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Shance koyczan

Shane Koyzcan

Spoken Word Poetry

Poetry

This poem was inspired by worrying about far away friends who live in big cities. I think all of us have those moments of concern for the ones who are dear to us. Much of the time it’s completely unwarranted and we forget how capable they are of taking care of themselves. I was struck by the realization that as unnerving as it can sometimes be to carry this apprehension it’s also a little comforting to know that we care so deeply about someone.

BeingThis

Remix of Wale Ambitious girl poem, by spoken word Artist Suli Breaks

Ambitious Girl | Spoken Word Poetry

Gleam, 
Where the street lamps are broken, Leaving 14 year old first time hookers unable to see what their getting into. Then shine for the 14 year old last time hookers and everything they went through. 
Shine in the dark places where shadows cast shadows against the backdrop of husbands who cannot stop hitting their wives. Where the children of brutalized mothers grow up blowing out birthday candles wishing their fathers would die. 

Spark, in the wombs where un-born babies are getting high cause their mothers wont even try to stay clean. Gleam, for the un-seen victims of bullies who live like magic lamps within are demons like genies waiting to grant wishes of violence when they are rubbed the wrong way. Shine in the dark places and shine like the day. Because love never had a child-hood, Cause hate grows up to soon. 

So shine, where the silver spoon tarnishes itself against charity. Where teeth sharpen themselfs against frailty. Where every family tree falls in a forest with nobody around to here and dear John letters are composed by those who never learned to read or write. And the only reason our hin-sight is 20/20 is because we've had to much practise looking over our shoulders. As if we could expect to find behind us anything but the mistakes we've made. This is where debts paid for servitude are being taxed, where the fates of other countries are being faxed through phone lines tapped by governments that send soldiers instead of relief. where every belief we believe in is questioned, by those who can believe what you believe IF your credit card clears. These are the dark places, Where we against all likely hood must shine just to make sure we're doing everything we can. That we're voting for every candidate who ran on a platform of maybe we're more then we've been told. Maybe 100 years is not to old to start thinking about what it is you want to do with your life. 

So flash, like the blade of the knife we hold to the throughts of those who would have us believe love isen't for everyone. Then shine so you know you've always been someone that the sun that shines for them shines just as bright for all that those we call friend lend strength to our back bone when standing alone is something they can never let us do because they pack their bags ready to travel with us past everything we go through. Preparing to shine in the dark places. To tie together the shoe laces of boogiemen then shine under the beds and in the closets for the damage deposits that are depleated by the time those monsters move out we owe them nothing. 

Because bed time stories have never been about tragity. They've been about leaving bread crumb trails so we can find our way back from catastrophe. We were never meant to live like millionairs going broke having spent worthless fortunes on living in uncertanty. 

So we must shine for all the times others will not. Like fireflies caught playing against the backdrop of midnight Because despite everything you've been told you can be bold beyond what others believe you to be. So see in yourself what you wish others to see. Be brave in a way that others may never know, Live like the under-tow that catches and keeps stars spread across the night. 

Shine in the dark places. Lend the world your light.

  

Shine (Shorter Version for Modern) by Shane Koyczan

Poem I wrote recently.

Lyrics by demand:

Depression

Keep me off your pedestal, my dear,
As I escape your icy grip.
Allow me to shed your contagious fear,
Don't let the emotion drip.

I know it's times like these that line the scars upon your wrists,
but we're way too grown up for this, your childish fits.

I'd hold your hand, but your touch numbs all feeling,
I'd gaze upon you, but your sorrow leaves you unappealing,
I'd present my heart, but it's more you want to be stealing.
Love, I don't want wounds beyond healing.

Though your words may cool my skin, and cause animalistic instinct to begin,
I am deaf to your vocalized sin.
Without your power what are you then?

You're but a shadow that blots the sun,
The trail of blood from my directionless run,
A spark of insanity, mindless fun.
I'm sorry dearest, but in this life I have won.

You may have blinded me of reason and thought,
But I suppose it was all just for naught.

Your scars remain, a lesson which you taught,
Perhaps I'm the only to escape of the ones that you caught.

But that is just past trivialities,
I have no need for dual realities.
I'm sorry dear this is just the way it has to be.
It wasn't you of course, surely it was all me.
I'll allow you to believe you had a single victory.

Now, my love, we must go our separate ways.
You were well worth your inspiration, which lasted several days.
It wasn't worth the temptation and walking your endless maze.
I do suppose some of your torture pays,
It's just not worth a cycle which would dub me insane.

I'm sorry, but it's time for this to end.
It doesn't matter if you were my only friend.
Find another poor soul to torture, control, and bend.
My life is my my own currency now, one which I will choose to happily spend.



Depression

Shane Koyczan and Hannah Epperson - Remember How We Forgot

Shane Koyczan and the Short Story Long - To This Day

I Will Not Let Not An Exam Result Decide My Fate | Spoken Word Poetry

This is my open letter In response to some of the recent comments on my video "I Will Not Let An Exam Result Decide My Fate". I have had no internet at home for the past week, you can understand my further frustrations #UOSB.

Macklemore - Same love Instrumental, Re-Made By Para: https://soundcloud.com/prodbypara/macklemore-same-love

No Comment | Spoken Word Poetry

shane koyczan f/ sigur ros  "more often than sometimes"

f I knew what I know now then, way back when we first met, I’d point to the sunset and say, “I drew that for you. Every now and then you can catch it wrinkling in the rain.” See I can talk a good game from the stage, but if you want to gage a romantic thing said when we were messing up the bed the best I can give you is, “Oh my God we’re totally humping.” Regardless, there’s something beautiful about stating the obvious. All of us do it. In the moments when we can’t believe it we have to say it. It’s like pinching yourself to make sure you’re awake. Take, for example, something as simple as touching someone. We so often say, “You’re so soft.” And the last person to touch them may have said it for the twenty-eighth time but today, I’m number twenty-nine and I’m not saying it for her benefit, I’m saying it for mine. Because there’s almost 7 billion people in the world, half of which are men, and when the number of them is 3.5 billion it’s pretty fuckin’ cool that I was number twenty-nine. And once upon a time I was first in line for a girl with freckles and strawberry blonde hair. We loved like an electric chair hooked up to a nuclear power plant and plugged into the sun, and everything we did had never been done. I woke up the next morning with a smile that told the world, “I’m number one.”


I think of her, more often than sometimes, and if she ever hears this I want her to know that our first kiss tasted like pepper. I met her on June 27th. That year it was Yellowknife’s first day of continual light and, despite the sun not setting that night we each went home alone, even though our parents told us, “Be home before dark.” We could’ve stayed out for weeks, could’ve watched the way the sun leaks like liquid over the horizon, casting shadows over all the right places of a bargain bin where love was 75% off, and we were collectively 25¢ away from forever. 
 

There are times in the North when the sun never sets. And it gets confusing when we ask ourselves questions like, “Is it too late, or too early?” More often than sometimes we didn’t care. We lived like two games of solitaire waiting to be played by one another. Her mother once asked me, “Do you love her?” And I said if there were 1 million teachers breathing down my neck telling me that the answer is no, I would say yes. I guess that was enough for her, because that girl’s father palmed me a condom and wished me a happy birthday. Even now there’s no way to tell, was that awkward or creepy?
 

We loved like two hit-men hellbent on assassinating regret. Her orgasm was a wet gremlin multiplying itself into another. Her younger brother knocked on the bedroom door asking, “What are you guys doing in there?” And somewhere amid the awesome and all of the in between we replied in unison, “Studying.” And we were. I wrote notes on her skin in flesh toned permanent ink that would sink and sit inside as I tried to underline the important parts of her: bellybutton, birthmark, collarbone. And I wrote notes explaining that hers felt like silk stretched over stone. I told her, “You’re so soft.” She smiled and said, “Duh.” followed by, “My bellybutton is not an erogenous zone.” And I said, “I hate that word,” and she asked, “Which one?” and I said, “Erogenous.” I told her, “There’s beauty in the obvious, and your bellybutton is where you started, it’s where cells divided and grew into you so let me do what students do best, you can test me later but right now let me study.” She said, “You’re lucky this is a take home test, boy.” I highlighted and double underlined. Lips. 
 

I think of the beauty in the obvious, the way it forces us to admit how it exists, the way it insists on being pointed out like a bloody nose, or how every time it snows there is always someone around to say, “It’s snowing.” But the obvious isn’t showing off, it’s only reminding us that time passes, and that somewhere along the way we grow up. Not perfect, but up and out. It teaches us something about time, that we are all ticking and tocking, walking the fine line between days and weeks as if each second speaks of years and each month has years listening to forever but never hearing anything beyond centuries swallowed up by millenniums, as if time was calculating the sums needed to fill the empty belly of eternity. We so seldom understand each other. But if understanding is neither here nor there, and the universe is infinite, then understand that no matter where we go we will always be smack dab in the middle of nowhere. All we can do is share some piece of ourselves, and hope that it’s remembered. Hope that we meant something to someone. 


My chest is a cannon that I have used to take aim and shoot my heart upon this world. I love the way an uncurled fist becomes a hand again, because when I take notes, I need it to underline the important parts of you: happy, sad, lovely. Battle cry ballistic like a disaster or a lipstick earthquaking and taking out the monuments of all my hollow yesterdays. We’ll always have the obvious. It reminds us who and where we are, it lives like a heart shape, like a jar that we hand to others and ask, “Can you open this for me?” We always get the same answer: “Not without breaking it.” More often than sometimes, I say go for it.
http://www.shanekoyczan.com/

shane koyczan f/ sigur ros - more often than sometimes

I grew up very angry, and had difficulty understanding where those feelings came from. 

Some instances were easier to decipher than others; parental abandonment factored into my life heavily, and gave the people around me an easy button to push. 

Other moments were subtler, and took a tremendous amount of searching to find the root cause. 

The piece is called How I Learned To Smile and it really is about the process of understanding where my anger  came from.

How I Learned To Smile - Shane Koyczan

Internationally renowned spoken word artist, poet and author.