Friday, July 15, 2022

Something After Sjöberg

 



 

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.

 


 

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