What to make of a landscape
that won’t maintain a pose for me?
Shattered lines, effaced shadows,
archaeology of sky-creatures
burrowing head-down into earth
gangrenous with watercolors
the artist deploys in squalls.
As if a nebula descended
to rebuke our wayward planet.
Accounts of Bertil Sjöberg
and the mania behind this scene
underscore his grasp of shards.
Such an honest disconnection
can’t go unremarked. Therefore
I respond with tinsel and scrap
to accompany and critique
his gaseous sharp-edged figures.
If I look over my shoulder,
they form, deflate, and reform
without his or anyone’s consent.
