1 January, 00 Hours 30

A candle burns bright in a burst of light
on canvas adapted to permanent night

Rejected realism crushed by cruel trials of life
the eroded trigger sets an explosion inside

Amazed, dismissed, unmoved, an indifference, now as if to die
the naked soul, devoid of pity, call, and cry

Impulsive emotion numbed, led from fractured dreams
Shock untangles the frame, delivers new awakenings

Conjure beauty, set down with pins to guide
pictured lucid in front of mind’s eyes… the burial of Christ

Interior universe, primed on bare white canvas
on the ceaseless road, inside a rectangle of cobalt and black

Dome of blue and mustard gold, the shadows brushed away
Yellow bride flowers sway in peace and harmony

Needles on fingertips, oil in heavy relief, solid and decisive
To see, you need not stare but believe

Life’s fabric re-stitched from Sergei’s forbidding Irkutsk
Texture in soul and heart, illusions occasionally broken

A candle burns bright, in a burst of light
on canvas adapted to permanent night

…emanating from the profound clarity of the dark