work in the States,
but they don’t need logic or sanity
when someone tells them
what they want to hear.
And speaking of politics right now,
I’ll tell you what is crazy,
is that a third of the nation
supports a business mogul running for President
who wants to stop some religions
from entering this country,
and who refers to women they don’t like
as having blood coming out of their lady parts,
and who calls another nation
one of rapists and robbers.
Crazy wants to run our county.
Why am I wondering where crazy is.
I see crazy wherever I go.
| 
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ 3 poems Have You Ever Had, Understanding what’s Crazy and I Blow Bubbles at Georgetown’s Poetry Plus open mic at Cianfrani’s 3/11/16 (this video was filmed from a Canon Power Shot camera; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr). #janetkuypers
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ 3 poems Have You Ever Had, Understanding what’s Crazy and I Blow Bubbles at Georgetown’s Poetry Plus open mic at Cianfrani’s 3/11/16 (this video was filmed from a Nikon CoolPix S7000 camera; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr). #janetkuypers
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ October 2017 Book Release Reading 10/4/17 from her book “(pheromemes) 2015-2017 poems”, reading long poems, first with “One Spring”, and ending with “Understanding What’s Crazy” in “Community Poetry @ Half Price Books” (filmed from a Lumix camera; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr). #janetkuypers #janetkuyperspoetry #janetkuypersbookreading #janetkuypersfeature
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ October 2017 Book Release Reading 10/4/17 from her book “(pheromemes) 2015-2017 poems”, reading long poems, first with “One Spring”, and ending with “Understanding What’s Crazy” in “Community Poetry @ Half Price Books” (filmed from a Sony camera; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr). #janetkuypers #janetkuyperspoetry #janetkuypersbookreading #janetkuypersfeature
