Who are we?

Mirror, mirror on the wall

Lust took thoughtful minds

Confined by earthly things

Hanging by a thread

We have forgotten or never knew

All is not as it appears

Filtered reflections, empty answers

That nagging inner voice never rests, who are we?

There is hope if we care to know

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in The Precipice, Camille’s third contemporary poetry collection. Who are we? meditates on the crisis of identity in an age of distortion and desire — suggesting that beneath illusion, vanity, and material distraction, the deeper work of self-knowledge still waits to be claimed.

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

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.

Unwritten rules

Standing as the odd one out

In a crowded room, all facing the past

Infinite and new for those who bring the light

Dare to discover, dare to define

Creatively minded

I kinda like it

Letting go

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in The Precipice, Camille’s third contemporary poetry collection. Unwritten rules speaks to the quiet liberation of stepping outside inherited patterns — suggesting that creativity begins where conformity loosens its grip and the self dares to move toward what is still becoming.

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

We were always in it together

Loneliness is no longer alone

Together in isolation

All birthdays pass without cheer

Standing at the window

Looking out

Somethings must change

Beating a dead horse, relent

A viral catalyst connects the dots

Plagued by a debt past due

The final hour approaches

Is anyone ever ready

With bags packed

Socially distance has not changed

Merely rearranged, extending the lines

Where so many already stood

An unaccustomed middle joins the queue

Some doors open as others close

Nothing new, and yet…It is time

Time to see, I connect to you, but no

We stand in a past, two years behind

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in The Precipice, Camille’s third contemporary poetry collection. Originally written on request for a world anthology of COVID poetry, We were always in it together reflects on the illusion of shared experience — revealing how isolation, inequality, and delayed recognition shaped the pandemic’s collective life in profoundly uneven ways.

The midnight hour

We’ve conquered every land

Now all that is left

Is for us to go

No more lands to devastate

No more people to displace

Unless … Are you ready for it?

Change!

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in The Precipice, Camille’s third contemporary poetry collection. The midnight hour reflects on the exhausted logic of conquest — distilling violence, dispossession, and ecological ruin into a final, urgent recognition that transformation is no longer optional but inevitable.

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

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.

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.

Childhood homes

Memories are carried 

The starting line matters

Where you come from

Cannot be severed 

Even when we leave in haste

Even when we are displaced

Even when we never go back

Even when we would prefer to stay

Still childhood places remain

In dreams in reality they shape

Distance does not diminish

Where life began 

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in RISE, Camille’s second contemporary poetry collection. Childhood homes meditates on the enduring imprint of origin — suggesting that the places which first hold us continue to shape identity, memory and longing, even across distance, displacement and departure.

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

Deep in debt

Universal are the laws of balance

Aligning negative with positive

The essence of life

Dig a hole to build a mountain

The sum of both is none

A rule of give and take

In this space the river of knowledge resides

Flowing freely in the passage of time

All ownership is void

Our mass of negative energy is accelerating

A debt so deep it is our grave

Time to weigh with considerable evaluation

The law we cannot buy

Before we are lost in space

Balanced out by nature’s scale

A counterbalance is change

Moving to a new state of mind

To nurture not own

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in RISE, Camille’s second contemporary poetry collection. Deep in debt reflects on imbalance as both ecological and philosophical crisis — suggesting that a culture built on ownership, extraction and unchecked accumulation has drifted dangerously far from the deeper laws of reciprocity, limit and care.

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

Let’s talk tax

A participation payment of sort 

Law and order maintains

To your business door

Those streets paved by tax

But wait there is even more

For the welfare of society depends

On that service fee being met

Now let’s see

If you avoid paying your bill

Who will maintain society's will

The duty of custom breaks

When there is no give and take

A business does not thrive

Where laws hinder tolls to take

Now the picture comes into focus

For those that receive a break

A gift of welfare is bestowed

So the question must be asked

Was the business in need?

Or just perceived by intellectual greed

A notion most jarring to note 

We paid their maintenance cost

The due date betrayed by abstracting ideals

So they could plunder our civil society

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in RISE, Camille’s second contemporary poetry collection. Let’s talk tax explores taxation as a moral foundation of civic life — challenging the hypocrisy of those who benefit from collective structures while evading the obligations that sustain social welfare, public order and shared prosperity.

Lost world

Sitting by the creek

Stop listen slow

Dip the toes

Cold rush of life

Broadening horizons

Imagination flourishing

In this show of nature

Blooms

All there is to know

Transported

To the beginning of time

Lost and found

In the cycle that never ends

Feel it in your bones

Hearing it for the first time

The beating of a heart

Connected

To the signal of life

A magical place

This world is full of shadows

What I take then is the wild

In the hope it may tame

The nature of my kind

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in RISE, Camille’s second contemporary poetry collection. Lost world reflects on the restorative intelligence of the natural world — finding in its rhythms, beauty and ancient continuity a form of connection that both enlarges the self and gently rebukes the shadowed impulses of humankind.

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

Let them fly

Clip the wings

The bird will never soar

The cage remains

Outside the door

Unjust in many ways

No access laid the trap

 That catches possibilities

Slaughtering potential

The money was not paid

So the gift was denied 

This story is rarely told

We never look beneath the line

Where impoverished children reside

Willing to make the sun shine

Able to fly

For these lost children I cry

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in RISE, Camille’s second contemporary poetry collection. Let them fly speaks to the quiet violence of denied opportunity — revealing how poverty and exclusion do not merely limit children’s futures, but extinguish gifts, freedom and human possibility before they are allowed to rise.

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

Winter is near

The winter of humankind draws near

Science has spoken in alarm

The day may be warm, unseasonal

Land whips at our faces

Too spoiled to take root

For all the rot we fed it

The well of life ran dry

As the last drop fell from our swollen lips

Our gods of gold had fallen short

Adorned in accolades we buried them too

Perhaps one day another kind

Will unveil our bones of mystery

On what was once such fertile ground

Should they enquire

How we never grew to regard our limits

To value the welfare of life and land

There remains of course one moment left

One movement to change the trajectory

Write a new chapter

To mark a start not the finale

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in RISE, Camille’s second contemporary poetry collection. Winter is near explores the reckoning that follows ecological arrogance — confronting the costs of excess, denial and worship of wealth while still holding open the possibility that human beings might choose change before collapse becomes final.

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

The savage

I have seen the face of evil

It smiled at the suffering

Stood in judgment of misfortune

As it tormented the weak

Wore a crown of avarice

Dressed in its own vanity

Seemingly too virtuous to reflect

Any sense of neglect

This wretched soul has no sympathy

The loss of reason seems the most dreadful trait

That enlivens no joy and alleviates no grief

This is indeed a miserable soul exiled from humanity

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in RISE, Camille’s second contemporary poetry collection. The savage explores the moral desolation of cruelty without conscience — portraying evil not as spectacle, but as a hollow, self-exalting force severed from sympathy, reason and any true claim to humanity.

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