Paint the icons
'By the end of the 21st century, icons of Joseph Stalin will be in every
Orthodox Church' — Sergei Malinkovich, Communist Party Leader.
Published in telegraph.co.uk, 23 July 2008
Magisterial wings of endurance. Seismic waves of the radiant sun;
Burst in the hour of horrible hope, blaze into soft-fired sequins
Of blood-lit language, each letter aflame with the burning tips of a crimson brush.
Mine the fury which drills into veins of thinning gold, syntaxical treasures
Asleep in the light of the frozen stars that flow from the base
Of an Orthodox wall: a mysterious tableaux of breathless splendour,
A casement of blue and furious fire, charged with a mass of shuddering shadows
That tremble from the guttering wicks of candles, blessed by hands wrinkled and old.
Lips touch the rims of the ancient icons, a-flood with centuries of sorrowful sound,
Blisters of paint cracked in the heat of relentless wars, black-budded flowers
Of endless Full Stops which raged in silence from era to era, a chain
Of exits, of limitless files of murdered dots, of shaved heads written
Into book after book of horror-stricken, blameless, powdered punctuation.
Kneel, knees of godless strength, gaze into the mirror of the suffering muse
Recite the stanzas of the world's soft Stalins, paint the icons of your murderous fathers.
James Waller is a painter, poet and sculptor based in Melbourne.