Let’s Go Skinny Dipping In the River of Creation

One of the aged veterans of the poetry slam community (though admittedly aged is an extremely relative term in this case), is RC Weslowski.  If you follow the community at all, and have never heard of this sweater vest enthusiast, that’s surprising: a seven-time Vancouver Poetry Slam team member, a 2012 Banff Centre Spoken Word program facilitator, the 2012 Victoria Spoken Word Festival Poet of Honour, a 2008 Festival of Health Research Poet of Honour, and the 2012 Canadian Individual Poetry Slam champion, RC is an icon of Canadian spoken word.  (He was the lead organizer for Festival of Health Research 2005, and one of those involved in the foundation of the festival, the 2004 Wordlympics.)  He’s also one of its most prolific writers and performers.

RC doesn’t care what the Rat Bastards are doing.

Recent years have seen him hitting the Canadian Fringe circuit with shows The Wet Dream Catcher and The Cruellest Phonebook in the World, all whilst continuing his work as one of the most active youth organizers in the country.  The coordinator of the Vancouver Youth Poetry Slam and one of the head organizers of Hullabaloo (the BC high school poetry slam championship), RC has not only created a platform for youth to speak, he has inspired, encouraged, and coached innumberable young poets over the years.  Most recently, he worked with the Vancouver Youth Poetry Slam team, helping guide them to victory at YouthCanSlam, the Canadian national youth poetry slam, in August 2014.

But chances are the victory isn’t what he’d want to tell you about.  And if that seems strange to you, he might say, “Well – let’s not get it – together.”

If it can be said the world has a soul
Then it’s ruptured
From our hearts
To the way our Gods love us
As if they know they’re already dying
And they’re determined to drag us down with them

And just like a flagpole in winter
Demanding our affection
We’ve stuck our tongues to their ancient religions
Leaving us dumb struck and blinded
By the eye cons of the icons
That have kept our hearts from seizing the truth

But what that truth is I don’t know. I have
No answers to definitively give. I have enough
Trouble on my own deciding
Which day is garbage day following a statutory holiday

The rules of this world make little sense
To me every day brings more reasons
To not care, for us to remain in our caves
Feral, angry and feeling abandoned
Unwilling to rise and terrified to shine
In a kingdom that we feel lost in and abused by

But the thing about a king is this
At its best, royalty is novelty
At its worst, it’s oppressive
And our love has got to be more impressive than that

So brothers and sisters and the
Magnificent in betweeners
Let’s be moved by the ooh and wowed by our awe
Let’s bathe in the mystery
Of the wonder of the blunder that created us
The cosmic giggle that leaves us laughing and asking what
Are we doing here, who’s driving this bus?
I don’t know, and neither do they who say that they do
From the Ayatold-you-so’s and the Vatican’t-do-that’s
So what’s a sacrilegious trickster to do? Well why not
Try on a new shoe to see if it fits
So between you and me
I posit this pickle, I float out
This feather

Let’s not get it
Together

You and I, me and we, let’s build
A sacred union of confusion
A family of the flummoxed and flabber-gassed
A perpetual party of the puzzled and perplexed
A beautiful band of the befuddled and bemused
Blathering a grand and boisterous bafflegab
Poets wide eyed, slack jawed and drooling
On the carpets of convention
Slapping our foreheads with vigor and distinction

Let’s not get it
Together

This is your permission to slip to be human
Not horrible the pressure’s off
We don’t understand, we’ll never figure it out
There’s no more worry as to whether or not
We are beautiful enough
For the gods we’ve created
Denying our perfection and grasping
At flaws to prove the world right
That we’re wrong

So join me and let’s go skinny dipping
In the river of creation
Inquisitive salmon asking the most
Embarrassing questions
I surrender myself
In awe and devotion

Let’s see what happens
When the wheels come off
Let’s not get it
Together
Tonight

Re-posted from www.RCWeslowski.com.

RC, together with Spillious the Ridiculous One, is one of the organizers of Mashed Poetics, a music and poetry show that will be featured at Festival of Health Research 2014 at 11:00 PM, Tuesday, October 14.  Here’s what he has to say about it:

The idea for Mashed Poetics came about in the fall of 2008.  Australian poets, Sean Whelan, Easy Bee and Alicia Sometimes were on tour in Vancouver and we were discussing a show they did called Liner Notes where they pick a music album and ask poets to write a new poem based on the songs.  I thought it was a fun idea but I wanted to have a live band playing the music rather than it being pre-recorded.  So while out celebrating Sean McGarragle’s birthday at the Railway Club, I asked  Spillious if he would be into fronting the musical side of things.  As long as the first album we do is “Paranoid” by Black Sabbath.  Done!

Mashed Poetics is basically a quarterly event taking place in Vancouver.  In recent years, however, we’ve transported it to various festivals: Verses Festival of Words, The Hogan’s Alley Poetry Festival, and Festival of Health Research.  What I love is the sonic quality of the night when after a noticeably raucous song number the room goes quiet to listen to the poetry and then it explodes again with the next song.  I also enjoy gathering poets from different walks of life and styles and mixing them up together.  So-called “page poets” and “stage poets” mingling together over words and music.  And thankfully it seems to be working quite well.  We will be doing The Tragically Hip’s Up to Here in Vancouver as well on Friday Oct 24^th.