There are no gods amongst men

As a shrine, we salute, make immortal

Who, though, withstands the public gaze

Stands the test of time in changing tides

History has a brutal past; lest we forget

Today a hero; tomorrow, a villain, truth catches up

Some victories take generations to right the wrongs

And so some statues do not stand the test of time

Injustice must be removed, but by who?

How to heal the past and brighten the day

Art soothes the soul and nourishes the mind

Let art be the light that marks the time

Finding beauty, exposing the life of an ever-changing muse

Sculpting a better tomorrow while reflecting on the past 

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in The Precipice, Camille’s third contemporary poetry collection. There are no gods amongst men explores the instability of public virtue and historical memory — questioning who is elevated, who is condemned, and how art might offer a more humane way of reckoning with the past while shaping a better future.

Democracy in chains

Silent steps taken in the dark

Shadows of history on the walls

Questions we never asked pass by

Solutions stood at the gate

Passively distracted, pour another glass

Watch a new reality on show

Controlled scope, directed conversation 

A silhouetted ideology begins to form

Corporate takeover takes aim

Sealed with government stamps

The succession of lords by another name

In a world starved of facts

Freedom is nowhere to be found

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in The Precipice, Camille’s third contemporary poetry collection. Democracy in chains speaks to the quiet mechanics of democratic erosion — tracing how distraction, managed narratives, and the union of corporate and state power can hollow out freedom long before the public fully sees what is taking shape.

This poem is available as a contemporary poetry print on textured recycled card.

Where does the light get in?

Paint me a picture

So I may see

Sing me a song

So I may listen

Write me a poem

So I may reflect

When the days are dark

Art shines a light

It is our story to tell

A political show

Whichever way we go

Either the status quo

Or the rebel rising

It is my home

Beating with life

Light of my life

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in RISE, Camille’s second contemporary poetry collection. Where does the light get in? explores art as a vital force of illumination — suggesting that poetry, music and image help us perceive, endure and respond to the political and emotional realities that shape the world we call home.

Ideals of inconsistency

I beg of you tell me the truth

I want to know it all

Gently peel it back

Not so fast

Let me catch my breath

Step back

On second thoughts

Lie to me lie to me

Spare me the brutality

Wrap it in a wishful thought

What we really ask

Shades of truth

Filtered light

Hidden shadows

We just want a peaceful night

Confirmation of a good life

To see the light

First though we must know the night

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in RISE, Camille’s second contemporary poetry collection. Ideals of inconsistency explores the human ambivalence towards truth — revealing how we long for honesty yet often ask for it softened, filtered or disguised, even as genuine clarity demands that we face what is difficult before we can recognise the light.

This poem is available as a contemporary poetry print on textured recycled card.

A shiver down the spine

At two minutes to midnight

Nuclear war knocks at our door

The alarm has sounded this is not a drill

One false move and we explode

The edge of the cliff is near

Pre-positioned for maximum fear

Flags fly high on the horizon

So peace could never settle here

Divide and conquer announces the crown

A subsidiary of owned and operated

This is the war to end it all

All it took was a joker and a crook

And the earth shook for one last time

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in RISE, Camille’s second contemporary poetry collection. A shiver down the spine reflects on the manufactured brinkmanship of global power — evoking a world held hostage by fear, division and reckless authority at the very threshold of annihilation.

This poem is available as a contemporary poetry print on textured recycled card.

Why I had to be a political activist

After watching

Sitting passively

Not participating

I knew

I had been distracted

There is no shame

A conversation is enough to start

Re-directing the agenda

Giving the power back

To the people

We all live under the political domain

Either actively or passively

So I ask will you

Speak out now or later

Cry out ... why me?

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in RISE, Camille’s second contemporary poetry collection. Why I had to be a political activist considers political awakening as a moral turning point — suggesting that to live under power without response is itself a form of participation, and that even the smallest act of speech can begin to return agency to the people.

This poem is available as a contemporary poetry print on textured recycled card.

Watch your language

Words weave in and out of our lives

Hold the power to tell truth or lies

Can build a bridge or a wall

Spoken in foolishness they divide

Conveyed in understanding they unify

This is why I carry a dictionary by my side

Disassemble the literal meaning

Enfold in modern discourse

Watch to see if it holds its burden

For there is no hiding intention in expression

Misuse reveals their mark

As much as missing lines are a sign

A stranglehold has prevailed in silence

Soundbites are shoved into mouths

Conversations are polite scripts

Nothing really matters

Truth is greeted with disbelief

History is re-written

Ideologies run on repeat

Until they are believed

Narrowing options

Knowledge is lost

Watch your language

For it is the thread that binds humanity

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in RISE, Camille’s second contemporary poetry collection. Watch your language reflects on the moral and political weight of speech — tracing how language can be used to distort truth, enforce silence and narrow collective thought, even as it remains the essential medium through which human understanding is made possible.

This poem is available as a contemporary poetry print on textured recycled card.

Wildflower

The wind howled at it

The rain drenched

The sun blistered

Animals trampled

It dug in deeper

Emerged triumphantly

Spread its leaves of liberty

Beamed with resilient optimism

Defiant of destructive forces

Standing as the good example

The wildflower propagated

Freedom’s never-ending will

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in RISE, Camille’s second contemporary poetry collection. Wildflower explores resilience under pressure — imagining freedom not as fragility, but as a living force that strengthens through adversity and persists against attempts to crush it. There may be another hidden interpretation of this poem, which is in the line “Standing as the good example”

This poem is available as a contemporary poetry print on textured recycled card.

Don’t take me to be a fool

I too know this game you play

The illusion of the unseen,

But only by the eye

Intuition plays here too

Untangled is the fact in fiction 

While fiction lays tangled in itself

Inescapable from the fact that it is fiction

Fiction tells a lot about the truth

Truth the fear of fools

Who narrate without care for it

Consequence is a patient force

Sneaking up on the fools that fooled themselves

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in Behind the Facade, Camille’s debut contemporary poetry collection. Don’t take me to be a fool speaks to the tension between deception and discernment — asserting that truth may be obscured by performance, but never fully escapes the quiet intelligence that recognises it.

Public opinion

This interchangeable mood

In the dark, it is dark

In the light, the mood lightens

The change of perspective is costly

The bids are high, owned and operated

Guided to inform identity

Without respect to identifying one’s own

Thoughtful consideration stopped, as the idea was given

Without time to stop and ask who, where and why?

The idea is adopted as one’s own

Was this a gift or a ‘Trojan Horse’?

This idea that was given without the personal touch

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in Behind the Facade, Camille’s debut contemporary poetry collection. Public opinion speaks to the manufactured nature of collective belief — exposing how identity and perspective can be quietly shaped by forces that present influence as information and persuasion as thought.

Asleep at the wheel

To tired to lift the head

To see the crash ahead

The enchanting lullaby

 Playing in the background

The collective cannot rise

Their tired eyes

Their job is done

Please take the wheel

The yawning will fall

Lost in a sleepwalk

Summoning a release that will not come

Blissful unconsciousness will not last a mile

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in Behind the Facade, Camille’s debut contemporary poetry collection. Asleep at the wheel speaks to the danger of collective exhaustion — a state in which passivity, distraction and depleted agency leave people vulnerable to drifting blindly toward harm.

About that bird that sings

Bold and true

Beautiful abandonment

Belonging to just a few

Behold its sweet song of sorrow

Whistling at winds of change

The spotter on the lookout

Shot down by denial

Such is the disgrace

The hunter’s rifle smokes

As it chokes out that flame

The fanfare never arrived

For that song bird that whistled so true

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in Behind the Facade, Camille’s debut contemporary poetry collection. About that bird that sings speaks to the silencing of truth-tellers — those rare voices whose beauty and courage unsettle a world more comfortable with denial than change.

Blind obedience will not do

In the act of blind obedience

Do not be walked off the edge

For it is not disobedience 

To watch your step

Just the simple formulation

Of a life of our own

Free to roam and reminisce

On those silly questions…

Only fools do not ask

The past reaches forward

In a soft whisper to awaken

You have been here before

Best to open your eyes now

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in Behind the Facade, Camille’s debut contemporary poetry collection. Blind obedience will not do speaks to the moral necessity of independent thought — insisting that awareness, questioning and historical memory are essential safeguards against surrendering the self.

No integrity to their written word

For I have held it up

In black and white

Watched it disintegrate

Wept over its disservice

Pondered words without meaning

With their false sense of security

Armed to discourage outrage

These words of weightless blockades

The secret code to oppose

Any chance to correct

Destructive facilities are not serviceable

As the silent witness will testify

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in Behind the Facade, Camille’s debut contemporary poetry collection. No integrity to their written word speaks to the betrayal of language under institutional power — when official words are emptied of truth and used not to repair harm, but to obstruct accountability.

This poem is available as a contemporary poetry print on textured recycled card.

The truth cannot be forgotten

Stand it on its head

Spin it, until disorientated

Turn your back on it

Lay it down to die

Bury it in the paperwork

Lose it to carelessness

Throw it out with the trash

It still bobs to the surface

The cheerful friend…

Always ready to progress forward

The dignity of trust we all deserve

And the best companion of freedom

The truth cannot be forgotten

It is in memory’s service

Unless the mind is lost,

It will always be there

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in Behind the Facade, Camille’s debut contemporary poetry collection. The truth cannot be forgotten speaks to truth as a force of moral persistence — suppressed, neglected and distorted, yet never fully erased where memory, dignity and freedom still endure.

This poem is available as a contemporary poetry print on textured recycled card.

Poetry lives

To ignite the spark

question the line

as an exploration of ideas

the thinking formation

How THEY must fear it,

to declare IT dead

losing passive box watchers

nothing to sell on false pretences

just a thought to provoke

Creative reflection

Critical outlet

Truth seeker

Soul feeder

Hear the rhythm

Feel the beat

Raise the voice

Watch the change

Poetry lives to contribute,

to the conversation

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in Behind the Facade, Camille’s debut contemporary poetry collection. Poetry lives speaks to poetry as a living force of resistance — a form that unsettles complacency, nourishes thought and keeps truth, feeling and change in active conversation.

This poem is available as a contemporary poetry print on textured recycled card.

Power of authority

To the power that is bestowed upon us,

forgo fear as questions may be asked of you

As power gives no absolution

Guilt creeps in through the holes,

setting up residence as a resolute companion

Until judgement too comes to knock

For the answer may not be yours to hold 

springing from the seemingly unlikely

Hold tight to the power to empathize

May reciprocal respect be the answer for a new day

as corruption may lay in ruins to mark past dues

Truth will never be clear in the arrogance that is assumption

Handle with care a focus to heal all that are broken

Passing by pains fondness to blind us all

As a healing hand reaches out for restorative justice

So that no more silent victims may weep

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in Behind the Facade, Camille’s debut contemporary poetry collection. Power of authority speaks to the ethical burden of power — insisting that empathy, accountability and restorative justice must stand where arrogance, corruption and unchecked judgement once ruled.

For Freedom, Not Assange

Silent steps are taken in the dark
The shadows of history are seen on the walls
Power cringes in the light of truth
Behind closed doors truth is classified
Our fate sealed with government stamps
Truth only becomes truth by inspection

So the gates are locked
Truth deemed such a fragile flower
That it would wither in the public eye
Or could it possibly be the blossoming of liberty
Forces of freedom now stand
Or forever have it plucked from your hand

Information is the key
To unlock the chains around democracy
If it is lost, then we have all lost
Surrendering freedom because we didn't like a man
Distracted by conjecture the battle is won
Without ever whispering the name of the game

Camille Delaquise

This poem was written the day after Julian Assange was arrested and dragged out of the Embassy of Ecuador in London. This poem was originally published in The Green Left Weekly now the Green Left

The guard

Beware

What refuses to be known

Festers unhealed

Too fragile, too painful

Passed from one to the next

Through generations

Stepped upon

Driven down

The way we do it

Becomes the only way

The guard does not let go

Lets no light in

Let’s talk about it

The things that cannot be said

~ Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in The Precipice, Camille’s third poetry collection, which centres on the rising inequality — profit over people — being the cause of our most urgent global crises, and that confronting this imbalance is essential if we are to step back from the edge.

This poem is available as a contemporary poetry print on textured recycled card.

Wildflower

The wind howled at it

The rain drenched

The sun blistered

Animals trampled

It dug in deeper

Emerged triumphantly

Spread its leaves of liberty

Beamed with resilient optimism

Defiant of destructive forces

Standing as the good example

The wildflower propagated

Freedom’s never-ending will

-Camille Delaquise

This poem is the first poem in RISE, Camille’s 2nd poetry collection.

This poem is available as a contemporary poetry print on textured recycled card.