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(2:23) live 05/11/11 at “Elizabeth’s Crazy Little Thing” Chicago open mic
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read live in the show “hmmm” 11/20/11 at the Café open mike in Chicago
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of the entire Janet Kuypers show “hmm” live 11/20/11 at the Café open mike in Chicago
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read live at Café Mestizo 1/21/12, with music & video from the HA!man of South Africa (Francois Le Roux) open mike in Chicago
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of her reading “Upstage Everyone Else” and “on a High Horse Like This” live at Café Mestizo 1/21/12, with music & video from the HA!man of South Africa (Francois Le Roux) open mike in Chicago
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of Kuypers reading this poem 3/18/13 at the Frankenstone art center in Chicago (Canon)
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of Kuypers performing 5 poems (including this one) in a poetry reading to “Make people Think” 3/18/13 at Chicago’s Frankenstone art center (Canon)
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem On a High Horse Like This (in the chapbook “Attacking with Poetry”) 4/27/14 (C) at Chicago’s 2014 Poetry Bomb (in Lincoln Square)
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem On a High Horse Like This (in the chapbook “Attacking with Poetry”) 4/27/14 (C) at Chicago’s 2014 Poetry Bomb (in Lincoln Square), Threshold
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of Janet Kuypers reading her poem On a High Horse Like This from her book Bon Voyage! live 7/25/15 on Chicago’s WZRD 88.3 FM radio (Cfs)
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of Janet Kuypers reading her poem On a High Horse Like This from her book Bon Voyage! live 7/25/15 on Chicago’s WZRD 88.3 FM radio (Cfs200, FlCrSat)
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of Janet Kuypers reading her poems Everything was Alive and Dying and On a High Horse Like This 1/10/16 at the Austin open mic Kick Butt Poetry (from a Canon Power Shot).
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of Janet Kuypers reading her poems Everything was Alive and Dying and On a High Horse Like This 1/10/16 at the Austin open mic Kick Butt Poetry (from a Nikon CoolPix S7000).

On a High Horse Like This

Janet Kuypers
02/22/11

I listened to a hunter from Africa
say
“all life is sacred”

and he said that after separating
a small, thin, non-venomous snake
from around a large African hawk-like bird’s neck

because you see, the bird attacks snakes,
but that snake couldn’t eat the large bird once it died:
that would have been a senseless death.

“all life is sacred,” you say.
so I couldn’t help but think:
as a hunter, do you pray for the sacred dead

after you killed it?

I mean, I don’t usually vocalize
when I’m on a high horse like this

and I’ve had to explain myself
to meat eaters:
no these aren’t leather shoes

I wear; I’m a vegetarian.
though I still have to feign a smile
to commiserate with men eating slaughtered

animal. cause you see, I’d look like a fool
for having beliefs. people don’t want to hear about
a moral choice different from their own.

I mean, we’re Americans,
if it’s not human,
or maybe a dog or a cat, eat it. it’s that simple.

###

but I married a hunter
a marine who served our country
and he told me

that every time he killed an animal
a part of him felt a regretful twinge of pain
when he killed his prey.

the prey that he searched for.
with a weapon he could use
before anything got close enough

to be an enemy.

oh, I’m sorry.
I’m getting on my high horse again.

it’s convenient that people
can get their kill from the grocery store
without getting any blood

on their hands.
anything to stop everyone from thinking
about what they’re doing.

because I’ve heard that killing something
makes you feel something.
And I thought:


Copyright © 2011 Janet Kuypers.

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

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