A house on fire

The future is already here

Chances hanging by the last thread

Tombstones written in advance

Abandoned on the bookshelf

Weeping willows weep no more

Without a breeze to carry change

Development grew evermore

Across a barren land

A sterile existence takes its last breath

Inside, the faint buzz no longer stirs

Recycled air dulled perception

Then we lost connection

Sirens fade into the background

Windows closed

Doors locked to the world

Distance closes in

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in The Precipice, Camille’s third contemporary poetry collection. A house on fire reflects on the claustrophobic nearness of collapse — evoking environmental, social, and spiritual exhaustion in a world that has sealed itself off from change until even its warning signals begin to disappear.

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

Sensations of living

Wind chapped lips

Thirst

Sun on my back

Warmth

Naked in front of the mirror

Exposed

Bare feet on jagged rocks

Pain

Salty tears on my cheeks

Heartache

Seven days walking

Patience

Speaking out

Isolation

Laying on the grass

Connection

Floating in the ocean

Joy

Leftovers for lunch

Gratitude

Sitting thinking

Freedom

Waves lapping at your feet

Serenity

Two summers past

Melancholy

An empty belly

Discontent

The passing of time

Loss

Homemade cookie dough

Love

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in The Precipice, Camille’s third contemporary poetry collection. Sensations of living explores the emotional texture of existence through fleeting, embodied moments — gathering pain, joy, longing, tenderness, and loss into a quiet record of what it means to be fully alive.

By Silent Decree

Everyone is competing

All views obscured

Another fence, another wall

No space remains

One on top of the other

All trying to be the same

Windows closed, blinds drawn

Trying not to see

Yet wanting recognition

Everything is measured

Especially time lost

Living as a machine

Connections are sought

In mirrored reflections

Easily shattered

Always distorted

Nothing is real

Nothing really matters

Buying in, vibrancy gone

More locked doors

The world is closing in

As the abyss expands

It won’t be long now

Silence marks the end.

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in The Precipice, Camille’s third contemporary poetry collection. By Silent Decree explores the spiritual and social desolation of a world built on conformity, enclosure, and relentless comparison — where human connection is thinned into reflection, reality loses its texture, and silence becomes the final consequence of collective surrender.

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

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.

Plutocracy pollution

Unmask the misery ahead

Hurry, there is no time to waste

Twisted words revealed

A strangled truth

Left hanging by a line

I challenge you to know

The indifference that divides

Justified by deep pockets

By no means justifiable

We live in uncivilised times

Dystopia knocks at the door

Setting the fashion for more

Wealth worshipped, led us astray

For the lack of wisdom cannot hide

A logical process of give and take

The laws of balance govern all

Dethrone the kings, tax the rich

For the generation left begging for life

The hour strikes, time’s up, act now!

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in The Precipice, Camille’s third contemporary poetry collection. Plutocracy pollution explores the moral corrosion of power — exposing a world distorted by greed, where truth is throttled, inequality is defended, and urgency becomes its own form of political reckoning.

An empty grave

So, nobody reads poetry anymore?

Still, there are whispers here and there

Spoken in hushed tones

As if someone has passed

Poems visiting as ghosts

Disappearing with the dawn

Three-word slogans cast a spell

So nobody reads poetry anymore

As if there is nothing left to know

Truth submerged by fast-paced gabble

Sport on every channel, the race is on 

So nobody reads poetry anymore

‘Manufactured consent’ tells us so

What to say, how to think

How to for dummies

So nobody reads poetry anymore

Even so poetry persists …

In the love we show 

Within words that inspire 

Fighting the good fight

Such is the poetry of life

That nobody reads, forever recited 

Passed down entwined generations

Sparking the imagination for evermore

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in The Precipice, Camille’s third contemporary poetry collection. An empty grave reflects on poetry’s uneasy place in modern life — mourning its supposed disappearance while revealing that it still endures wherever language, memory, and human feeling resist being flattened into noise.

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

Memory

A moment in time

Not easily forgotten

A lesson from the past

Time travelling

A connection made

Building blocks of future days

All secrets to the universe flow through here

One collision after another

The sequence spirals

And then … the first word was spoken

Born to language

Like the eagle flies

Consciousness awoke

Step by step

Slow and steady

Change has been our friend

Time though, was never on our side

For all things must come to an end

On this quest of variables

Challenges remain unique

You may not remember me

We all carry our own memory 

Keeping us on the road to change

For sameness would stand us still 

Memories, captured thoughts

To be stored and withdrawn

Expanding and insuring

Where there was nothing 

There will be life

Evolving

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in The Precipice, Camille’s third contemporary poetry collection. Memory meditates on the strange architecture of existence — how language, consciousness, and remembrance become the living record of change, carrying each life forward even as time draws all things toward an end.

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

A sense of something

Watching slowly

Piece by piece

You depart

Brick by brick

Taken away

Lost to the crowd

Do this

Be this

Eat this

Don’t eat that

Don’t be sad

Can’t say that

Speak up

Leave room

Take up space

Live more simply

Life is complicated

Find balance

Work hard

Think less

Be mindful

Do you

Recycle thoughts

Time intersects

I feel you coming

A reckoning

Truth out

~ Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in The Precipice, Camille’s third poetry collection. It is a poem about reclamation. About the moment you feel yourself coming back.

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

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.

What if?

Life could be

Peaceful

The road not yet taken

The formula gone

Creating beauty

From a seed

Watching it grow

Leaving only what life needs

Nothing more

What if?

Hope conquered fear

And joy was for all

A better world, for sure

Moving past what has had its day

No perfection, please

Just free

~ Camille

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. What If? captures the possibility that still exists, should we choose a different path.

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