Hypocrisy

Small ripples drift off

Their destination unknown

You may ride the wave

But not steal the ride

Do not push in line

Then tell a lie

Hypocrisy denies

Look on the other side

Nice guys finish 

Bad guys are incomplete

The fool that fools themselves

Fails to be fulfilled

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in RISE, Camille’s second contemporary poetry collection. Hypocrisy speaks to the corrosive gap between conduct and conscience — suggesting that self-deception, dishonesty and small moral evasions diminish not only integrity, but the possibility of genuine fulfilment.

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

Breaking bread

The smell of comfort

Warmth of a loving embrace

Fuelled by community effort

Breaking to be shared

Nourishment is sliced evenly

A taste of what humanity could be

If only we chose to rise

The fundamental elements 

To a good life

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in RISE, Camille’s second contemporary poetry collection. Breaking bread reflects on shared sustenance as a simple but profound social ideal — imagining care, fairness and communal effort as the essential ingredients of a more generous and humane life.

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

Lets not pretend

Sometimes I am sad

I indulge in melancholy

Sometimes I am mad

Leaving no room for reason

Boredom too paid a visit

Then it wandered off

As if it did not care

Too vain to confess

My lesson is to let go

Note this one down

Next they come around

Emotions have an ebb and flow

The world is never still

There are days of sunshine

And days where it floods

Utopia is a fantasy

To say otherwise denies our: 

Complexity

Sorrow

Joy

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in RISE, Camille’s second contemporary poetry collection. Lets not pretend meditates on emotional honesty — resisting the fantasy of permanent ease and instead affirming sadness, anger, boredom and joy as necessary movements within the full complexity of being human.

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

Happiness

How can I know of this 

In such an uncertain place

The writing is the vessel 

Not the destination found

Will it come along the road?

Can it be learned, borrowed or bought?

I like to think the first

So many questions it stirs

While so few answers seem in tune

Harmony lost to the loudest in the room

In this quest for the treasure trove

Be warned 

It does not sparkle of gold

It seems wise to know

Happiness is the prize

Of the virtuous kind

Gifting loveliness

Love returns

Fulfilment found

Happiness is something shared

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in RISE, Camille’s second contemporary poetry collection. Happiness explores the search for fulfilment in an unstable world — suggesting that joy is not something possessed or purchased, but something cultivated through virtue, generosity and the shared exchange of love.

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

Take your time

Open new doors

Wander through possibilities

Free ideas to be in flux

No future can be carved in stone

Along shifting tides

Evermore it stands to reason

To ponder why

Take your time

‘Smell the roses’

‘Look before you leap’

Land on your feet

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in RISE, Camille’s second contemporary poetry collection. Take your time considers openness as a form of wisdom — embracing uncertainty, reflection and measured movement as the conditions through which a more grounded and thoughtful life can unfold.

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

Scar tissue

Red, angry and deep

a constant reminder

this should not have been

no hiding its ugly truth

the tell-tale sign of pain

leaving its mark

unseen but always felt

Lament for loss (cautiously)

necessary ointment

somewhat heals

the scar will soften

memory only fades so much

cradle it with care

release redundant detriment

Through the cracks

nature takes opportunities

blossoming over the damage

there is hope in healing

when we are nurtured

by an open heart

and not hidden in the dark

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in RISE, Camille’s second contemporary poetry collection. Scar tissue reflects on the afterlife of pain — recognising that while wounds may never fully disappear, tenderness, care and openness can transform damage into the ground from which healing quietly begins.

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

One Little Mistake

The world is a treacherous place

Full of pot holes and peg holes

One lapse in concentration

Down the hole you go

Spiralling out of control

Stumbling in the dark

Too scared to remark

An inner voice rouses

Hold out your hand

Take hold of humanness

Let go of the mistake

Bring only the lesson

Now be on your way

As the new day breaks

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in RISE, Camille’s second contemporary poetry collection. One Little Mistake explores the fragile moment when shame threatens to consume perspective — ultimately suggesting that compassion, humility and self-forgiveness are what allow a person to carry wisdom forward rather than remain trapped in error.

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

Out in the cold

The wind called my name

So I faced it without fear

I breathed freely in this fresh air

Sweeping away old realms

I had changed direction

I would not surrender

Feeling neither rejection nor objection

For a prize I had not sought

Contented by the warmth of my labour

The fruits never tasted so sweet

Even if a little unrefined

This is the field of dreams

Today liberty won

So leave me out in the cold

Satisfaction was paid

By releasing the flame within

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in RISE, Camille’s second contemporary poetry collection. Out in the cold speaks to the liberation of self-determined change — finding dignity, freedom and deep satisfaction not in approval or reward, but in the hard-won warmth of following one’s own inner conviction.

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

Very good days

Made a bed

Wrote a note

Baked a cake

Sat in a nook

Read a book

Delivered a smile

Forgot the time

A thought became aligned

Worked only awhile

Stopped for a childhood

The present was engaging

Checked in with a lover 

Feasted with family

Serenity slipped into slumber

A self-determined day

Is a productive day

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in RISE, Camille’s second contemporary poetry collection. Very good days considers the quiet architecture of an intentional life — suggesting that fulfilment is not found in relentless productivity, but in the gentle balance of care, presence, love and self-direction.

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.

Just a dreamer

Today I made a mistake

Tomorrow I will learn a lesson

Yesterday I had a dream

My travelling tales

My smile lines

My tear stained cheeks

Failed to be fortunate

Fortunate to have failed

Fostering formidable foundations

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in Behind the Facade, Camille’s debut contemporary poetry collection. Just a dreamer speaks to the quiet resilience of becoming — reframing failure, memory and aspiration as the very material from which a fuller, wiser self is made.

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

Coming home

After the storm has passed

The devastation is there for all to see

How does one rebuild from rubble?

If the rubble will not rise

What lays in ruin was weak

Rebuild a new configuration

One from strength and hope

Forming new beginnings

Look at past mistakes

Pass through this passage

An enlightened future awaits

Reflections foster a better life

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in Behind the Facade, Camille’s debut contemporary poetry collection. Coming home speaks to renewal after collapse — suggesting that what survives devastation is not the old structure itself, but the chance to rebuild a life on stronger, wiser and more hopeful foundations.

No box to tick

Don’t try and define me

In your definition of me I will not be found

I do not fit in a box of containment

I have not four equal sides

I have jagged edges

Extending in directions of their own

In new directions I find unexpected strength

For they are the direction of mine only

The contradictions are marvellous

Imprinting individual marks

The makeup of wonderment

A changeable and expanding soul

Searching the sphere for contentment

The body vessel does not define

For it is a spiritual quest to fulfill

A sense that is intangible

But as real as you and I

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in Behind the Facade, Camille’s debut contemporary poetry collection. No box to tick speaks to the irreducible complexity of identity — rejecting confinement, easy labels and imposed definitions in favour of a self that is fluid, contradictory and spiritually alive.

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

What a pity

The sand slipped through the hand

It was in the grasp

But with careless abandon it was lost

The weight of it went unnoticed

In a busy world that whizzes by

Distracted by so much noise

No quiet space to contemplate

What true intention knew

The gap would give way

And takeaway any chance

To hold together and mould

A solid base to stand strong

On the sand that could

Have built the stone

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in Behind the Facade, Camille’s debut contemporary poetry collection. What a pity speaks to the quiet tragedy of neglect — how what might have become lasting and foundational can be lost through distraction, carelessness and a failure to recognise its value in time.

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

The nature of creation

I sway in the tree of dreams

Far from the ground of harsh realities

This freedom comes to mind

From a view seldom seen today

The peaceful breeze carries me,

away in a daydream

Into a new world of discovery

How refreshing it is to breathe

Deep, with no sense to hurry

The man-made deadline absent

In the nature of time aligned

In space this was created

To set the centre stage alive

This is the place to visit to remind

The mind where it ‘set in motion’

The imaginative exploration for tomorrow

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in Behind the Facade, Camille’s debut contemporary poetry collection. The nature of creation speaks to imagination as a restorative force — suggesting that true creativity begins where urgency falls away and the mind is free to return to wonder, rhythm and possibility.

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

Welfare diversion

The hand that was drawn up

Forging a way for equality

Lifting up the downtrodden

To gaze on a new horizon

One full of possibilities

Only equality can deliver as progress

Slowly now this hand withdraws from need

Lending itself to a wealth of misdirection

Pushing down the desire to rise

Against a machine that counts

Human suffering as profitable

Herding contemporary slaves to order

This violence goes by deprived of need,

insisting in its legitimacy

While denying legitimate needs existence

Scorning welfare with such triumph

The hand of need falls down in shame

So the welfare cuts become entrenched

An easy diversion to subsidies

Into an ever narrowing wealth pocket

That will hold the helping hand captive

Crumbling democracy in its tight grip

Fading is the social design to support

The protection of a safety net 

And the demise will not spare 

The separation of the enterprise

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in Behind the Facade, Camille’s debut contemporary poetry collection. Welfare diversion speaks to the political betrayal of social care — exposing how systems built to uphold equality are hollowed out when public need is sacrificed to protect private wealth and entrenched power.

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

52

52 weeks I will have waited

For the man in green

In the middle of the field

6 minute allotments

Never enough to finish

Even one conversation

We live worlds apart

But tarred by the same brush

I wonder who you are now

The man I never knew

The time goes slow

Visits took two days of travel

And one week of recovery

Time was counted 

Down by months

Until the day will come

When my time will be done

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in Behind the Facade, Camille’s debut contemporary poetry collection. 52 speaks to the long ache of separation shaped by institutional control — where love, identity and belonging are reduced to brief, inadequate fragments of time.

The alien refugee

I am told they are not found

Until at least a human tries to flee

From one land across a sea

Then the threat is unreal

The guns come out to greet

These humans from the same planet

The alien now declared real

These illegal aliens with human hearts

Travelling to seek refuge

From a home unsafe to stay

Saddened to need a new home

Unlucky to find the lucky may not share

This shared planet earth

With plenty to share in diversity

Amongst a group of human beings

But no aliens live here on Earth

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in Behind the Facade, Camille’s debut contemporary poetry collection. The alien refugee speaks to the dehumanising language used against those seeking safety — exposing the cruelty of turning fellow human beings into outsiders on a planet that belongs to us all.

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

Experience forms understanding

Never forget the sum of who we become

Is life experience in additions

Adding advantage or disadvantage with prejudice

This collected sum of knowledge,

Can be disconcerting when in context

As exposure to experience is individual

And individual knowledge is limited

The view may only expand in this knowledge

Humanity becomes the tool of choice

Weaving together this patchwork to connect

Creating a join in these experiences

Where dominance by one patch cannot be

As the whole story is only revealed

When the quilt is spread out on even ground

And the quilt of humanity becomes shared

By the warmth of understanding 

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in Behind the Facade, Camille’s debut contemporary poetry collection. Experience forms understanding speaks to empathy as something built, not assumed — suggesting that only by honouring the uneven realities of lived experience can a fuller, more humane understanding emerge.

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