Children realize
the typical answers
neither bestow
salvation nor
worship.
Maybe children
love passion,
and we elevate
these things
only when it’s convenient.
//Convenience
//Collette Kristevski, 3/28/2019
This is an original blackout poem. Photo taken by me and edited with PicsArt.
Follow me on Instagram @paradoxandpaschalia for more original poetry and art.
I was like the caterpillar,
prolonged within cocoon.
So long,
I became unrecognizable,
like a distorted figure
shifting in the shadows of longing.
That well-worn shell shed off,
but slowly, achingly,
and then all at once.
And yet,
unwaveringly, I wonder
when will I become something new?
It’s like there are all of these lives
I am not yet living,
and my wings are being crushed
under the weight of this one.
I am carried along ceaselessly,
but only by the ache.
//Ache
//Collette Kristevski, 3/17/2019
Follow me on Instagram @paradoxandpaschalia for more original poetry and art.
There used to be an innocent child
resting at the peripheries of my heart.
Upon seeing it’s malevolence,
he believed he had been enlightened
and never returned again to rest.
Enlightenment
Collette Kristevski, 3/7/2019
*art and words are my own*
For more original poetry and art, follow me on Instagram @paradoxandpaschalia.
Sometimes we say the sane,
but we mean the absurd.
Only our shame
can keep us from the Truth.
//Censorship
//Collette Kristevski, 3/4/2019
*art and words are my own*
Do you hear that?
Your children’s children
are prophesying existence
upon the latent mending
of your unexamined life.
Heal yourself,
and you will heal them.
//Generations
//Collette Kristevski, 3/2/2019
*words and art are my own*
I.
In infancy
we did not attempt to utter unutterable things.
We knew without knowing how we knew,
and we let ourselves dwell there,
in that sort of meaningful magic.
We knew to doubt the doubts.
So we lived fierce and free,
suckling the bosom of that odd Truth.
II.
It was not until
they ripped us from those arms of peace
and sat us under the tree of knowledge
that the magic became monotony,
that we forgot how to rest.
Our unsettled minds
now living in invisible chains,
but knowing not why it is hard to be free.
III.
In fear,
now we only love meekly,
when we mean it violently.
Our minds becoming dull day by day,
straining for knowledge,
but resisting Wisdom;
desiring rebirth,
yet resisting the Spirit.
IV.
We have grown old by sinning.
//We have grown old by sinning
//Collette Kristevski, 2015
*art and words are my own*
I once dwelled there, wittingly –
the forest of myself.
Built a garden
behind a dusty wall of brick.
Threw myself at the mercy of the flowers.
Tended their thoughtful soil.
Watered their pensive roots.
A thinking that begins,
not with reason,
that ends,
not with clarity.
I,
a garden of unintelligibility.
A being alone,
and yet, with.
The brick, I now dust.
The wall, an old friend.
//These flowers may be weeds
//Collette Kristevski, 10/2018
*art and words are my own*
There at the table
set with tolerance
You pour peace into my glass,
but I refuse to drink.
You offer me a place at Your table,
but I refuse to sit.
My pride will keep me blinded
to the places set for the entire world.
Hospitality
//Collette Kristevski, 2017
*all art and words are my own*
Beyond the limits of language,
knowledge and sense,
there is the poem.
A secular priest,
drawing ardor from the prosaic
and palpability from the imperceptible.
And in this scrawled confession,
the poet takes penance
from the poem.
//Penance
//Collette Kristevski, 2/24/2019
My head is bowed down,
but not in prayer;
it’s heavy with sanctimony.
Speedily I enter thought –
that untamed forest of brooding, –
where I dwell like a recluse;
an anchoress of devotion,
not to a god,
but to the self;
detached,
not from sin,
but from salvation.
//Hypocrite
//Collette Kristevski, Oct 2018
*art and words are my own*
Ortho-paradox-ia 