Theo Campbell

Ariadne’s Note: To listen to Theo Campbell on the World Poetry Cafe Radio Show and a special Father’s Day e-poem  by the Empowered Afghan Voice of Women award winner, Hunsa S. Ahrar, please CLICK HERE!

“Theo Campbell is a Métis poet living in Richmond, BC. He hosts Late Night With Savages, an aboriginal music program on CFRO 102.7 FM on Wednesdays from 11pm-12am. An  environmentalist who strives to be a good feminist, Theo likes long walks that go nowhere, chain smoking, and those brief fleeting moments of freedom you find in the endless in-betweens of life. He’s been published in the Salish Seas Anthology by the Aboriginal Writers Collective West Coast. He was also awarded the title of Youth Poet Ambassador to Canada by the World Poetry Organization in 2011.” He is a member of the World Poetry Youth Team as well as a host and empowered poet.

One Two by Theo Campbell ©

We were the sons and daughters
of an endless slaughter
The unwatered flock of flower
in a field filled with towers
instead of beds
we’ve got price tags
so we wonder why we
lag behind with ipod
minds and coffee cup/
coca cola veins
our brains are made
by cramped class rooms
and empty tv shows
until all we know
is the spectacle.
our schedules
are set
by shifts lists
and guides
it stops starts
and flickers by
like

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We wake up every morning
to moaning commuter traffic
in spastic transit we flitter
through hallways in bed head
haze so our worries
can be washed away
in a 15 minute stream
of steaming water
only to find anxiety
waiting by the sink
once again.
so we set the goal
of getting to work
wasting our week
at desks behind
counters counting
the days til we can be free
and the weekend whips by
like you missed it,
so we wander through
machine magnificence
manufactured beauty
built for function
crossing roadwork
and stop sign junctions
while a few lonely souls
hole up in boarded
abandoned houses only to
play mouse to the cats
that tap down
city streets
with sirens screaming
like

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and we wake up every morning
to the sound of motors
in stasis
idling by the sidewalk
waiting for changing lights
while miracles sleep
and angels die
and our dreams dangle
right nearby
while we wipe the smudge
of sleep from gleaming eyes
and they fly away as we
find our paycheck prize
so we check the time
like we’re waiting
for someone brave
to come save us
but all that pulls up
is the bus
our footsteps take
us aboard, rubber
thumping on rubber
like

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and we wake up in transit hell
to the sound of the singing bell
flinging us back
to the land of the living
giving our hands reason
to move, removing the earphones
our only homes
from overstimulated ears,
our stop nears and our feet
find the ground on a street
that bleats we should run,
roam as far as we can go,
to we don’t know where
but it promises:
it can take us there.
down roads washed free
of children’s chalk
along blocks littered
with retail and real estate
sign aligned like flags
and we lag by lawns
dense with fences
that are as pensive
as borders
penning in gardens
that smolder with
vibrant life.
And as our energy diminishes
we find the city
isn’t finished
it stretches on endlessly
past the beach and the sea
slipping above the horizon
on airplane wings and
helicopter rotors
and as we find
our bed
the only lullaby
to lie in our head
is the roar pouring
through open windows
the prose of running
automobile
motors
that
flicker
by
like

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