Katuwapitiya

our fingerprints are like snowflakes

It’s hard for me to be a fan of spoken-word poetry. I feel like there is some mystical scene that I can never be a part of, full of people snapping their fingers with weird goatees and berets. I picture these amazing performances in special cafes tucked out of sight with eclectic vegetarian menus and fair-trade coffee and chocolates. Not being able to relate to this scene/not having the time to dedicate to find out how, I feel like Homer Simpson outside of the No-Homers club. On the outside, looking in.

But I’ve always loved it. Whenever I get a chance to hear it, I’m moved to a point where I think that spoken-word recordings should have a place in mainstream culture. Shows like Def Poetry, when I can catch them, are always phenomenal and I hope to see similar initiatives in the future.

When a friend sent me over some mp3s by a spoken-word artist named Shane Koyczan, I was excited to discover something new. A slight glance into that magical world. What I found, however, was something much more than that. In the recordings of “The Crickets Have Arthritis”, I found words that were as impactful as the greatest love song. I found moments as glorious as Andy Dufresne and his first breath of freedom.

All from an “overweight” white man and his words.

The last track from that album, one that is very hard to find, is known as “atlantis”. If this isn’t a contender for best-thing-ever, I don’t know what is.

Download it here. Or use the new player:

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And you can read it below while you wait (all typed up by yours truly, lol):

atlantis by shane koyczan

your entire body shakes when you laugh,
as if your sense of humour was built on a faultline,
and the coast of your heart falls into the ocean of yourself,
and im left looking for this atlantis,
left looking for this place that exists in stories told by old men,
who were there when mathematics assured them…
their willingness to believe was greater than
their determination to dismiss,
i’m left looking for atlantis,
regardless of the scientists that insist,
my efforts would be better spent
unearthing clues to where the wild things went,
try as it might,
faith can’t put a dent in fact,
so we must settle for watching science re-enact the world,
as if the universe was curled, around this globe,
and if we consider that this universe is never-ending,
then we’re not even a microbe,
we’re like a death threat from a pacifist, we’re nothing….
but the Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that:
“nothing is fo shizzle”
and the interesting thing about that,
is it ensures the principle itself can’t even be a fact,
but we still act as if this time,
we can see the forest through the trees,
regardless of the soft wood lumber levies,
we fall in line like reforested pine,
it’s all straight rows,
where everything grows a little less wild,
and a little more humdrum,
oh hum, we come from a mentality,
that rarely sees the horror in symmetry,
or the beauty in nonconformity…
we insist that for us,
everything must be clear cut.
but what about philosophy??
what about the tree that fell
in the forest that no one was around to hear?
it’s a little less clear and a little more deep,
deep like “If Oprah Winfrey farts in a bathtub,
and no bubbles come to the surface,
is there an alternate universe where the price of gas is cheap?”
possible, but we can’t prove it…
any more than we can prove that,
light can move fast enough to stop a monster hiding in the closet,
we deposit our faith in fear,
but clear our minds to the possibility that,
maybe we as adults secretly sometimes still get scared of the dark,
things that go bump in the night…
and i can’t prove that i’ve ever loved anyone,
but despite the smokingly overweight body,
i wanna grow old with you,
go through muscle and joint pains,
to the point that every time it rains,
we can feel it in our knees,
get arthritis so bad,
that every time we move,
we sound like two bowls of rice krispies,
we’re all “snap, crackle and pop”
but we still take the time to stop,
and take the time in looking for atlantis…
letting faith turn this fiction into fact,
as if i’ve tracked this missing continent for decades,
and all i know so far,
is that it’s somewhere underwater…
i’m looking for clues in those blurry photos of UFOs,
and thinking,
if aliens are so smart,
then why don’t they start making their spaceships look like airplanes?
that way we’d just point to the sky and say
“an airplane, how commonplace and not at all suspect…”
we’re all shipwrecked on this idea,
that everything has to be explained,
but maybe we just need to believe that,
lemmings jump off of cliffs to prove that they love us,
and sure, that sacrifice is as empty
as the box of condoms politicians used when they thought
they could fuck us…
but its nice to believe that somebody up there cares enough,
to plummet onto jagged back-breaking rocks,
in an attempt to tell us we’re beautiful…
tell us, that as far as life goes,
our fingerprints are like snowflakes,
we leave them on everything, but they melt
in the time it takes to touch someones tongue,
but if we’re lucky, maybe we’re remembered,
along with the sunken cities of a lost continent,
this is for each child who was a monument to the ones who came before,
maybe the best we can hope for,
is that those we leave behind, find comfort in knowing,
that we’re born out of love and not science,
that biology explains the how, but love explains the why,
so in the event of our deaths, we hereby bequeath
all of these words to you,
and they are only meant to say that,
uncertainty is something everyone goes through,
and there’s not much in the way of proof,
but believe me, we loved you,
we held our breaths for your first step, your first word,
we laughed when it finally occurred to you, lemons are sour,
this is for every time love becomes
the finest minute in the darkest hour,
this is for those who scour the streets,
wondering where the wild things went,
for the believers who lent us their madness,
this is for everyone we miss,
and this is for the children who are lost,
sadness is nothing more than the cost of
being able to smile once in a while,
and grief is the trial we stand to offer evidence that,
your fingerprints were left on our hearts,
and our skin,
and in terms of proof,
love can be demonstrated in giving,
our lives consist of the efforts we give
in swimming towards a lost continent,
where you are rumoured to be living…

He is currently releasing material with his band “The Short Story Long”. Check out his myspace, his homepage (which contains a bunch of other phenomenal mp3s and a link to purchase his book), and his tracks on iTunes (his cd is currently sold out though)!

Tell someone.