To market to market

Am I really missing out?

I do enjoy something new

The allure of fantasy

If only for awhile

For now I will enquire

After a new line perhaps

The electrifying buzz

It’s sweet seduction

Passes faster than the cost

Another hit please

I ask again

What must I acquire?

The ship has sailed

Traded around the globe

Advanced mankind

Left behind the kind

A query for the man

Where is the next land?

Most live only to get by

In a redesign of slavery

By the owners of capital

You are now free to starve

Here stands a prison cell

Allowing weekend leave

How modern is this market

Elite capitalism rules

Where imperialism perished

Leaving most in the dark

New name same rules

If only we knew

The next trend is too divine

And off we set once more

To produce to purchase

If only profit prevails

Where does it end?

What was the purpose again?

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in RISE, Camille’s second contemporary poetry collection. To market to market explores the seductions and cruelties of consumer capitalism — exposing how desire, novelty and profit can mask deeper systems of exploitation, alienation and moral emptiness beneath the spectacle of the modern market.